The advent of the Spring season, internationally, has more popular traditions and festivals attached to it than the onset of Summer. It was more significant in a sense to the ancients, as it was the time when Death was vanquished by Life, when the Earth and all its creatures and plants were revitalised and reborn.
In March, there are a number of popular festivals that still are celebrated in various regions. In Japan, there are the festivals that are connected to the blossoming of the Cherry and Plum trees. Among them is Girls' Day or Hina-matsuri. In Eastern Europe, there is the festival of Martisor, connected to the blossoming of the Snowdrops. In Celtic Europe, there is St. Patrick's Day, connected to the Shamrock or Four-Leaf Clover and the wearing of the colour Green. The latter became politically charged at one point in history but began as a symbol of Life and Fertility.
I have been doing more research on Japanese traditions and dolls recently than on Martisor and St. Patrick's Day and in the course of doing so, realised once again how much Japanese feminine traditions are synonymous with beauty and grace and male culture is synonymous with honour and courage. There is, of course, grace and beauty, honour and courage in the ideals of both genders. Western civilisation had much of this as well, but Japanese culture was far more rigid for far longer in history, partly because of the cult of the Emperor and the rejection of outside influences. This created a very rigid definition of all aspects of art and culture and indeed, in its negative form, too much of an expectation of perfection. I do believe that the high rate of adolescent suicide in Japan may be the result of this where, in the West, we almost expect that our children will experiment with life, change their minds and goals more than once and perhaps trip once or twice before they succeed and attain happiness.
It was a bit startling to me as well to discover how much of our Western interest in dolls may have been inspired by Japanese doll traditions. In Japan for centuries, dolls were far more than toys for children. Originally imbued with spirit, much like 'voodoo dolls' or 'poppets', they were created to be set afloat on running water, to be borne away from the life of the person each represented. That tradition may have been the origin of the Hina-matsuri Festival in ancient times. There still are regions in Japan where dolls are set afloat on lakes or rivers or even sent into the sea. Unfortunately, this tradition resulted in a number of dolls being tangled in fishermen's nets and it thus became rather unpopular.
I believe that the newer tradition of displaying a set of dolls that represents the Emperor, Empress and their court probably had something to do with ancestor worship as well as the old belief that the Emperor was descended from the Goddess of the Sun and therefore to some extent her agent on earth. Another reason, apart from the propaganda value to the royal family may have been the desire to preserve native Japanese traditions, culture and fashions after the appearance of Perry and the threat of Western cultural invasion. A full Hina display is much more than a group of dolls. It consists of food items, trees with symbolic significance, weapons, food, tools and even transport.
In the Metropolitan Museum iin New York, some rooms devoted to the civilisation of ancient Egypt have elaborate displays of grave goods that consist of entire villages with small dolls that are busy performing the various tasks that occupy human lives on Earth. Fascinating and well-worth a visit! The reason for these was to provide the deceased with everything he/she would need in the afterlife, including housing, a working economy and slaves. I meantion it because a full Hina display, although never associated with tombs or the afterlife, reminds me a bit of the ancient Egyptian miniature villages.
Enough of those musings, however. March in many ancient cultures was the first month of the year. The Asian Lunar New Year is closer to the ancient New Year than our solar one.
The first flower of the year in Northern European traditions is the Snowdrop and Martisor's most popular symbol perhaps is the Snowdrop.
In my own life, the Snowdrop represents the first flower that I ever planted in my own garden, even though I was not the owner of the land. About two decades ago, I found some snowdrops growing wild in an old churchyard and took a few of the bulbs home to plant behind the house. As the years passed, the clusters of snowdrops increased. I took a few to plant beneath the weeping cherry tree at the new house but when the owner decided to build a new patio late last Spring, the workers ignored my pleas to save my little bulbs. They rather coldly insisted that I could buy new ones and did not comprehend why that would not do. In fact, the Snowdrop really is a wildflower and it is not common to find them in nurseries.
This has been a particularly brutal Winter and I could not even see the ground beneath the weeping cherry until this week began. Although snow still lies deep in certain corners of the garden, the area beneath the Cherry is mostly clear. My heart leapt a little when I found a single Snowdrop beginning to bloom there.
I had planted far more but it is amazing that even one survived. When I returned briefly to the old house this morning, I was surprised and delighted to see that my Snowdrops there had multiplied, despite the fact that I had taken a couple of large clumps from there last year.
