Doll festival (Hina Matsuri) :Girls’ day in Japan
March 3rd in Japan is called “Hi na ma tsu ri”. It is a cerebration day for girls.
Boys have boys’ day in May. What we do on the special girls’ day is basically families with daughters (even grew up ones) cerebrate March 3rd by displaying the “Hina Dolls” on stepped shelf to express the wish for their daughters’ good health and growth.
The dolls have all traditional look to it:wearing kimonos,traditional hairdo,and you also put carriage on the step along with dolls.All these are based on look in “Heian court”.
If you have heard of the book titled “Genji story” in Heian court,these are what they were wearing at that time.At that time,capital city was “Kyoto”,not Tokyo.
There are many kinds of dolls to displayed but the one my family has has 7 steps and on the very top,we place Emperor,Empress on thick matted thing,and one step lower,you place Sannin Kanjo (3 ladies),and then one step lower,you place Gonin Bayashi (5 guys that play instruments for Emperor and Empress),one step down,you place Zuishin ( Escort) along with fake cherry blossom trees,then,one step lower,you place Eji (guards),and lower 2 steps,you mainly place carriage at that Heian times or mirrors for empress,Fake mochi thing.
All these are place on red cloth, and when you look at it,it is very nice. But it is expensive too.
These dolls are very delicate dolls and you need to wear gloves to handle and it takes time to place them as it supposed to be and, when you put them back,it must be on sunny day because it is not good condition for dolls to be put away on bad weather. So,when you put those dolls away and if the condition were bad for dolls,we simply put all the dollars face back and place cloth or something.
In Japan,it is believed that dolls need to be placed approximately 2 weeks from March 3rd at latest.Then,as soon as the day passed March 3rd,you need to put the dolls away.Otherwise, daughter get marry very late.
For me, I was not too early to marry,not too late to marry,so I think my parents did good job taking care o f Hina dolls for us. I too helped put out, put back dolls. It sounds easy but it is very laboring job to do.
Here is a website you can see the Hina dolls. (click here)
Here is a website you can see how the Hina dolls are made. (Click here)
Above sites are all in Japanese,but you can enjoy pictures there.
