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Takarabune
In Japanese folklore, the ''Takarabune'' (), or "Treasure Ship", is a mythical ship piloted through the heavens by the Seven Lucky Gods during the first three days of the New Year. A picture of the ship forms an essential part of traditional Japanese people, Japanese New Year celebrations. The ship During the first three days of the New Year the Seven Lucky Gods are said to pilot through the heavens and into human ports a mythical ship called the ''Takarabune'', or "Treasure Ship". The gods carry with them ''takaramono'' (), or treasure things, including the , , the inexhaustible purse ( ''kanebukuro''), the secret keys to the treasure shed of the gods ( ''kagi''), the scrolls of books of wisdom and life ( ''makimono''), the magic mallet ( ''kozuchi''), the , the , and the bag of fortune ( ''nunobukuro''). Woodblock prints A picture of the ship forms an essential part of traditional Japanese people, Japanese New Year celebrations. According to custom, placing a ''Takarabune' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Takarabune By Hiroshige
In Japanese folklore, the ''Takarabune'' (), or "Treasure Ship", is a mythical ship piloted through the heavens by the Seven Lucky Gods during the first three days of the New Year. A picture of the ship forms an essential part of traditional Japanese people, Japanese New Year celebrations. The ship During the first three days of the New Year the Seven Lucky Gods are said to pilot through the heavens and into human ports a mythical ship called the ''Takarabune'', or "Treasure Ship". The gods carry with them ''takaramono'' (), or treasure things, including the , , the inexhaustible purse ( ''kanebukuro''), the secret keys to the treasure shed of the gods ( ''kagi''), the scrolls of books of wisdom and life ( ''makimono''), the magic mallet ( ''kozuchi''), the , the , and the bag of fortune ( ''nunobukuro''). Woodblock prints A picture of the ship forms an essential part of traditional Japanese people, Japanese New Year celebrations. According to custom, placing a ''Takarabune' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seven Lucky Gods
In Japanese mythology, the Seven Lucky Gods or Seven Gods of Fortune (, shichifukujin in Japanese) are believed to grant good luck and are often represented in netsuke and in artworks. One of the seven (Jurōjin) is said to be based on a historical figure. They all began as remote and impersonal gods, but gradually became much closer canonical figures for certain professions and Japanese arts. During the course of their history, the mutual influence between gods has created confusion about which of them was the patron of certain professions. The worship of this group of gods is also due to the importance of the number seven in Japan, supposedly a signifier of good luck. Origin and history It is known that these deities mostly have their origins as ancient gods of fortune from religions popular in Japan: from Mahayana Buddhism (Benzaiten, Bishamonten, Daikokuten) which came to Japan from China but originated in India, and from Chinese Taoism (Fukurokuju, Hotei, Jurojin); except f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hatsuyume
In Japanese culture, a is the first dream one has in the new year. Traditionally, the contents of such a dream would foretell the luck of the dreamer in the ensuing year. In Japan, the night of December 31 was often passed without sleeping, so the ''hatsuyume'' is often experienced during the night of January 1; the day after the night of the "first dream" is also known as the ''hatsuyume''. This day is January 2 in the Gregorian calendar, but was different in the traditional Japanese calendar. It is considered to be particularly good luck to dream of Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant. This belief has been in place since the early Edo period but there are various theories regarding the origins as to why this particular combination was considered to be auspicious. One theory suggests that this combination is lucky because Mount Fuji is Japan's highest mountain, the hawk is a clever and strong bird, and the word for eggplant (, ''nasu'' or ''nasubi'') suggests achieving somethi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Folklore
Japanese folklore encompasses the informally learned folk traditions of Japan and the Japanese people as expressed in its oral traditions, customs, and material culture. In Japanese, the term is used to describe folklore. The academic study of folklore is known as . Folklorists also employ the term or to refer to the objects and arts they study. Folk religion Men dressed as namahage, wearing ogre-like masks and traditional straw capes (''mino'') make rounds of homes, in an annual ritual of the Oga Peninsula area of the Northeast region. These ogre-men masquerade as kami looking to instill fear in the children who are lazily idling around the fire. This is a particularly colorful example of folk practice still kept alive. A parallel custom is the secretive ritual of the Yaeyama Islands, Okinawa which does not allow itself to be photographed. Many, though increasingly fewer households maintain a kamidana or a small Shinto altar shelf. The Shinto version of the kitchen go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Year
