Tsurushi Kazari (Hanging ornaments) (吊るし飾り)
Tsurushi kazari is one of the traditional art crafts. On the occasion of the Dolls' Festival on March 3, dolls made of cloths are hung at the tip of a string. Tsurushi kazari sometimes refers to interior decorations using origami paper crafts or beads hung at the tip of a string.
Sagemon, or something to be hung, of Yanagawa City in Fukuoka Prefecture, Hina no tsurushi kazari of Inatori district, Higashi Izu-cho in Shizuoka Prefecture, and Kasafuku of Sakata City in Yamagata Prefecture are called Japan's great three art crafts.
Sagemons are ornaments used during the Dolls' Festival in Yanagawa district. They are called Sagemon or Sagarimono.
From March 1 through April 3 on the lunar calendar, 'Sagemon tour' is convened and sagemons decorate each household.
Both sides of the tiered stand for hina dolls are decorated with one set of two rings of bamboo sticks wrapped with crepes, with each of seven strings hanging seven cloth dolls (49 dolls in total) and two Yanagawa mari balls in the centers of the rings. A small size sagemon generally uses five strings, 25 dolls (or 55 dolls in total) and one mari ball. For more details, please see Section of Sagemon.
Hina no tsurushi kazari
Hina no tsurushi kazari is an ornament used on the occasion of the Dolls' Festival in Inatori district in Izu.
It is called 'Hina no tsurushi kazari,' or 'tsurushi.'
It is believed to originate from the custom to decorate a hand-made doll in place of the hina dolls. Since Hina no tsurushi kazari used to be burned in the don don yaki (a Shinto blessing of objects after a daughter comes to age), old ones do not exist and the oldest one is said to be a hundred years old or so. It became out of fashion and obsolete after the World War Two but it revived in the Heisei period starting in 1989, mainly thanks to the effort of Inatori Ladies' Club.
Both sides of the tiered stand for hina dolls are decorated with one set of two rings of bamboo sticks wrapped with crepes, with each of five strings hanging eleven cloth dolls (55 dolls in total). For more details, please see Section of Hina no tsurushi kazari.
Kasafuku
Kasafuku is an ornament used on the occasion of the Dolls' Festival in Sakata district. Kasafuku has two different spellings in kanji, or Chinese characters. Kasafuku allegedly came via kitamae koro (an east-to-west sea route developed in the Edo period that transported goods from northeast Japan through the Tsugaru and Kanmon straits to Osaka on the Inland Sea). Wishing their children's sound growth, people started to hang from an umbrella hand-made items believed to bring good luck. With a cloth attached inside the umbrella, cloth dolls are hung at the tip of the strings tied to the ribs of the umbrella. For more details, please see Section of Kasafuku.