Hinamatsuri and the wheel of the year

Learning a language means learning about the culture the language comes from. The two are profoundly linked. My memories of school are of studying languages (French and Spanish) with nothing much about culture or history. Perhaps the assumption with European languages is that the cultures are enough alike not to need to explain much.

This certainly isn’t the case with Japanese, which I’ve been studying slowly for some months now. There may be no ancestral language linking Japanese and English, and if there was such a thing, it would be a long way back in pre-history. There are radical differences in the kinds of concepts the languages exist to express and literal translation is often perplexing at best.

As part of my learning process, I thought it would be interesting to add recognition of Japanese festivals into my wheel of the year. Today – March the third, is Hinamatsuri- which is Dolls’ Day or Girls’ Day, although its origins are in a peach festival. Traditionally, dolls are displayed on a red carpet. Not having the space or resources for actual dolls, we made 2 out of paper – both are musician dolls. Mine is the blue one, and Tom did the orange one. Paper is an acceptable alternative.

If would be more normal if there were only two dolls to have an Emperor and Empress, but as grubby peasants we felt more affinity with the musicians and opted to start there. Perhaps, in years to come we can build up a full set of paper dolls. For now, they’re in an entirely unsuitable setting on our small altar space because that’s what we’ve got.