Encyclopedia > Hinamatsuri

  Article Content

Hinamatsuri

Hinamatsuri or Hina Matsuri (雛祭 , in kana: 雛まつり) is the Doll Festival in Japan. On 3rd of March, people display dolls (人形; ningyō) dressed in old-style kimonos.

It is a celebration especially for girls. Formerly people believed the dolls possess the power to conseal bad spirits in their bodies and will save the owner from dangerous encounters.

The origin of hinamatsuri is hinanagashi where paper dolls are put into a boat and sent on a journey down a river, taking with them the bad spirits.

The customary drink for the festival is amazake, a sweet beverage made from fermented rice or sake lees.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Lake Ronkonkoma, New York

... the age of 18, 7.4% from 18 to 24, 32.6% from 25 to 44, 23.2% from 45 to 64, and 12.2% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 37 years. For every 100 ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 20.4 ms