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Hinamatsuri

One of five major festivals in Japan, Hinamatsuri (Girls Day) is also known as the Dolls Festival or the Peach Blossom Festival. 

Beginning with the start of spring in Japan (around Feb. 4), hina dolls representing ranks of traditional Japanese officials are put on display on tiers in homes, with dolls representing the Emperor and Empress at the top.

The traditional belief, going back a thousand years, is that the dolls have the power to repel malevolent spirits. This, along with the desire for girls' wellbeing has led to the modern Hinamatsuri or Girls' Day, celebrated every March 3rd. Today, some locales erect huge public displays of dolls and stage special events celebrating the time. One example is that Yanagawa, Japan on the island of Kyushu begins a two-month long celebration with a parade and culminates festivities with a Hina Doll Water Parade in mid March. Yanagawa is the Venice of Japan with 930 kilometers of canals and other waterways.

Hinamatsuri corresponds to a time when peach blossoms begin to bloom, so since the Edo Period (1603 - 1868), March 3rd has been when both Hinamatsuri and Momo no sekku (Peach Blossom Day) are celebrated. It is common to see peach blossoms among the hinamatsuri doll displays and other areas in homes and public displays. Japan is known for its admiration of plum blossoms and especially cherry blossoms, but there are seven times more peach trees than cherry trees in Japan. They are a spectacular sight at the peak of the blooming season. Nagano's Achi Village, for one example, has 10,000 peach trees.

About Peaches (Prunus persica)

Being deciduous trees, peach trees lose all of their leaves in the winter. Blossoms begin to appear before leaves do; typically in early to mid march. That is a little late for March 3rd celebrations, but some do appear earlier. Peach blossoms are mostly pink/red and white. Some few trees produce variegated blossoms.

The variegated blossoms come from peppermint flowering peach trees. They are relatively rare, and the fruit is inedible, but the trees can be very attractive. The photo below shows that such trees can naturally produce a mix of blossoms.

Returning to regular peach trees--the kind that produce edible fruit--the blossoms are long gone by the time that leaves come out and peaches begin to appear.

Depending on the variety of peach, the fruit is ripe enough to pick from May through late September.

The pit is a hard shell that surrounds the kernel or seed.

News flash: Though nectarines are marketed as a similar but different species of fruit than peaches, they are really the same species in spite of peaches having fuzz on their skin and nectarines being "bald".

Momotarō

Peaches--sort of--feature in one of Japan's best known fairy tales. Long ago, the wife of an elderly, childless couple who live in Okayama finds a giant peach in a stream while washing clothes. She beings it home for her husband, but before she can cut it up, it bursts open, revealing a baby.

hey name the child Momotarō (Peach Boy) and raise him as their own. When Momotarō is old enough to go out on his own, he decides to kill a ogres on Demon Island that have been terrorizing the villagers, ruining their property, and stealing their treasures. Momotarō's parents give him a sword and armor, a banner, and kibi dango to eat on his travels.

Kibi dango is a specialty treat from Okayama. It is a small, very sweet rice cake.

On the way to kill the ogres, Momotarō meets a dog who threatens him, but Momotarō befriends him by sharing his kibi dango. He later befriends a monkey and a pheasant the same way. The ogres are far stronger than the companions, but by using their special skills, their wits, and working together, they manage to kill them. Afterward, they return triumphantly home with all of the stolen treasure.

Cardinals

Accompanying my peach blossom painting this week is a cardinal. Most cardinals are red, but  some are yellow.

Artwork

Any kind of fruit tree can be trained to become a bonsai. Peach trees can be especially spectacular when in bloom.

Kanō Utanosuke Yukinobu (1513 - 1575)

Little is known about this early Kanō school artist. This hanging scroll features a Japanese waxwing, peach blossoms, and bamboo.

Utagawa Kunisada (1786 – 1865)

The ukiyo-e print below is signed Toyokuni, but the artist is better known today as Kunisada. He sometimes signed using the name of his master, Toyokuni, after the latter's death. The print is part of a series titled "Popular Matches for Thirty-six Selected Flowers" published in 1862. The series depicts various kabuki actors in character. This print is titled Peach Blossoms of the Doll Festival and depicts the actor, Sawamura Tanosuke III, as the kabuki character, Hinadori.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858)

The kachō-ga below features an abalone (awabi), Japanese halfbeak (the fish) (sayori), and peach blossoms (momo). Published in 1832, it is part of an untitled series known as A Shoal of Fishes.