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Archive for the 'Hina Matsuri - Doll Festival - Girls' Day' Category
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Hina Matsuri – Doll Festival in Japan
Thursday, March 19th, 2009Hina Matsuri or “Doll Festival”, is celebrated in Japan on March 3rd every year.
Ayako Egawa wrote to me from Japan about the holiday:
“Families with daughters celebrate March 3 by displaying Hina-dolls on a stepped shelf to express the wish for their daughters’ good health and growth. I posted a photo of ‘Hina-dolls’ (below). They are pretty.”
“We decorate Hina-dolls with flowers of peach and field mascard (canola) on ‘Hina Matsuri’. These below are flowers of peach.” The peach blossoms are thought to repel evil.
Ayako makes flower arrangements. She wrote, “This is a ‘Hinamatsuri’ arrangement I made. It has in it flowers of peach, field mustard (canola – the small yellow flower), gerbera, roses, persion buttercup (the big yellow flower) and lemon leaf. The point of this arrangement is arrange the flowers of peach vertically going higher. The pink tone of the flowers create an elegant mood.”
Here’s the Hina Matsuri Song that’s sung all over Japan for the holiday. You can hear it being sung below by Sakura and Hatsami. The recording is followed by the transliterated lyrics, an English translation and the Japanese text…
Hina Matsuri Song
Transliterated Japanese
Akari o tsukema sho bon bori ni
O hana o agemasyo momo no hana
Gonin – bayashi no fue daiko
Kyoo wa tanoshii Hina MatsuriLoose English Translation
Let’s light the lanterns on the tiered stand
Let’s put peach blossoms on the tiered stand
Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums
Today is a Happy Dolls’ Festival.Japanese Text for the Hina Matsuri Song
うれしいひなまつり
You can read more about Hina Matsuri in a previous posts I’ve written about it by clicking on the links below.
You can visit the Mama Lisa’s World Hina Matsuri Song Page for sheet music to this song.
Many thanks Ayako Egawa for sharing her photos with us about Hinamatsuri and for commenting on them, to Sakura and Hatsami for singing the Hina Matsuri Song and to Peter Galante of Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com for allowing us to use this wonderful recording! The recording is from their podcast about the Hina Matsuri Festival (it’s mainly in English).
Happy Hina Matsuri!
Mama Lisa
Hina Matsuri 雛祭り – The Doll Festival in Japan – Has its Roots in an Old Chinese Purification Ceremony
Friday, March 2nd, 2007Tomorrow, March 3rd, is the Hina Matsuri 雛祭り or Doll Festival in Japan.
The Japanese celebration seems to have originated in China, where there was a festival called Shang-suu that had also been celebrated on March 3rd, at least since the 3rd century AD. Shang-suu may go back before that time but the date may have shifted. (It looks like Shang-suu eventually merged with the Ching Ming Festival – Remembrance of Ancestors Day – which is still celebrated today in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Now it takes place on April 4th or 5th.)
Shang-suu was a day of purification. Suu stands for snake, so for convenience, I’ll translate it here as the Day of the Snake (as it came to be called later in Japan). In China, Shamans were considered people who could see evil spirits. On Shang-suu, the shamans gave people baths using herbs in rivers to wash away the evil spirits.
We know that by the 11th century in Japan, the nobles had adapted a similar ceremony. This was called Mi-no-hi or jō-shi. We can date it because it’s mentioned in a book of the times called the Tales of Genji. By that time, it wasn’t the actual person who was cleansed in the river, but a doll who represented him or her.
In the Tales of Genji it says, “It was the day of the serpent, the first such day in the Third Month. ‘The day when a man who has worries goes down and washes them away,’ said one of his (Genji’s) men, admirably informed, it would seem, in all the annual observances. Genji thought he could see something of himself in the rather large doll being cast off to sea, bearing away sins and tribulations. ‘Cast away to drift on an alien vastness, I grieve for more than a doll cast out to sea.’”
Today, in parts of Japan, some people still load boats with dolls and send them off to sea. Now, though, the festival is mostly for girls. It’s called Hina Nagashi Matsuri or Floating Dolls Festival. Traditionally, people first rub the dolls to pass any bad luck onto the doll. Then they let the doll float down the river in a little boat and then out to sea to cast off all evilness and bad spirits.
In some towns they load up big boats and many people cast their old dolls in them. In the photo below, the dolls are actually made with fish food!
Between the 11th century and today, the tradition of Hina Nagashi Matsuri went from being mainly for the nobility to spreading to the whole population. Part of the reason for this was that merchants wanted to sell their paper dolls at this time of year. So they encouraged more of the population to buy them. By the 18th century, the dolls became more intricate and expensive. People no longer wanted to float them out to sea. So they started bringing them to temples to get rid of the evil.
Eventually, people started buying alters for their dolls called hina dan (doll alter) on which to display them in their own homes. These became like shrines. They made offerings of shirosake (sweet sake made from fermented rice) and hishi mochi (diamond-shaped rice cakes with three to five layers). The alters are decorated with peach blossoms which is thought to repel evilness.
