Portland Japanese Garden

Hina Matsuri, the Doll Festival, has been one of the most beloved annual festivals in Japan for centuries. Also known as Girls’ Day, the festival features a display of remarkable dolls called hina ningyo specially made for this occasion only, and sometimes handed down in families for generations.

In many cultures, a “doll” is a toy to be held and played with. Japanese tradition also has dolls of this kind. But the festival figures known as hina ningyo have their roots in ceremonial paper figures and protective images that were placed with the offerings in the tokonoma on the 3rd of March as a symbol of protection against evil spirits. Representing something more intangible than the word “doll” implies in English, they are not to be held or played with. They sit silently on their shelves during Hina Matsuri, a lesson for Japanese girls in gentility, dignity, and respect.

Festival History

The history of Hina Matsuri goes back centuries to an ancient Chinese ritual day known as Jyomi no Gyoji, the Day of the Serpent. Along with many other customs, this observance made its way to Japan as early as the 7th century. It was one of a cycle of five days in the year called sekku which were held at the beginning of each season in the agricultural year. On these special days, people invited the spirits of their ancestors to feast with them, and offerings of food and sake were laid out in the tokonoma in their honor. In this way, families hoped to ward off the illness and misfortune that often accompanied the dramatic change of seasons in this island country.

Jyomi no Gyoji was the second sekku in the cycle, and it took place on the third day of the third month each year. It is from this ancient ceremonial day that the customs and practices of today’s Hina Matsuri evolved in Japan over a period of more than a thousand years.

History of the Dolls

The dolls that have become associated with Hina Matsuri are descendants of paper figures attached to sticks that were rubbed over the body and then thrown into the nearest stream in a kind of purification ceremony. These figures called hitogata (人形), literally “human form”, were thought of as surrogate figures that drew illness and evil away from the people they represented. Throwing the polluted hitogata into water purified the human spirit and hopefully secured more months of good health. This custom, practiced on March 3rd, the First Day of the Serpent, was imported from China in the seventh century. The same Chinese characters used in the word hitogata can also be read ningyo ( 人形), a word used to refer to dolls as well as other representations of the human form. The word hina, when it is combined with ningyo, refers to the dolls of today’s popular festival day for girls.

In the Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) written by Murasaki Shikibu about 900 years ago, there is mention of an activity called “hīna asobi.” In descriptions of this activity, the children of noblemen “played house” with small figures and furnishings. This first literary mention of hiina is said to have been in reference to something tiny or miniature, and it is presumed that the present day spelling of hina was derived from this word. Asobi is also translated today as “play”, but some scholars say that it may have originally referred to something closer to “pray.”

There are records of other types of figures called amagatsu that were made of bamboo sticks and covered with silk. They were placed next to the heads of newborn babies of the nobility to protect them from illness and evil. The counterpart of amagatsu among common people was called hōko. These were stuffed cloth dolls that were used in exactly the same way. Historians believe that the two figures came to be placed together with offerings for the gods in the tokonoma, making them the first pair of hina ningyo.

From paper figures and protective images, the hina dolls evolved during the Muromachi Era (1392-1530) into a pair of seated figures, male and female, much too carefully made to be thrown into streams. There are no hina dolls left in existence from this period and the hina that bear the name “Muromachi-bina” are actually dolls made in a much later period after the manner of this era.

It was not until the Edo Era (1603-1867) that the making of hina dolls reached the highest level of development. In the Genroku Period, around the end of the 17th century dozens of different kinds of hina were being made. This period was the height of extravagance for nearly all of the traditional crafts of Japan and hina dolls came to be clothed in silk brocade, specially woven in miniature to fit their royal costumes. The heads of the dolls at this time had heads made of a mixture of woodshavings and glue which were then coated with gofun, a kind of seashell paste. The tiny eyes were finally made of glass and inserted in place. Some of them have microscopic teeth and tongues inside their delicate mouths. The hair is silk thread attached by hand. The facial features are sometimes delicately painted on and the costumes range from accurate replicas of court fashion of a particular era to whatever the individual dollmaker felt appropriate (or could imagine, having never seen a “real nobleman”).

