The Meaning of Ningyo

In Japanese, the character nin means person, people, or human. The character gyo (or more precisely gyou) means form or shape. When written together as ningyo, the literal translation is "human form." Ningyo is the Japanese term for doll, and is also used to refer to a variety of other miniature crafted objects.

The Origins of Japan's Hakata Dolls

Hakata and the Yamakasa Festival

Kyushu is the Southernmost of the four main islands that form Japan. On Kyushu's Northern shore lies Hakata, a bustling merchant district steeped in history. Hakata Bay was the site of Kublai Kahn's ill-fated Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281. The notion of kamikaze arose from those tremendous Japanese victories, as typhoons proved devastating for the Mongol forces during both of the invasions.

Hakata is also renowned for a dramatic summer festival called the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival (or simply, Yamakasa), which may provide a link to the origins of doll making in the area.

The Yamakasa festival is a 760-year-old rite of the Kushida Shrine, which lies in the heart of old Hakata. (The Kushida Shrine itself was founded in 757 AD, and among the relics held there are anchor stones recovered from the Mongol invasion fleets). Tradition holds that the Yamakasa festival was born of events surrounding an epidemic which struck Hakata in 1242. A legendary Buddhist priest named Shoichi Kokushi was determined to battle the spreading plague, and did so by praying astride a portable shrine (segakidana) that was carried by townsmen throughout the area. (A far-less dramatic explanation is that Yamakasa may have originated from a 10th century ceremony called daijo-e, in which a float adorned with flowers and ornamental birds was marched all the way to Kyoto as a tribute to new emperors).

Regardless of its origins, the main event of the Yamakasa festival has further evolved into a cacophonous race of men clad in loin cloths (shimekomi) and happi coats, carrying massive one-ton floats through old Hakata on their shoulders at dangerous speeds. These floats are extravagantly decorated with enormous dolls constructed by Hakata Doll makers. The motifs of these dolls often echo those of true Hakata Dolls: characters from Japanese lore and classic literature, Kabuki theater, Ukiyo-e wood prints, and even Japanese pop culture. The floats once grew to heights of 16 meters (52.5 feet). However, with the construction of telegraph and electrical lines in 1897, these towering floats could no longer be raced through the streets. The racing floats (kakiyama) were reduced to heights of 5 meters (16.4 feet), and the towering kazariyama floats were placed on display throughout Fukuoka City.

Doll makers have been decorating the Yamakasa floats for centuries. In the Edo period (1603 to 1868), doll-makers from Kyoto were often called down to Hakata and housed around the Kushida Shrine to craft dolls for the festival. However, the very first known instance of an artist producing a doll for a Hakata festival is in 1437. In this year, a Kyoto artist known as Sensaimon was summoned to Hakata for the purpose of creating a special doll. This doll was to be housed inside a portable holy shrine used in a local Hakata festival.

It is uncertain as to whether or not Sensaimon was creating a doll for the Yamakasa festival. However, he did live out the rest of his life in Hakata, where he passed the art of doll making on to his descendents. It is for this reason that Sensaimon is attributed with introducing the art of doll making to Hakata.

Soshichi's Roof Tile Clay

Historians and modern-day Hakata Doll makers often point to a roof tiler known as Masaki Soshichi as the great patriarch of Hakata Dolls. While working on Kuroda Nagamasa's Fukuoka Castle in 1601, Soshichi began using clay from the castle's ceramic roof tiles to craft unglazed (suyaki) dolls. It is said that his dolls gained notoriety after he presented them as gifts to his lord, Kuroda Nagamasa. Soshichi's Hakata Suyaki Ningyo were of such quality that he was granted the title of Goyoyakimono Shi, or Ceramics Master.

The Soshichi family produced dolls that were used in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines for generations. However, the fourth-generation Soshichi found that his son was unworthy of carrying on the family's great name, owing to his alcoholism and apathy. The father decided to pass on the secrets of doll making to his daughter instead, in an effort to keep the family's reputation intact. She in turn taught the family secrets to her son, who unfortunately also suffered from alcoholism. The legacy of the Soshichi family ended abruptly in 1858, when this sixth-generation Soshichi son died without passing on the the family traditions that had been part of their name for centuries.

The Attention of the World

In the year 1900, Hakata Dolls were introduced to the fifty million visitors of the Exposition Universelle in Paris, France. The dolls proceeded to earn gobal recognition as an art form when the master doll maker Yoichi Kojima won the silver prize for his Three Dancing Girls dolls at the French Exposition of the 1924 World's Fair. In 1976, the Japanese government officially recognized Hakata Dolls as a Traditional National Art.