THE FEAST OF DOLLS.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Issue 27, 26 November 1898, Page 4

THE FEAST OF DOLLS.

Once a year little girls in Japan have a good time. The feast of dolli takes place on the third day of the third month. At this time all the dolls of the family, some of them hundreds of years old, are brought out,, and for three days great festivities are carried on. There are dolls dressed like the Mikado and his wife in antique court costumes, daimios, samurais, and so on down the social scale, each ancestry earned on with great nicety and precision. Oftentimes all the household furniture in miniature is packed away with the dolls and brought out on feast days. At such times the trays, bowls, cups" and rice basket! are filled with tiny scraps of food, and the dolls fare sumptuously during tho three days of the feast. A delicate kind of take which is harm - less, is brewed for this occasion,- and' everything is done -for the household of ' dolls as carefully and a* if they were real creatures of flesh and blood. The tiniest of ■ combs arid brushes and other toilet accessories, such 'as paint and powder, red and white, as well as the liquid^ for blackening the teeth when the doU is married— all are, there, the smallest 'piece.' made with, as much care and finish as if it were to belong to the Mikado himself .i • , t S ree **&'s* girls run riot-witlT their dolls f and toys, and then; the latter ' are again locked up s in-thy storehouse lo - remaur another, ye.ar without seemg 1 ' tKe f light. -Rather ;hard- lines "for the little 4 . ones;,; is^^it^^ThfrOutlodi; ' " "■/ ' ™*