By the middle of the 18th century, the merchant class had risen to a position of great wealth and power, and they aspired to rival the upper classes in extravagance and grandeur. In the city of Edo (now Tokyo), the displays of hina spread over seven-tiered shelves that sometimes took over an entire room. The displaying of hina dolls like this on March 3rd was officially recognized by the government and became known as Hina Matsuri, the Doll Festival. However, in 1721, the Tokugawa Shogunate established austerity reforms in an attempt to control the rapidly rising merchant class. These regulations included a limit to the size of hina, as some of the more elaborate dolls at that time were over 3 feet high.

The customs of Kyoto dictate a more restrained manner of displaying hina dolls. Only five-tiered shelves, or hinadan, were used, and sometimes a miniature wooden palace, or goten, was constructed to house a relatively small number of dolls and accessories. One of the most interesting details of the hina display are the dogu, or furnishings and utensils that accompany the dolls. The more elaborate sets could include a royal oxcart and palanquin, a set of tansu or trunks, mirrored dressers, wardrobes, and tea ceremony utensils, all made of wood and carefully lacquered. The most elaborate sets also included kimono, futon, and even tiny hair ornaments. As the “Tale of Genji” was enjoying a revival during the Edo Era, the displaying of hina came to resemble a much later generation’s romantic dream of the glamour and finery of the days of Genji, often referred to as the Golden Age of Japan.

The Meiji Restoration in 1868, however, brought a much more staid approach to life in general, and the government issued very serious treatises on the importance of Hina Matsuri as a means of educating children. The keen interest in ‘formal’ education in those days stressed the virtues of loyalty, gentility, and restraint as necessary qualities for maintaining a stable society. As March 3rd had become a day especially for little girls (May 5th being reserved for boys), Hina Matsuri was held up as a model of happy family life and the virtues of womanhood were lauded. The ideal wife and mother was quiet, gentle, demure and restrained, and the beautiful hina dolls were there to remind her of this. The celebration of festivals like these acted as the fabric of traditional Japanese society. For a period of about a week and a half in March, mothers taught their little girls to carefully unwrap the delicate dolls and help decorate the elaborate display. Girls visit their friends’ homes to admire their dolls and drink amazake and eat sweet cakes together. Family members join in the celebration and spring is welcomed in by all.

It was not until the Pre-WWII days in Japan that the dolls came to explicitly represent the Emperor and Empress themselves. During the long history of hina ningyo, the dolls had always been thought of as noble and courtly, but the military government used them as a means of inspiring loyalty to the Emperor. Today most people still think of the pair of hina dolls as synonymous with the Emperor and Empress.

Athough many of the dolls today are still made by hand, they are assembled by retailers from parts that are made separately resulting in an overall sameness. These days, it is not unusual to find hina dolls made of plastic, as the handmade ones have become exorbitantly expensive.

Some complain that today’s festival has lost much of its meaning as an elaborate and costly set of hina ningyo has become as much a status symbol as a teaching tool. However, Hina Matsuri is still observed throughout Japan by rich and poor, city dwellers and farmers alike, whether the dolls are made of paper or clothed in silk.

While the origins of the festival and the history of the dolls have been largely obscured over time, perhaps not everyone has forgotten the spirit of Hina Matsuri, as a trip to Hokyo-ji Temple in Kyoto will demonstrate. There is still a custom in Kyoto of taking tattered old hina dolls to this temple to be burned in a special ceremony to release the spirits trapped with the “human form” (人形). The idea of the dolls having a spirit of their own—or possessing part of the spirit of the child that owned them lingers. As one Kyoto grandmother explained, “When people get too old to live any longer, they die. Dolls should be allowed to die, too.” Hokyo-ji is a nunnery known as the Doll Temple. During the month of March it is open to the public, and a collection of dolls that belongs to the nunnery is on view for a limited time. In ancient times, imperial princesses were sometimes sent to be cared for by the nunnery, and they brought their dolls with them. One of these dolls is said to walk through the temple corridors at night, protecting it from damage by fire.

Although much of Japan has become thoroughly modernized, traces of the spirit of times past linger on in traditional customs such as Hina Matsuri.