Anglo-Irish-American orientalist and writer Lafcadio Hearn lived an amazing life. Born in Greece, raised in Ireland, began his career in the United States, where, during the era of legalized racial segregation, he married a black woman, lived in Martinique, studying voodoo rites, and then left for Japan and stayed there forever, became a professor at the University of Tokyo, took the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo and married a second time to the daughter of a samurai. Hearn's arrival in Japan fell on the Meiji period, named after the motto of the reign of Emperor Mutsuhito (1868-1912). This was the time when Japan, having abandoned self-isolation, began to turn into a world power. Teaching English to the Japanese, Hearn himself studied: he comprehended the intricacies of the language, absorbed the spirit of Japan. Here began his literary life, which brought him world fame. This book includes ethnocultural texts, which are mostly published for the first time in Russian - about the lifestyle, household, customs, customs and beliefs of the Japanese.