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Customs of Hagoita and Hamayumi |
| The Oshogatsu (New Year), which comes around
for the fist time after a baby is born, is called "Hatsu
Shogatsu (The First New Year)," and there are the
long-inherited customs of celebration from old times,
in which a Hamayumi (demon-quelling bow) is presented
to a boy and a Hamayumi (battledore) is presented to
a girl, as a good-luck article for exorcism. Since the
customs from old times of decorating Hagoita and Hamayumi
on the New Year’s Day, greeting the Toshi-Gami-Sama
(New Year’s deity,) surrounding the children, and
together with all members of a family, to pray their
healthy growth in the future, is an beautiful and graceful
event that makes the people’s heart rich, it should
be people’s wish to preserve this traditional event,
for a long time to come. |
The origin of Hagoita (battledore) |
| Hagoita has been introduced from China
in the Muromachi era, and it is thought that it was,
in the beginning, loved as a practical play, in which
people strike a "shuttlecock." There are two
types of Hagoita, one for admiration, the other for playing
by striking a shuttlecock, and the Hagoita for admiration
first appeared in the Muromachi era, and it became increasingly
prosperous in the peaceful era of the Edo. In that era,
the customs of presenting a Hagoita to a girl in her
first New Year (New Year that comes around for the first
time after a baby was born,) was born among Daimyo (feudal
lord), the Imperial Court nobles, etc. and has also spread
among the ordinary people gradually. |
| A ball of a shuttlecock to be struck with
a Hagoita, which is a black and hard ball, is a seed
of a big tree named “Mukuroji (Soapberry).” Since “Mukuroji” is
written as "Non-Disease Child” in Chinese
character, it is said that people started to decorate
a Hagoita and a shuttlecock as a talisman to wish a good
health of babies. Moreover, since the shuttlecock for
Hagoita resembles a dragonfly that is the natural enemy
of mosquitoes, it is also said that people has come to
decorate a Hagoita and shuttlecock, likening a shuttlecock
to a dragonfly, so that children should not be bitten
by mosquitoes, which causes disease. |
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The history of Hamayumi (demon-quelling bow)
is considerably long, and it is thought that the origin is
Sharai (a ceremony in which people hit a target using bows
and arrows), which had been performed in the New Year season
in the Imperial Court in the Yamato era (around the A.D.
647). It seems that it was thought that there was a special
power of removing evil spirits in bows and arrows since ancient
times, and they were used in various events and divine services
in many cases. It was in the Kamakura era that Hamayumi has
become a form of “Talisman for avoiding evils” that
combined a bow and an arrow like the one of the present time,
and the customs of presenting Hamayumi was begun among samurais
(military families) on the first New Year’s Day of
a new-born child, and it has also spread among townspeople
centering in castle towns.
To our regret, recently, not so many people seem to practice the custom of decorating
Hagoita and Hamayumi on the New Year’s Day. It should be people’s
wish to preserve the customs that was born from the precious culture of Japan. |
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