Hina Matsuri or girls day is a day to
celebrate girls growth and happiness.
It is held on March 3rd which is not a national holiday unlike Children’s
Day (Boy’s Day) in May.
Families with girls, and plenty
of space, display Hina dolls in tribute. They are usually arranged on a five or
seven-tiered stand covered with a red carpet. At the top are the Emperor and
Empress. The next step contains three court ladies, followed by five musicians,
two ministers, and three servants ending the bottom row in a five-tiered
display. There are also small pieces of furniture, small meal dishes, and other
things placed on the lowest tier.
The dolls wear
beautiful ancient court costumes of the Heian period (794-1185). The costume of
the Empress is called the "juuni-hitoe” and is a twelve-layered ceremonial
robe. It takes great skill to create these tiny doll costumes and a traditional
set of dolls can be very expensive. There are various grades for the sets, and
some full sets cost more than a million yen. Unless there is a set handed down
from generation to generation, grandparents or parents buy them for a girl by
her first Hinamatsuri.
Those without
room or money for a full set opt for a version where only the Emperor and the
Empress dolls are displayed. Some which take on a more abstract shape or are a
loose interpretation of the original dolls.
There is a superstition that if you don't put
away the Hina dolls soon after March 3rd, the daughter will get married late.
This comes from a tradition more than a thousand years old. The dolls were believed
to pull evil spirits from the home and were disposed of quickly after Girl’s Day.
They were purified with water – washed, sent down
river and out to sea, or sometimes burned.
These beautiful dolls are still viewed with
suspicion, and many are donated by the public because they are thought to bring
bad luck if disposed of when the owners no longer have room for them.
Katsuura, a town near us has one of the largest displays of Hina Matsuri dolls in
Japan. All of the 30,000 dolls displayed have been donated by people all over
Japan for this very reason.
The display was incredible and
included traditional Hina dolls as well as larger representations of the emperor
and empress. There was also an interesting collection of other dolls and
figures.
The show room was huge and we couldn't believe how many dolls they had on display. It really was incredible.
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