Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Yurihonjo hinakaido doll festival - part 2

As I wrote in the previous post, on March 07 hubby and I went to see the festival called Yurihonjo hinakaido. The festival is a public annual traditional display of dolls and is held in five public exhibition halls as well as fifty different locations within Yurihonjo city of Akita prefecture. While the Japanese doll festival (hina matsuri) that is held on March 03 every year is a private display of a set of ornamental hina dolls at homes of families with daughters, the hinakaido festival is a public display of antique hina dolls that date back at least several hundred years. In the previous post I wrote about the hina doll displays in Ouchi denshokan and Honjo kyodo shiryoukan. Today I will write about our visit to the Kameda castle Sato Yasohachi art museum where exquisite hina dolls were displayed in three exhibition halls.


Kameda castle Sato Yasohachi art museum
First let me briefly explain about the history of Kameda castle and Sato Yasohachi art museum.

Kameda castle: Kameda castle was built by the Iwaki feudal clan, who were originally from Shinshu province (present day Nagano prefecture). In 1623, the third shogun of Edo period, Tokugawa Iemitsu, ordered Iwaki clan to relocate to Kameda region in Dewa province (present day Akita and Yamagata prefecture). Subsequently, Kameda han domain was ruled for the entirety of its history by the Iwaki clan. Kameda castle was the castle of the Iwaki clan rulers. Unfortunately, now no traces of the castle remains and what we see today is only a reproduction work of the original castle.
Reproduction of Kameda castle


Sato Yasohachi art museum: This museum located in Kameda castle exhibits collection of calligraphy, Japanese traditional paintings, crafts and ceramics, which were donated by Mr. Yasohachi Sato. The Sato family lived in Yurihonjo city and the last Yasohachi died in 1998. During the annual hinakaido festival from February 07 until April 19, some of the exhibition halls are used for hina doll displays. The museum seemed to be full of hina doll sets.
Entrance of Sato Yasohachi art museum

An exhibition hall in the museum

Hubby standing in front of kasafuku (parasol with hanging gotenmari balls)


Hina dolls were displayed in the first, third, and fourth exhibition halls of the museum.
First exhibition hall: Very old hina dolls of the prosperous castle town of Kameda region were displayed in this hall. Various types of hina dolls like kokinbina, kyohobina, and keshibina were exhibited. There were about 30 such hina dolls sets. It was really nice to see the display of so many antique exquisite dolls.
Display of hina dolls in first exhibition hall

Display of hina dolls at the center of the exhibition hall

Hubby posing in front of gojunoto (five-storied pagoda)


Kameda han domain feudal lord presented many hina doll sets and related accessories to the villagers, fishermen, and farmers who lived in Kameda town in Iwaki. There was a grand display of one such hina doll set belonging to Kato family house.
Hina doll set of Kato family house


Several such hina doll sets presented by Kameda han domain feudal lord to the commoners were on display.




Hina doll sets presented by Kameda han domain feudal lord to the commoners


On one side of the hall, a few centuries old traditional hina doll sets of several families of Yurihonjo area were displayed.







Old traditional hina doll sets of Yurihonjo area


Third exhibition hall: In this hall also, various hina doll sets of many old houses of the Kameda castle town were displayed. Big kyohobina dolls and small-faced keshibina dolls were exhibited. These hina dolls were very old and dated back several hundred years.






Display of very old hina doll sets


In this hall various types of oshiebina (washi paper type) dolls were also displayed. In fact, this year many oshiebina dolls were exhibited.




Display of a few oshiebina hina doll sets


Fourth exhibition hall: In this hall, a large variety of cute faced Yabase tsuchi-ningyo (clay dolls) and oshiebina were exhibited.







Display of a few tsuchi-ningyo hina doll sets





Display of a few oshiebina hina doll sets


Hubby and I enjoyed seeing so many antiques hina doll sets. I love hina dolls.

7 comments:

Kazuo Nagata said...

I enjoyed taking photo of so many dolls. Hina ningyo ippai deshita.

Manisha Kundu-Nagata said...

Thanks Kazuo-san for patiently taking photos of so many hina-nigyo.

Emily Shorette said...

Yurihonjo hinakaido doll festival-

What a splendid showing of dolls! I hope you and your husband will continue to do this.

Emily
http://emilyscoffeespot.blogspot.com

Manisha Kundu-Nagata said...

Emily, hina dolls were really fantastic. I, along with hubby, hope to see and enjoy various historical and cultural aspects of Japan.
Thanks for visiting my blog. I will read your blog too.

Anonymous said...

hi
nice blog

Anonymous said...

Hi manisha
i happen to find ur blog..very interesting i must say...one thing similar is that i am an indian too married to a japanese...(malaysian indian). I believe there are very few of us in japanese...in the 5 years i have been in Japan, u r the third person i come to know besides another indian malaysian gal and myself. would visit ur blog more often...please feel free to drop in mine as well...have a good day...i bet akita is a very cold place...

Manisha Kundu-Nagata said...

Hi ckuramitz, Thanks for your comments. It is very nice knowing about you. Yeah, I guess there are very few couples like us. Well, that makes us special :) Hope you are enjoying with your family....
Yeah, Akita is cold. Still snows (very lightly though)in the mornings...
Sure, I will visit your blog. In fact, I am very curious to read and know more about you ;) And please visit my blog often.