, also known as the , is a Japanese festival originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively). According to legend, the Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The date of Tanabata varies by region of the country, but the first festivities begin on 7 July of the Gregorian calendar. The celebration is held at various days between July and August.
History The festival was introduced to Japan by the Empress Kōken in 755. It originated from , an alternative name for Qixi which is celebrated in China and also was adopted in the Kyoto Imperial Palace from the Heian period.
The festival gained widespread popularity amongst the general public by the early Edo period, when it became mixed with various Obon or Bon traditions (because Bon was held on 15th of the seventh month then), and developed into the modern Tanabata festival. Popular customs relating to the festival varied by region of the country, but generally, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship, and boys wished for better handwriting by writing wishes on strips of paper. At this time, the custom was to use dew left on taro leaves to create the ink used to write wishes. Incidentally, Bon is now held on 15 August on the solar calendar, close to its original date on the lunar calendar, making Tanabata and Bon separate events.
The name Tanabata is remotely related to the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters 七夕, which used to be read as "Shichiseki" (see explanation about the various ways of reading kanji). It is believed that a Shinto purification ceremony existed around the same time, in which a Shinto miko wove a special cloth on a loom called a and offered it to a god to pray for protection of rice crops from rain or storm and for good harvest later in autumn. Gradually this ceremony merged with Kikkōden to become Tanabata. The Chinese characters 七夕 and the Japanese reading Tanabata joined to mean the same festival, although originally they were two different things, an example of jukujikun. During the Heian period, the imperial court developed the custom of skewering various mountain and sea fruits, including pears, peaches, and dried sea bream, on seven gold and seven silver needles, threaded together with five-colored string (blue, yellow, red, white, and black), as an offering for Tanabata. This was accompanied by a banquet during which the emperor would observe the meeting of the stars, with performances of poetry, song, and instrumental music.
Story
Like Qixi and Chilseok, Tanabata was inspired by the famous Chinese folklore story, "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl". Some versions were included in the Man'yōshū.
The most popular version is as follows:
, daughter of the , wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the . Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet (also referred to as ) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime would no longer weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter's tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come because of the rise of the river and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet. The rain of this day is called "The tears of Orihime and Hikoboshi".
Names Characters Orihime and Hikoboshi are called various names in the different versions of the story. Orihime 織姫Hikoboshi 彦星Birth name棚機津女 or 棚機つ女 - Tanabata-tsume牽牛 – Kengyū ("Cowherd")Title女七夕 – Me-Tanabata ("Female Tanabata")男七夕 – O-Tanabata ("Male Tanabata")Various names and epithets秋去姫 – Akisari-hime ("Going to Autumn Princess") 朝顔姫 – Asagao-hime ("Morning Glory Princess")糸織り姫 or 糸織姫 – Ito-ori-hime ("Thread-Weaving Princess")
百子姫 – Momoko-hime ("Peach-Child Princess")薫物姫 – Takimono-hime ("Incense Princess")蜘蛛姫 – Sasagani-hime ("Spider Princess")
梶葉姫 – Kajinoba-hime ("Paper Mulberry Princess"), the washi paper made from the paper mulberry
琴寄姫 – Kotoyori-hime ("String Musical Instrument Gathering Princess")
灯姫 – Tomoshibi-hime ("Luminous Bright Light Princess")
妻星 – Tsuma-boshi ("Wife Constellation/ Star")
機織姫 – Hata'ori-hime ("Weaving Princess")
星の妻 – Hoshi-no-tsuma ("Constellation/ Star Wife", i.e.: wife of Kengyū)飼星 – Kai-boshi ("Herder/ Shepherdman Star")犬飼星 – Inukai-boshi ("Dog Herder/ Shepherdman Star") 牛引星 – Ushihiki-boshi ("Cow-tender Star")Constellation title女星 – Me-boshi ("Female Constellation/ Star")男星 – O-boshi ("Male Constellation/ Star")
Festival The Festival of Tanabata is also known by various names: Name Transliteration Meaning 秋七日 Aki-nanoka "Seventh day of Autumn" 芋の葉の露 Imo-no-ha-no-tsuyu "Dew from the leaves of the Yams or Potatoes" 七夕雨 Tanabata-ame "Rain of the Tanabata" 七夕送り Tanabata-okuri "Embarking Tanabata" 七夕紙 Tanabata-gami "Paper of the Tanabata", i.e. paper which carries the wishes 七夕色紙 Tanabata-shikishi "Colored paper of the Tanabata" 七夕竹 Tanabata-take "Bamboo of the Tanabata", i.e. the bamboo that carries the decorations or wishes 七夕竹売 Tanabata-take'uri "Bamboo of the Tanabata which offers and carries" 七夕棚 Tanabata-dana "Rack of the Tanabata" 短冊竹 Tanzaku-dake "Bamboo of the Tanzaku" 星今宵 Hoshi-koyoi "Evening of the Star" 星宮祭 Hoshi-no-miya-matsuri "Festival/ Celebration of the Star Palace" – i.e. the twin star Altair and Vega星祭 Hoshi-matsuri "Star Festival"
Other stories Human male and Heavenly female Japanese scholars have pointed out that some tales of the Tanabata cross over with the character of the Celestial Maiden (otherwise known in Japan as Tennin Nyoobo or Hagoromo).Takagi Masafumi. "[シリーズ/比較民話](二)天人女房/白鳥処女" [Series: Comparative Studies of the Folktale (2) Tennin Nyoobo/The Swan Maiden]. In: The Seijo Bungei: the Seijo University arts and literature quarterly 223 (2013-06). pp. 35–55. (In Japanese)Yanagita, Kunio; Translated by Fanny Hagin Meyer (1986). Yanagita Kunio Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale. Indiana University Press. pp. 25–27. .
