Hina Matsuri is a Doll Festival held every year on March 3rd. It is dedicated to the health and happiness of young girls in each family’s household. A number of places, temples, and museum around Kyoto present and display amazing dolls, some hundred of year old.
The Hina doll festival is a very old tradition in Japan. In ancient times people believed that doll-like effigies had magical powers and could take on a person’s misfortune and disease and carry it away. Dolls would be placed beneath a child’s pillow for this purpose and then in the spring, the dolls would be put in straw boats and set afloat on a river. As the dolls sailed off toward the sea, so too would bad luck and illness be carried away. Apparently, this custom is still practiced in some parts of the country…