The hina matsuri dolls are now called hina ningyo. They’re often passed down from mother to daughter from generation to generation. The hope behind celebrating the Hina Matsuri is that the daughter will live a long, healthy and happy life.
Here’s the Hina Matsuri Song that’s sung all over Japan on this day. You can hear it being sung by Sakura and Hatsami…
Hina Matsuri Song
Transliterated Japanese
Akari o tsukema sho bon bori ni
O hana o agemasyo momo no hana
Gonin – bayashi no fue daiko
Kyoo wa tanoshii Hina MatsuriLoose English Translation
Let’s light the lanterns on the tiered stand
Let’s put peach blossoms on the tiered stand
Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums
Today is a Happy Dolls’ Festival.Japanese Text for the Hina Matsuri Song
うれしいひなまつり
Happy Hina Matsuri!
You can read more about Hina Matsuri in a previous post I wrote about it. It tells more about the hina ningyo dolls.
You can visit the Mama Lisa’s World Hina Matsuri Song Page for sheet music for this song.
Many thanks to Sakura and Hatsami for singing the Hina Matsuri Song and to Peter Galante of Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com for allowing us to use this wonderful recording! The recording is from their podcast about the Hina Matsuri Festival (it’s mainly in English).
For anyone interested in reading more about Shang-ssu and Hina Matsuri, I’d recommend an article by Alsace Yen called Shang-ssu Festival and Its Myths in China and Japan
Hina Matsuri, The Doll Festival in Japan is on March 3rd
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006In Japan, on March 3rd, Hina Matsuri, people pray for their daughters’ future happiness, health and growth.
Hina means doll and matsuri means festival, so Hina Matsuri is literally Doll Festival. It’s also Girls’ Day. Yet another name for the day is Momo no Sekku meaning Peach Blossom Festival, because this is around the time the peach blossoms bloom. Peach blossoms also are a symbol for a happy marriage.
The hina used for this festival are called hina ningyo. These are a set of dolls that are handed down from generation to generation which are only taken out for this festival. The hina ningyo are displayed on a special stand that has tiers which are covered in red cloth. The two most important hina are the Emperor and Empress. They sit on the top tier. On the second tier are 3 ladies in waiting. On the third tier sit 5 male musicians. One plays a drum, one plays a flute and the third is a singer. The fourth tier has 2 ministers, followed by 3 servants on the fifth tier. The sets have up to 15 dolls, but not all families have the whole set. Many will just have a couple of dolls, often a man and a lady on one tier. Others will use paper dolls.
The tradition of displaying dolls for Hina Matsuri dates back to the Edo or Tokugawa Period, which was from about 1600 to 1867. It comes from an old custom in China to float paper dolls down the river to take away evil spirits. This is still practiced in some places in Japan and is called Hina Nagashi Matsuri or Floating Dolls Festival. The girls will place two paper dolls in a boat made of wood or straw with rice cakes to take away bad luck, illness and misfortune. In some places they will float paper dolls down the river without a little boat.
Girls dress up specially on this day in their best kimonos. Some girls will dress up like the dolls and have little parties. They will serve hishi mochi which are diamond-shaped rice cakes with three to five layers. They also serve a mild sweet white saki called shirozake.
There’s an old traditional song that’s sung for the Festival. Here it is in transliterated Japanese, and with a loose English translation…
Hina Matsuri Song
Transliterated JapaneseAkari o tsukema sho bon bori ni
O hana o agemasyo momo no hana
Gonin – bayashi no fue daiko
Kyoo wa tanoshii Hina MatsuriLoose English Translation
Let’s light the lanterns on the tiered stand
Let’s put peach blossoms on the tiered stand
Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums
Today is a happy Dolls’ Festival.
Japanese Text for the Hina Matsuri Song
Please see the comments below this post for the other three verses to the Hina Matsuri Song, in Japanese text only.
Here’s another version of the Hina Matsuri Song.
Right after the festival, the dolls are supposed to be put away. If not, it’s thought that the daughter will be slow to marry.
Happy Hina Matsuri!
Lisa
You can read more about the Origin of Hina Matsuri and Hina Nagashi Matsuri in a later blog post.
You can visit the Mama Lisa’s World Hina Matsuri Song Page for sheet music for this song.
Many thanks to Sakura and Hatsami for singing the Hina Matsuri Song and to Peter Galante of Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com for allowing us to use this wonderful recording! The recording is from their podcast about the Hina Matsuri Festival (it’s mainly in English).
Many thanks to Devon of Head, Shoulders, Knees and all that and Ayako Egawa for bringing this festival to my attention, and to Devon for sending me the Japanese text.
Check out Origami Instructions to make Hina Dolls
Come visit the Mama Lisa’s World Japan Page for more Japanese Songs with their English translations.
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