Celebrating Hina Matsuri

The festival was legally established in 1687; many 18th-century dolls survive now as antiques. Although the basic pyramidal style of the two main dolls persists, there have been many styles and fads over three centuries. Only gradually did the doll-makers of Kyoto and Edo, and their wealthy customers, evolve the full display with at least 15 dolls and plenty of miniature furniture. In the early 20th century it became more accepted that every little girl should have a hina-matsuri display, and various smaller and cheaper formats were devised. Nowadays small sets may be valued by apartment-dwellers, and once again the emphasis is on the two main dolls.

The general word for the girls' day ningyo is hina (also ohina, and the combination form -bina, as in tachibina, "standing hina," or dairi-bina, the seated royal pair who feature in most displays) and the festival is known as Hina Matsuri (though its proper name may be Momo no Sekku, or Peach Festival).
A few days before the festival, girls and their mothers take out the hina and arrange them on a red cloth which may cover a structure, the hina-dan, with as many as 7 steps, each with its own designated set of hina: the Emperor and Empress (this is the way Americans have always identified them, though the doll pair is much older than the idea of the emperor having a single wife) at the top, three ladies serving them sake on the next step, then five or even ten musicians, two "guardians" with weapons, and three servants; also included may be toy trees, perhaps made of semi-precious stones, and various toy implements representing a dowry (small chests, carts, and so on). Girls play hostess to their friends, and also to the ningyo, who are "fed" in tiny dish sets.
A wonderful film portrayal of the Hina display is Akira Kurosawa's film Dreams: Yume (1990) The film consists of a number of short fantastic episodes, and the second one allows a small boy a vision of five complete sets of hina, like the ones his sister is displaying, come to life and dancing for him because of his sorrow at the loss of the family peach orchard. The story emphasizes (as do the film's other episodes) the intimate link between Japanese culture and the Japanese natural environment.

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