LIHU‘E — The third day of the third month is set aside in Japanese culture as a time to pray for young girls’ growth and happiness.
As such, this Thursday is celebrated as Hina Matsuri, or Doll Festival. Western culture considers the day Girls’ Festival, states the Kids Web Japan website.
On Saturday the Kaua‘i Japanese Cultural Society celebrated not only Hina Matsuri, but Kodomo no Hi, or Children’s Day, which is traditionally observed May 5.
Special displays celebrating both events are exhibited in one of the vacant spaces at Kukui Grove Center. Shoppers on Monday were taking time to study the dolls, or hina ningyo, of various types and sizes as well as Japanese banners celebrating children.
Families with young daughters celebrate Hina Matsuri by setting up a display of dolls inside the house, offering rice crackers and other foods to the dolls.
Hina Matsuri is celebrated with various snacks which may consist of hina-arare, or bite-sized rice crackers flavored with sugar, or soy sauce depending on the region, states a flier accompanying the mall’s display.
Hishimochi — a diamond-shaped, colored, layered rice cake in red, white and green — along with chirashizushi and a customary drink of shirozake, a white, sweet rice wine, is usually consumed, according to the flier.
Outlets such as bakeries and confections in Hawai‘i usually offer a variation of the sweet mochi created from mochiko.
Dolls on display tout costumes of the Imperial Court during the Heian period (794-1192) and are usually placed on a tiered platform of five to seven layers covered in red felt.
Single-tiered decorations with one male and one female doll are common, representing the emperor and the empress.
Doll displays, usually appearing in mid-February, started showing up on March 3 during the Edo period (1603-1868) and served as a way of warding off evil spirits, the dolls acting as a charm, the Kids Web Japan states.
Today, people in some parts of Japan release paper dolls into rivers following Hina Matsuri, praying that the dolls take people’s place in carrying away sickness and bad fortune.
According to the Japanese American National Museum, the celebration of Hina Matsuri was brought to the United States by early issei, or first generation, immigrant families.
In addition to its role in celebrating traditional customs in Japanese American households and communities, special dolls played a role in U.S.-Japan relations when in 1927, Dr. Sidney Gulick established the Committee on World Friendship Among Children. The mission involved sending dolls from America to Japan.
More than 12,730 Friendship Dolls were made and sent to Japan, each with its own passport, train and boat tickets, and handwritten letters from American children.
The dolls arrived in Japan in time for Hina Matsuri where the dolls were distributed to schools throughout Japan with elaborate ceremonies to greet and welcome the dolls into their new homes.
Japanese children and families reciprocated by sending Japanese dolls to the United States in time for Christmas celebrations.
Grandmother to mother, mother to daughter, the wish for a daughter’s happiness is both valued and treasured, Hina Matsuri being celebrated in this spirit, according to the JANM.
