A king doll, with two handmaidens.

Hinamatsuri or Girls' Day, (雛祭, ひなまつり;) is the Doll Festival in Japan. On 3rd of March, people display dolls (雛人形; hinaningyō) dressed in old-style kimonos. Tiered platforms are used to display a set of dolls representing the emperor, empress, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress. The custom of displaying dolls began during the Edo period. Formerly, people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits in their bodies, and would thus save the owner from dangerous encounters.

The origin of Hinamatsuri is Hinanagashi (雛流し; literally, "doll floating";) in which paper dolls are put into a boat and sent on a journey down a river into the sea, taking with them the bad spirits.

It is a celebration especially for girls, and is sometimes called the "Girl's Festival".

The customary drink for the festival is amazake, a sweet, non-alcoholic, beverage made from fermented rice or sake lees.

Every family with a girl child has a dolls set. There are many legends about this Matsuri (festival), one of them is this: if the family forgot to retry the whole set before the night of 4th March, the girl won't marry before the next year

See also

• Holidays of Japan