Tanabata Festival
Tanabata (七夕, tanabata?, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, related to the Chinese star festival, Qixi．.
Tanabata celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). According to legend, the Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The celebration is held at night.
The festival originated from The Festival to Plead for Skills (乞巧奠; きっこうでん), an alternative name for Qi Xi, which was celebrated in China and also was adopted in the Kyoto Imperial Palace from the Heian Period. The festival spread to the general public by the early Edo period, became mixed with various Obon or Bon (盆）traditions (because Bon was held on 15th of the seventh month then), and developed into the modern Tanabata festival. In the Edo period, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship, and boys wished for better handwriting by writing wishes on strips of paper. At this time, the custom was to use dew left on taro leaves to create the ink used to write wishes. Incidentally, Bon is now held on 15 August on the solar calendar, close to its original date on the lunar calendar, making Tanabata and Bon as further separate events.
Tanabata Matsuri Festival
The name Tanabata is remotely related to the Japanese reading of the Chinese letters 七夕, which used to be read as "Shichiseki" (しちせき). It is believed that a Shinto purification ceremony existed around the same time, in which a Shinto miko wove a special cloth on a loom called a Tanabata 棚機 (たなばた) near waters and offered it to a god to pray for protection of rice crops from rain or storm and for good harvest later in autumn. Gradually this ceremony merged with 乞巧奠（きっこうでん, (The Festival to Plead for Skills) and became Tanabata 七夕. Oddly the Chinese writing 七夕 and the Japanese reading Tanabata (たなばた) joined to mean the same festival, although originally they were two different things, an example of ateji.
Orihime (織姫, Weaving Princess?), daughter of the Tentei (天帝, Sky King, or the universe itself?), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (天の川, Milky Way, lit. "heavenly river"?). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星, Cow Herder Star?) (also referred to as Kengyuu (牽牛?)) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet.
Tanabata Festival
Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.
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