"Tanabata (the seventh night of July)" We, Japanese celebrate the seventh of July as the special night when "Orihime"(Vega)
and "Hikoboshi" (Altair) date on the Milky Way once a year. Orihime,
a daughter of the Lord, was a weaver. The Lord was worrying about his daughter
who had devoted herself to weaving threads into cloths all day long. One
day, he met a young diligent cowboy whose name was Hikoboshi. Since he
was very impressed with Hikoboshi, he introduced Hikoboshi to Orihime as
a fiance. Hikoboshi and Orihime fell in love each other at a glance and
from that day, both of them date every day leaving their job alone. That
behavior made the Lord angry and he pull them apart on the each side of
the Milky Way. Since then, Orihime had been crying for Hikoboshi every
day. The Lord felt sorry for crushed daughter with grief, finally he allowed
them to cross the Milky Way to meet each other only once a year on the
seventh of July. When it rained, magpies kindly helped them to cross the
flooded river. They say that the origin of Tanabata legend is China and present story had been formed in 6th Century. Then the story had been transferred to Japan Heian era, with the customs and spread over common people via aristocrats. After that, Chinese customs had been mixed with Japanese faith and local event and formed present style. Therefore, festival style varies from area to area. For example, some districts do the events in August based on the lunar calendar. On that night, in general, each house places the bamboo grass under the eaves and decorates it with paper dolls etc. Then each family member writes his/her own wish on a strip of paper in his/her own way. Recently, it is not easy for us to see Milky Way with the naked eyes without going to the suburbs, and it is not common to put bamboo grass in the house because of changing life style and decreasing number of children. Therefore, regretfully, "Tanabata festival" has been loosing its romantic image and changing to be a commercial event. (end) |