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Rinkya Links Newsletter
Issue 6, Last Update: 1/1/2005
Spoiling Your Hina Ningyou: Additional Accessories for Hina Dolls
First, my apologies to Super Dollfie fans everywhere: there are several revisions needed to the SD articles. Most of the information comes courtesy of Aimee Steinberger, who kindly has answered many of my questions. I just haven't had a chance to get back to make the changes. Unfortunately, hina ningyou are a seasonal phenomenon, and I must address them now or wait until next year, so the Super Dollfies will have to wait a little while longer.
As I mentioned in my original article on hina ningyou, the hina dolls are supposed to be Heian nobility, and therefore just about anything that might have been found at the Heian court is available sized for hina dolls. If you want to rebuild a Heian noble household in miniature, here are some of the items that you might want to consider.
Wedding-Related Items
The hina dan represents a Heian wedding, so some of the items in it are specifically associated with weddings.
hanaguruma: Even a thousand years ago, weddings meant flowers. This cart carries the flowers needed for the dairi bina's wedding. Be careful to distinguish it from the goshoguruma: both carts may be drawn by an ox, and the sellers are not always careful about labeling the auctions!
otogi inu: These elaborately colored dogs, which come in pairs, are usually made of porcelain, although I've seen them made of metal with enamel overlays. These "attendent dogs" are supposed to be protective spirits involved in the wedding ritual; one source I read called them the "guardian deities" of the hina. Some are hollow, for the purpose of putting written wishes inside. The otogi inu go on the outside edge of their step, which is usually that of the dairi bina.
santana: This set is my favorite, precisely because it shouldn't be included at all. These three sets of shelves are not Heian. In the Edo period, however, it was unthinkable for an aristocratic bride to go to her husband's house without a kurodana (lit. "black shelf"), a shodana (bookshelf), and a zushidana (lit. "minature shrine shelf"). The original developers of the hina ningyou set were living in the Edo period, so they, too, could not bring themselves to send their noble mebina off without these shelves. I haven't been able to get information on why these items were so crucial to the Edo nobility; the zushidana, despite the name, was used to hold books and writing materials, so I don't know what distinguished it from the shodana.
Personal Items
getabako: As this literally means "geta box," it is unsurprising that this short, two-shelved storage unit is for holding geta and other footware (hakimono). It should, in fact, come with footware sufficient to fill the space within it, although the geta can also be found separately.
keshouzoroi: These are cosmetics sets, a must in a culture where everyone, male and female, used cosmetics. Available are five-, seven-, or thirteen-item sets, although I could find no details on the individual items. To be expected, given the preferences of the time, would be items to pluck eyebrows, draw new eyebrows, blacken teeth, whiten complexions, and redden lips.
uchikake: This is the long, loose, usually brightly colored garment worn over kimono. Now, it's pretty much only seen in weddings, but in neither the Heian nor the Edo period would it have had that association, so I assume it isn't a wedding-specific item in the hina set. The hina version comes with its stand, both to keep the uchikake beautiful and to display its beauty.
Entertainment
houkai: This was the Heian picnic basket. It usually looks like a ridged cylinder (although the tube can be square or hexagonal and may be smooth) with a cover and four legs attached to its sides. Sometimes it has a cord that goes under its bottom and ties on top. You will sometimes find these mislabeled as kaioke, which they do resemble. The easiest distinguishing characteristic is that the kaioke's tall top fits within its base; the houkai does not get wider at the bottom.
kaioke: In my original article, I mentioned kaiawase, a Heian game played with shells. The kaioke is the container for the hina ningyou's kaiawase set and one of the more common hina dougu outside the core set. It is made of a hexagonal dish with a tall cover that fits inside it and has a cord tied around it twice. It may, like the hokai, have legs to the sides; it may have radial legs beneath it; or it may have no legs at all.
musical instruments: The chief set of these is the sankyokuzoroi, which includes the koto, a plucked string instrument that lies flat in front of the player; the samisen, the Japanese three-stringed guitar; and the kokyuu, the long-necked Chinese fiddle. Other instruments, such as the biwa (Japanese lute), can often be found either separately or in sets, although I could find no other set names. Once I saw a shinno kazari in which the obina was serenading his mebina with a biwa.
sanmenzoroi: This is a set of three classic Japanese games that date back to the Heian period: go, shougi, and bansugoroku. They are exactly like the original versions for human players, but sized to the tiny requirements of your ohina-sama.
writing implements: During the Heian period, Japan began its love affair with both poetry and calligraphy, so of course there are desks, inkstones, pens, writing boxes, and all manner of items for hina ningyou wanting to explore their literary and artistic sides.
Military Items
gunsenjingasazoroi (lit., the "war fanwar hat set"): This set includes a gunsen (the fan of a military commander), a katanagake (sword rack), a war hat (jingasa), a large war drum, and a saihai (a commander's baton), complete with its stand.
horagai: This is a war horn made from a conch shell. It usually has a red strap and tassels.
yoroi and kabuto: If a Japanese warrior wore it into battle in the Heian period, someone has made it obina-sized. Yoroi (armor) and kabuto (helmets) are the generic terms.
Believe it or not, I've only scratched the surface. In this article, I've tried to stick to items that I've seen more than once or twice. I also skipped all the many, many cooking and serving implements, most of which are either self-explanatory or so obscure that I couldn't identify them. You're well advised check out some general searches:
Don't miss the general searches from the original article, either.
Tell you what: if you see a hina dougu that you'd like to know more about, send me the URL, and I'll take a look and tell you what I can about it. OK?
May you find everything you need to keep your ohina-sama happy!
Suggestions? Comments? [*gulp*] Corrections? E-mail me at uriko@rinkya.com and tell me about them. Have a page about hina dolls or a related topic? You can make money by linking to this page via the Rinkya Referral Program! Want to receive announcements of the latest Rinkya Links Newsletter by e-mail? Join the Rinkya Mailing List! |