New Year is the time or day currently at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system today, New Year occurs on January 1 ( New Year's Day, preceded by New Year's Eve). This was also the first day of the year in the original Julian calendar and the Roman calendar (after 153 BC). Other cultures observe their traditional or religious New Year's Day according to their own customs, typically (though not invariably) because they use a lunar calendar or a lunisolar calendar. Chinese New Year, the Islamic New Year, Tamil New Year (Puthandu), and the Jewish New Year are among well-known examples. India, Nepal, and other countries also celebrate New Year on dates according to their own calendars that are movable in the Gregorian calendar. During the Middle Ages in Western Europe, while the Julian calendar was still in use, au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese People
The are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago."人類学上は，旧石器時代あるいは縄文時代以来，現在の北海道〜沖縄諸島（南西諸島）に住んだ集団を祖先にもつ人々。" () Japanese people constitute 97.9% of the population of the country of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 129 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 122.5 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live outside Japan are referred to as , the Japanese diaspora. Depending on the context, the term may be limited or not to mainland Japanese people, specifically the Yamato (as opposed to Ryukyuan and Ainu people). Japanese people are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world. In recent decades, there has also been an increase in the number of multiracial people with both Japanese and non-Japanese roots, including half Japanese people. History Theories of origins Archaeological evidence indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woodblock Printing
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is created by carving a wooden block to leave only some areas and lines at the original level; it is these that are inked and show in the print, in a relief printing process. Carving the blocks is skilled and laborious work, but a large number of impressions can then be printed. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220 AD. Woodblock printing existed in Tang China by the 7th century AD and remained the most common East Asian method of printing books and other texts, as well as images, until the 19th century. ''Ukiyo-e'' is the best-known type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique for printing images on paper are covered by the art term woodcut, except for the bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muromachi Period
The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ''shōgun'', Ashikaga Takauji, two years after the brief Kenmu Restoration (1333–1336) of imperial rule was brought to a close. The period ended in 1573 when the 15th and last shogun of this line, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, was driven out of the capital in Kyoto by Oda Nobunaga. From a cultural perspective, the period can be divided into the Kitayama and Higashiyama cultures (later 15th – early 16th centuries). The early years from 1336 to 1392 of the Muromachi period are known as the '' Nanboku-chō'' or Northern and Southern Court period. This period is marked by the continued resistance of the supporters of Emperor Go-Daigo, the emperor behind the Kenmu Restoration. The Sengoku period or Warring States period, which begi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edo Period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, a stable population, perpetual peace, and popular enjoyment of arts and culture. The period derives its name from Edo (now Tokyo), where on March 24, 1603, the shogunate was officially established by Tokugawa Ieyasu. The period came to an end with the Meiji Restoration and the Boshin War, which restored imperial rule to Japan. Consolidation of the shogunate The Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's regional '' daimyo''. A revolution took place from the time of the Kamakura shogunate, which existed with the Tennō's court, to the Tok ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palindrome
A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as the words ''madam'' or ''racecar'', the date and time ''11/11/11 11:11,'' and the sentence: "A man, a plan, a canal – Panama". The 19-letter Finnish word ''saippuakivikauppias'' (a soapstone vendor), is the longest single-word palindrome in everyday use, while the 12-letter term ''tattarrattat'' (from James Joyce in ''Ulysses'') is the longest in English. The word ''palindrome'' was introduced by English poet and writer Henry Peacham in 1638.Henry Peacham, ''The Truth of our Times Revealed out of One Mans Experience'', 1638p. 123/ref> The concept of a palindrome can be dated to the 3rd-century BCE, although no examples survive; the first physical examples can be dated to the 1st-century CE with the Latin acrostic word square, the Sator Square (contains both word and sentence palindromes), and the 4th-century Greek Byzantine sentence palindrome ''nipson ano ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Folk Religion
Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintoists'', although adherents rarely use that term themselves. There is no central authority in control of Shinto, with much diversity of belief and practice evident among practitioners. A polytheistic and animistic religion, Shinto revolves around supernatural entities called the . The are believed to inhabit all things, including forces of nature and prominent landscape locations. The are worshiped at household shrines, family shrines, and ''jinja'' public shrines. The latter are staffed by priests, known as , who oversee offerings of food and drink to the specific enshrined at that location. This is done to cultivate harmony between humans and and to solicit the latter's blessing. Other common rituals include the dances, rites of passag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
