|
Here's another handcraft frame. This is for March. The theme is Hina-matsuri because we celebrate the day for girls on March 3rd.
Hina means dolls which we display to celebrate the day and matsuri means a festival. So Hina-matsuri literally means "Dolls' Festival".
They say that the beginning of this festival goes back to Japanese medieval era called Heian Jidai. So the history is very long and old.
The dolls in my frame are very small and simple but the real hinas are more luxurious and larger. A five-staged decoration is a formal style.
A prince and a princess are on the top stage, three maids on the second stage, five musicians which play Japanese traditional instruments on the third, one minister is on both sides of the fourth stage and three followers are on the fifth. The clothes they wear are in Heian style. The aristocratic people in those days wore more complicated kimono than people in Edo era.
In addition to the dolls, imitations of cars, designed floor lights called bonbori, rhomboid sweets and flowers are displayed with them. So the real five-staged decoration for Hina-matsuri is very gorgeous.
We do the festival mainly for girls to exorcise and to pray for good health. There is another festival called Tango no sekku for boys in May.
Hina-matsuri is also called momo no sekku. Momo means a peach and sekku means a punctuation of a season. Peach blossoms are blooming in March and the season is gradually changing into spring. That is because Hina-matsuri is also called mono no sekku.
Well, now we're almost in March. Spring is approaching.
Categories:
events
,
handcrafts
|
