Girls’ Day – awordfromjapan

人形　ningyou—dolls

Published on April 16, 2013 by daraconnolly2 Comments

Last week I learned about the Japanese tradition of holding a 供養　kuyou memorial service for dolls.

Even when a doll gets old or broken, it can be hard to just toss it in the bin with the rest of the household rubbish. Instead, the doll can be brought to the temple, where the monk reads a 経　kyou—sutra, and the doll is cremated. Alternatively, you can bring the doll to the shrine, the priest recites お祓い　o-harai—a purification blessing, and the doll is cremated.

This ties in with the idea that there is some divinity or spirit even in a doll; the ceremony allows people to express their gratitude and appreciation to the doll and to console the doll’s spirit while sending it on up to heaven.

As well as dolls, tools used in crafts such as needlework (shoemakers, tailors) and the tea ceremony were also considered too precious to be casually disposed of. Iron needles or 茶筅　chasen—bamboo tea whisks were buried with proper ceremony in mounds within the precincts of the temple or shrine.

The needle ceremony, called 針供養　harikuyou, seems to involve placing the old and broken needles in a dish of tofu (click on the link for pictures). These are then buried in the 針塚　harizuka—needle mound.

In Awashima shrine in Kada, Wakayama, this needle memorial ceremony takes place annually in February. We visited Awashima today and saw the harizuka.

But that wasn’t all. The place was a sanctuary for every kind of doll, figurine and statue, no longer wanted by its owners.

There were ceramic elephants and bears.

A cohort of superannuated tanuki statues.

Dragons, rabbits, and roof tiles with images of creatures.

A sea of worn-out maneki-neko.

Gods, koma-inu and shiisa lion dogs.

Kintarou astride various beasts.

Frogs.

Daikoku and his mouse friends.

Carved wooden Noh theatre masks

And a whole army of ichimatsu dolls.

At Awashima, I am not sure whether some dolls are cremated and others kept on display. There is a hearth near the entrance of the shrine. The sign says that old dolls, charms and so on should be presented at the proper place (and that boxes and rubbish should not be thrown into the hearth).

The poster says that on Girls’ Day, they pile up hina dolls in small boats and float them out to sea in a ceremony called hina nagashi.

(Image from Wakayama Kanko)

Note on the word of the day

人形　ningyou, a doll, is written with the characters for “human” and “shape”. Literally, it means “human form”.

供養　kuyou, a memorial service, like many religious terms, has its ultimate origin in India. The Sanskrit terms were brought to Japan with the arrival of Buddhism. Kuyou is ultimately the same word as the Hindu puja, although the pronunciation has changed beyond recognition in the intervening centuries.

ひな祭り　hina matsuri—Girls’ Day

Published on March 3, 2013 by daraconnolly3 Comments

Third of March (3/3) is Girls’ Day, or hina matsuri—the “doll festival”.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Girls’ Day traditions:

The Japanese Doll Festival (雛祭り Hina-matsuri^?), or Girls’ Day, is held on March 3.^[1] Platforms covered with a red carpet are used to display a set of ornamental dolls (雛人形 hina-ningyō^?) representing the Emperor, Empress, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress of the Heian period.

The article goes on to describe the various dolls, how they are placed on the platforms, and so on.

Our local Hankyu department store was selling special food for Girls’ Day. The traditional food is chirashizushi (sushi rice with fish and vegetables). The display includes a male and female doll standing on a red carpet.

Pink is featured, not only because it is Girls’ Day, but also because it’s spring and everything is cherry-blossom themed at this time of year. Here is my “Girls’ Day” lunch (with pink slices of lotus root):

There were lots of Girls’ Day cakes on display too. The two cute figures sitting on top of the cake may represent the imperial couple, o-dairi-sama and o-hime-sama.

Creative as ever, the bakery got into the act with pairs of hina-matsuri buns. They look a bit like wombles.

We chose this cake:

Morozoff is the name of the cake shop. According to the information on the bag, “Morozoff started out in 1931 as a chocolate shop on Tor Road in Kobe, Japan”. Maybe a White Russian who ended up in Japan?

Removing the edible decoration from the top of the cake before slicing it, I realised that we now have a little collection of cake decorations. There’s Santa with his magic wand (?), there’s a white chocolate birthday cake greeting and now they’ve been joined by the hina-matsuri couple.

Note on the word of the day:

Originally, there was Boys’ Day (5/5) and Girls’ Day (3/3). But in a classic example of gender injustice, Boys’ Day was a school holiday (and public holiday) and Girls’ Day was not.

To put this right, Boys’ Day was renamed as “Children’s Day” and Girls’ Day as “Doll Festival”. However, the traditions remained unchanged, so Children’s Day is really still mostly Boys’ Day.

子供の日　kodomo no hi—children’s day

Published on May 5, 2012May 5, 2012 by daraconnolly1 Comment

The 5th of May is Children’s Day in Japan. Originally it was just Boys’ Day, with Girls’ Day falling on the 3rd of March. For the purpose of having a national holiday, the two are combined into Children’s Day, although Boys’ Day traditions still predominate.

Boys’ Day and Children’s Day traditions include:

Flying koinobori carp banners, with one banner for each member of the family. The black carp, which is the biggest, represents the father 父, and the second biggest, red carp represents the mother 母. Then there is one smaller carp for each child;

and eating special Japanese treats or mochi.

We bought a packet of Children’s Day mochi at the supermarket for Y318.

The text on the label says 端午の節句 Tango no Sekku which is the old name for Boy’s Day.

Inside the packet I found 2 long chimaki wrapped in bamboo leaves, and three round kashiwa-mochi wrapped in oak leaves. I tried the chimaki first.

I wasn’t mad about the chimaki. It was made of a kind of rice-paste with a gluey texture, and very sweet. But it was nice enough with a glass of cold tea to wash it down.

I much preferred the kashiwa-mochi.

The kashiwa-mochi was filled with sweet azuki (red bean) paste. Very tasty indeed. I had two.

Two other Boy’s Day traditions are to wear a samurai helmet (kabuto), and to have a bath with iris flowers floating in the bath (although not while wearing a samurai helmet). I didn’t do either of these things.

A note on the word of the day:

In 子供の日 we see the word 子供 kodomo meaning child and the kanji 日 meaning day, or sun. This character is also found in the name of the country, 日本　nihon or nippon, which literally means “sun source” but is poetically rendered as “land of the rising sun”.

It is interesting that the names of the days of the week in Japan line up with those of the planets in the same way as they do in European languages. For example 火曜日 ka-youbi—Tuesday shares its name with 火星 ka-sei—Mars, 水曜日sui-youbi—Wednesday with 水星 sui-sei—Mercury, and so on for each of the seven days, just as in French or Italian martedì, mercoledì… correspond to the same planets. This coincidence long predates direct contact between Japan and western European cultures, but has a common origin in the astrology of ancient Egypt, transmitted on the one hand through Rome to modern Europe, and on the other hand through Persia to India, China and Japan.