Comparative scholarship on the Japanese variants points that at the beginning of the story, the human male goes near a lake for a variety of reasons (a prayer to the gods for a wife; a vision sent in a dream; a grateful animal points him the way). Over the course of the story, the human partner reaches the celestial realm where his wife and her family live. Once there, he is forced to perform tasks before they reunite. At the end of the narrative, the husband breaks a taboo (he should not eat a certain melon/gourd, but he does and is washed away) and he and his celestial wife are separated, only to reunite again during the night of 7 July.노영근. "설화의 유형 분류와 비교 연구 試論 -<선녀와 나무꾼> 유형을 중심으로-" [A Trial Research for Classification and Comparative Study of Folktales -Focused on Swan-Maiden Type-]. In: 온지논총 no.24(2010): 83–85. UCI: G704-001782.2010..24.010
James Danandjaja relates the Japanese tale of Amafuri Otome ("The Woman who came from the Sky"), as a similar tale of the unmarried mortal man, named Mikeran, who withholds the kimono from a bathing lady so she cannot fly home to the sky. Years after they marry, she finds her kimono and flies home with their children. Mikeran fashions a thousand straw sandals to reach the sky world and find his wife. When he meets his parents-in-law, the father-in-law forces him to perform some tasks, and tricks the human with cutting a thousand watermelons in one day. The human's sky wife knows it is a trap, but he does it anyway and is washed away by a flood created from the watermelons. Thus, they can only meet on the night of the Tanabata festival.Danandjaja, James. "A Comparative Study of Japanese and Indonesian Folklores". In: Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 33, No.3, December 1995. pp. 210–211.
Human female and Heavenly male Professors Masako Satō and Noriko T. Reider provided a narrative analysis of an ancient tale involving a human female and her future consort, Prince Ame-waka-hiko. In this tale of the Otogi-zōshi genre, the Prince takes the form of a serpent and marries a human woman. He later reveals he is a heavenly deity named Dragon Prince. After some time, he disappears and his human bride must seek him out (akin to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche), even reaching the heavenly realm, where his father, an oni, lives. At the end of this tale, the lovers are forcibly separated by the oni father and can only reunite during the Tanabata.Satō, Masako. "Transforming an Ancient Myth into a Popular Medieval Tale". In: Japan on the Silk Road. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2017. pp. 339–345. .Reider, Noriko T. "A Demon in the Sky: The Tale of Amewakahiko, a Japanese Medieval Story". In: Marvels & Tales 29, no. 2 (2015): 265–82. Accessed June 28, 2021. .Reider, Noriko T. "Tale of Amewakahiko (Amewakahiko Sōshi): A Demon in the Sky, a Maiden in Search of Her Husband". In: Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan. Boulder, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 2016. Accessed June 28, 2021. pp. 135–155. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g04zg4.9.
Noriko T. Reider draws attention to a second story of this combination: the "Qian Luwei Tale". In this version, the human wife's father is identified as Qian Luwei, and the male deity is Hikoboshi, the son of "Bontennō", Brahma.Reider, Noriko T. "A Demon in the Sky: The Tale of Amewakahiko, a Japanese Medieval Story". In: Marvels & Tales 29, no. 2 (2015): 272–274. Accessed June 28, 2021. .
Customs
In present-day Japan, people generally celebrate this day by writing wishes, sometimes in the form of poetry, on , small pieces of paper, and hanging them on bamboo. This is analogous to the custom of floating paper ships and candles on rivers during Obon. Many areas in Japan have their own Tanabata customs, which are mostly related to local Obon traditions. There is also a traditional Tanabata song:
SimpleTanabata-samaPoeticTransliterationTranslation ささのは さらさら のきばに ゆれる お星さま きらきら きんぎん すなご ごしきの たんざく わたしが かいた お星さま きらきら 空から 見てる 笹の葉 さらさら 軒端に 揺れる お星様 きらきら 金銀 砂子 五色の 短冊 私が 書いた お星様 きらきら 空から 見てる Sasa no ha sara-sara Nokiba ni yureru Ohoshi-sama kira-kira Kingin sunago Goshiki no tanzaku watashi ga kaita Ohoshi-sama kirakira sora kara miteru The bamboo leaves rustle, And sway under the eaves. The stars twinkle Like gold and silver grains of sand. The five-color paper strips I have written them. The stars twinkle, Watching from above.
Date The original Tanabata date was based on the Japanese lunisolar calendar, which is about a month behind the Gregorian calendar. As a result, some festivals are held on 7 July, some are held on a few days around 7 August (according to the "One-Month Delay" way), while the others are still held on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the traditional Japanese lunisolar calendar, which is usually in August in the Gregorian Calendar.
The Gregorian dates of "the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the Japanese lunisolar calendar" for the coming years are: 2018: August 17 2019: August 7 2020: August 25