Many families with girls display special dolls for this festival & dedicate peach blossoms to them. They are usually arranged on a five or seven-tiered stand covered with a red carpet because odd numbers are considered to be lucky numbers. This is the set of the dolls displayed at Kyoto Brighton Hotel.
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. (In these photos, it's hard to see the ministers though...)
There are also small pieces of furniture, small meal dishes, and other things.
However, these days many families in Japan live in small apartments or houses, and they don't have enough space to display a huge doll set. So it's more common now to display the Emperor and Empress only.
These dolls were made by my friend. Can you guess what they are? Eggs!!! She is so clever & artistic ! And the dolls are so cute. ;D It's fun to look for many, different Hina dolls during this season in Japan. Each of them has a different & unique face.
Another name for this festival is Peach Festival (Momo no sekku) because of the peach blossom season on the old lunar calendar. So we see peach flowers everywhere around the this festival, and feel the spring is coming.
The origin of Hinamatsuri is an ancient Chinese practice in which the sin of the body and misfortune are transferred to a doll, and then removed by abandoning the doll on a river. Though the festival was originally for both boys and girls, it is now just for girls. The idea of dolls must have matched of lovely girls.
They are the sweets surved at my tea ceremony school last week. The mottif is the dolls (the Emperor & Empress)!
And the mottif of diamond-shaped sugar sweets is "Hishimochi" which you can see in the first photo. They are colored rice cakes, and all of the colors, red (or pink), white and green have meanins. The red is for chasing evil spirits away, the white is for purity, and the green is for health or long life.
Well, this festival is for YOUNG girls, but who cares? Happy Girls Day for GIRLS in all over the world!! And boys! Don't worry we have Boys Festival on May 5th. (3/3 and 5/5... you know how much we the Japanese love auspicious stuffs!)
