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Apart from having breathtaking historical landmarks, Japan also have many awesome handicrafts. We shall take a look at some traditional Japanese dolls for our  Today’s Japan photo series.

I saw this photo on Mainichi Japan today and the hina dolls in this photo are so lovely that I immediately thought to myself that I must share it with my readers.

Here’s the description of the photo taken from Mainichi Japan as well:

A traditional craftsman with a doll making career spanning 47 years makes colorful hina dolls at Kuroda Ningyo, a doll maker in the Saitama Prefecture city of Koshigaya, prior to March 3′s Hina Matsuri, or Doll Festival. Dolls sold in pairs are priced between 150,000 and 230,000 yen at the maker. (Mainichi)

And here’s some more historical information on the Hina dolls:

The custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period. Formerly, people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits.

Hinamatsuri traces its origins to an ancient Japanese custom called hina-nagashi [雛流し], in which straw hina dolls are set afloat on a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles or bad spirits with them. The Shimogamo Shrine (part of the Kamo Shrine complex in Kyoto) celebrates the Nagashibina by floating these dolls between the Takano and Kamo Rivers to pray for the safety of children.

Also people have stopped doing this now because of fishermen catching the dolls in their nets. They now send them out in to the sea, and when the spectators are gone they take the boats out of the water and bring them back to the temple and burn them.