Hinamatsuri (Doll Festival)

The festival combines two older strands. One is the Chinese custom of purifying oneself by water on the first 'snake day' of the third lunar month, which reached Japan in the Nara period. Japanese practice added hitogata, simple paper or straw figures onto which a person transferred impurity and illness by rubbing or breathing on them, before setting them adrift on a river.

The other strand is hina asobi, play with small dolls and doll houses by aristocratic girls of the Heian court, mentioned in The Tale of Genji. In the Edo period the two merged: the shogunate fixed 3 March as one of the official seasonal festivals, and prosperous urban households began displaying elaborate dolls on tiered stands. The dolls changed from disposable carriers of misfortune into precious heirlooms that guard their owner.

A full set, the hinadan, traditionally has seven tiers, though many modern homes use a single tier with only the imperial couple. The display is set up from about the time of Risshun in early February and should be put away promptly after 3 March; a well-known folk belief holds that a display left out too long delays the daughter's marriage.

The placement of the imperial pair differs by region. The traditional arrangement, still kept in Kyoto, places the emperor on the viewer's right, following the old court rule that the left (from the seated figure's view) is the place of honour. The now more common arrangement, spread from Tokyo from the early twentieth century, places him on the viewer's left, following the Western-style practice adopted at the imperial court.

Hinamatsuri food is colourful and springlike. Hishi mochi, diamond-shaped rice cakes in pink, white and green layers, are commonly explained as peach blossom, snow and new grass. Hina arare are sweetened puffed rice crackers in pastel colours. The festive meal usually centres on chirashizushi, sushi rice scattered with toppings, and a clear soup of hamaguri clams, whose two shells fit only their original partner and so symbolise a harmonious marriage. Adults drink shirozake, a sweet, milky rice liquor, while children are given amazake, which contains no or almost no alcohol.

The oldest form of the festival survives in nagashibina, 'floating dolls'. At Mochigase in Tottori Prefecture, paper dolls on small straw rafts with offerings of rice cakes are set on the Sendai River on 3 March of the old calendar (today 3 April), carrying away the children's misfortunes; the custom is a designated folk cultural property of Tottori Prefecture. Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto holds a nagashibina ceremony in its grounds in early March.

Several towns are known for tsurushibina, hanging mobiles of small cloth figures made from kimono scraps: Inatori on the Izu Peninsula, Yanagawa in Fukuoka (where they are called sagemon) and Sakata in Yamagata. Others, such as Katsuura in Chiba, stage giant stepped displays of thousands of donated dolls on public stairways. Hinamatsuri has no public holiday, but many shopping streets, old merchant houses and museums show historical doll collections in February and March.

Hinamatsuri remains primarily a family and nursery-school celebration. Full seven-tier sets have become rarer as homes have grown smaller, and compact displays in glass cases or single-tier sets are common. The festival is paired with Kodomo no Hi on 5 May, which grew out of the boys' festival of Tango no Sekku, though that day is now officially dedicated to all children. Old dolls that a family no longer keeps are often taken to shrines and temples that hold ningyo kuyo, memorial services for dolls, rather than being thrown away.