Official

Kiichiro Kikuchi "Edo Prefectural Picture Book Customs Traffic" National Diet Library Digital Collection

It's just a day to decorate the Tanabata decorations. They decorate them on the 6th and remove them in the evening of the 7th and throw them away in the river. It is surprising to modern people who have been taught that dumping into rivers and the sea leads to environmental pollution that it is natural to throw so many bamboo decorations into the river. Depending on the region, there is also an event called bamboo sinking that puts strips on small bamboo grass with a wish for Tanabata into the river, so is it close to that? For the time being, it was just one day, so I was useless to worry about the decorations would be tattered by the day of Tanabata.

According to "Edo Prefectural Picture Book Customs Traffic", on July 6th, bamboo merchants carry bamboo and sell it while shouting "Bamboo Ya ~ Bamboo ~" (page on the right side of the picture). It seems that he always buys "until every door back house". I thought that it would be a big robe anyway, but Moris Kitagawa's `` Morisada who writes on the roof of the children's work on the roof of the Tanabata paper in Osaka '' on the roof of the children. In Edo, there are many houses with no children who have children in the Edo period. It may not have been an exaggeration to say that all houses buy bamboo in Edo. However, the mourning house did not seem to have done Tanabata decorations.

So what was the decoration like? The decorations were made and purchased by themselves. It seems that "strip selling" came to sell by hanging colorful strips on a stick, but it is depicted in Kiyoshi Shimizu's style "Setodo customs Zukai". According to "Picture Book Customs Traffic", it says, "There are several hozuki like prayer beads." You can see a red circle connected to the right end of the first Hiroshige's ukiyo-e (on the watermelon decoration). Is this correct? "Arai cut with colored paper" This is still in the Tanabata decoration as a net decoration. It is cut into a net pattern by putting scissors on origami. That's why Hiroshige's ukiyo-e and "Edo Prefectural Picture Book Customs Traffic" have relatively large mesh-shaped triangles. There are "blew sinks", "inkstones and brushes", "watermelon cuts", "drums, drums", "abacus", "daifuku book", "fish", "cup", etc. (It is not found in the above picture but shown in the references) Including those). All of these are made of paper. It seems that some were not only cut out paper but also reinforced with bamboo bones. The teacher of Japanese calligraphy, a child, seems to have asked the children to write Tanabata poems on strips to improve their brushstrokes. Merchants wished for prosperous business in Daifuku Book and abacus. "The moxibustion pillow decoration that was not featured in the box pillow" is a drawer of the accessory case attached to the base? What is the shape of moxibustion? Also, what does this decoration mean? What kind of wish did you have? I'd like to continue to check.

Edited by Mamichi Kurokawa, "Japan Customs Figures" National Diet Library Digital Collection

"Today, the wells are going to be dred on the wells in the middle of the wells. When I think about the gorgeous Tanabata decoration of Edo, there is a well dred in "Edo Prefecture customs traffic". I knew that on Tanabata Day, the town of Edo seemed to dredge wells all at once. In the town of Edo, even if a well was dug for a landfill, only salty water came out, and it was troubled by securing drinking water. So Kanda Josui and Tamagawajosui were pulled and the water flowed throughout the town. I don't use a pump or the like. Using the height difference of the land, wooden gutters were stretched underground to flow water, and from there, water was drawn to each well with bamboo gutters. It's a wonderful water supply technology. All wells are connected underground, so if you do not clean them all at once, dirty water will flow to the well ahead if it remains dirty somewhere. That's why I decided the date to Tanabata and cleaned it all at once. It seems that this cleaning was to start on July 6 and finish in the morning of July 7. I went out of the family in the city one by one to help the well craftsman. The procedure is to remove the makeup side of the well (the part that appears on the ground), lower the rope by car (in the picture above, it seems that a rope is hung on the crotch of the tree), lower the tub and use the communal well Everyone comes out and pulls together to pump up water. That's the picture above. After pumping the water from the well for about 7 minutes and drying it, the next is the well craftsman's turn. A well craftsman enters the well, washs the well side, picks up the accumulated items at the bottom, collects them all, and drys them. After that, attach the makeup side as it is and finish it. Finally, I will serve sacred wine and salt. Work in a deep well was dangerous, so the craftsman would have done it.

Why did the well dred in Tanabata? I'll guess it. Tanabata in old calendar during the Edo period is August. Cleaning the well during the hot season may have had the effect of preventing the plague. By deciding to do a well dred on the Tanabata day of the event in which all houses participate, everyone may have been able to participate in the well dredging without forgetting in the wide Edo city. As soon as Tanabata is over, the Yulan Bonkai will be held from July 13th to 15th. You may have had the purpose of welcoming your ancestors with clean water.

Why do we dred well in Tanabata? I thought it was actually an event that made sense.

1-9-2 Kyobashi, the site of Hiroshige Utagawa residence

The place where Hiroshige lived is now a town lined with buildings. The remains of Hiroshige's residence are also in the middle of a new building. The crane towered high in the sky instead of bamboo decorations (end of May 2023). Hiroshige wouldn't have imagined it would be like this.

How do you spend this year's Tanabata? In families without small children, you may not decorate Tanabata. Why don't you think about your wishes or think about events from the Edo period without decorating?

[References]

"Edo Prefectural Picture Book Customs Traffic" Kanichiro Kikuchi Ao Frogfusa

"Morisada Kitagawa Bunko" Morisada