Dolls Keep Tradition Of Friendship Handmade Dolls On Display At Annual Mukogawa Festival

They represent joy and pain.

In their native Japan, the white-faced dolls are more than just toys; they’re revered members of the family. When they “die” by becoming too tattered to play with, their bodies are burned and scattered into the ocean.

“Dolls are a part of our selves,” said Michiko Takaoka, director of the Japanese Cultural Center at Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute. “They’re like human beings. They feel what we feel.”

The 100 dolls, handmade by Japanese artisans, are the guests of honor this week at Mukogawa’s annual Friendship Doll Festival.

They are part of a thousand-year-old tradition called Hina Matsuri or Girl’s Day. Every March 3, Japanese girls and their dolls are honored with a feast of sushi, fish cakes and other traditional foods. They also receive good wishes for their health and well-being in the coming year.

Mukogawa will celebrate both Girl’s Day and the doll festival with a special Hina Matsuri program Tuesday at the Japanese Cultural Center.

The event features the 1997 Friendship Dolls - all with black hair, almond-shaped eyes and porcelain-white faces. Boy dolls are dressed in dark-colored outfits called hakamas, while females wear embroidered kimonos complete with parasols and sandals.

As part of the 50-year-old Friendship Doll program started by an American missionary, new dolls are crafted each year and shipped to the United States. Each doll comes with a Japanese passport and a one-way ticket.

After a monthlong display at Mukogawa’s Japanese Cultural Center, the dolls find homes in schools and museums across the country. Recipients this year include Orchard Prairie School, Sacajawea Middle School and a handful of other Spokane institutions.

In addition to the ambassador dolls, the 1997 festival highlights a doll collection built in a 1942 Colorado internment camp.

The dolls make up a Hina set, a traditional display of an emperor, empress and their royal court found in many Japanese homes. They represent the health, wealth and happiness of a family, said Patrice Pendell, the cultural center’s activity coordinator.

“The (Hina sets) are about family, the home and mothers,” she said. “They represent hope for the future. They celebrate the female side of the family.”

Terry Kosakura of Los Angeles, who watched her mother make the set when she was 4 years old, recalled the poor conditions in the Amache, Colo., internment camp and how her mother saved everything to make the Hina set.

“My mother worked like a machine,” Kosakura said during a phone interview. “We had nothing, but she wanted to observe the festivals.”

The 1942 set - made with wood, balls of yarn and crocheted material - is one of about two dozen sets built after the war that are on display at the cultural center.

Some are elaborate pieces made of porcelain and gold with handpainted faces and intricate embroidery. Others are made of simpler material - wood, origami paper or stones. Most are made up of two pieces - the emperor and empress - but a few are 15-piece collections complete with musicians and servants, even furniture.

The Hina dolls also vary in size. While some are as tall as a Barbie doll, others are no bigger than a toddler’s pinky.

Hina sets usually are passed down from mother to daughter, said Takaoka, who lost her set when the Japanese city Kobe was bombed during World War II.

They’re also honored with flowers and diamond-shaped rice cakes dyed in white, pastel pink and green.

“The dolls have souls and personalities,” Takaoka said. “They become a girl’s best friend.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: HINA MATSURI Hina Matsuri, a celebration of dolls as ambassadors of friendship, takes place Tuesday at Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute’s Japanese Cultural Center starting at 10:15 a.m. The event is free, but reservations are needed. Call Patrice Pendell at 328-2971, ext. 203, for more information.