Soothing deep purple ground with shimmering silver stripes for this Tanabata (Stars Festival) themed summer obi. Tanabata celebrates every 7th of July (7th day of the 7th month) the reunion of lovers Orihime/Vega and Hikoboshi/Altair separated the rest of the year by the Amanogawa (Milky Way).
The obi patterns are:
Geometrical stars shapes + silver threads for the night sky
Itomaki (bobbin) for Orihime (her name lit. means “weaving princess”)
Bamboo branches, where people hanged tanzaku (paper strips) inscribed with their wishes
Tanzaku with words Tanabata, hoshi matsuri (star festival), amanogawa (milky way)
7th July is Tanabata. It is a festival which had been held since as early as Edo Period.
But what is Tanabata and what is the story behind this festival?
Legend has it originated in Ancient China. The story goes that Orihime, the daughter of the Heaven God, worked hard at weaving clothes along the banks of the Milky Way or Amanogawa (the celestial body like river of stars). Her father is worried that her child would never find love and thus arranged her to meet Hikoboshi, a cowherd on the other side of the heavenly river. They met, fell in love and got married.
However, their love for each other was too much that they neglected their respective duties. Because of this, Orihime’s father eventually separated them, and the expanse of the Milky Way ran between them once again. There was an exception, however: the two were allowed to meet once a year, which marks Tanabata, celebrated at different times in different localities starting July 7. On this one day, a bridge of sparrows forms across the Milky Way and the couple unites.
The story and the festival celebrate the celestial lovers’ meeting come from China, where the celebrations were based on the shifting lunar calendar – hence the varying observance days in Japan. The festival was introduced to the country by Empress Regent Koken, who conflated Orihime’s Chinese counterpart, the weaver princess, with the Japanese weaver goddess. Thus, Tanabata represents a mingling of Chinese legend and Shinto canon.
At the core of the celebrations is wish-making. The once-aristocratic event (in which celebrants wrote poetry on strips of paper and floated them down streams) evolved to involve the practice of tying these strips to bamboo. The poems evolved still to focus on more personal wishes – financial luck, for example. Now we’re familiar with the practice of writing down wishes on the thin sheet of colored paper, tying it to a bamboo branch and bidding the stars to take heed.
As the title purposes, I’ll be posting once a week instead of daily.
“But why, precurequotes! You were doing just fine!”
It’s not that I’m stressed. If anything, I quite enjoy posting these. It’s that I’m going through each Precure series too fast, and I’ll definitely reach to Cure Cosmo quicker than I want to. So I’ll be posting once a week starting next week (On Monday 👀) and come back with DokiDoki Precure. Once again, I’m happy for those who notes, repost, and follows.
