A Retirement Home or Needles

Hari-Kuyou is the Japanese festival celebrated on December 8th in Kansai (area around Kyoto) and February 8th in Kanto (area around Tokyo). It is held at both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples for honoring needles broken while working by their seamstress’s throughout the last year. The person who broke the needle or needles, would bring them to the shrine or temple and say prayers for their forgiveness or pray for more skill at their craft. Often the broken needles are inserted into tofu or konyaku to show kindness and care for them. I believe the shrine or temple will dispose of the broken needles later. December 8th is the time to celebrate Hari-Kuyou in Kanto region (Kyoto and Osaka area). While February 8th is the time to celebrate it in the Kanto region (Tokyo area).

Why Do People Do Hari-Kuyou

Why go through all this trouble for broken needles? Hari-Kuyou is an event that has something to do with everything has “kami” or a divine spirit. Of course Shinto is famous for worshipping oddly shaped rocks and mountains, certain deceased people, and places with just a special feel about them. But everyday items also have a “kami” and you have to take special care for them as well.

[drop]H[/dropcap]ari-Kuyou is a ceremony to lay to rest the spirit of a needle that has served its mistress faithfully. If not shown the proper respect the needle’s “kami” may become vengeful and form into an “onryo” or vengeful spirit that can bring on all kinds of bad luck. It is customary to show some kind of care when disposing of things that you have use for a long. Even to the point of saying “Thank you” to them and not just tossing them away. For example, laboratories that do experiments on animals will sometimes do a special Shinto ceremony to say thank you and ask forgiveness from the animals that perished.

References

In English

https://www.japan-experience.com/city-tokyo/hari-kuyo

https://www.discoverkyoto.com/event-calendar/december/hari-kuyo-horinji/

In Japanese

http://www.i-nekko.jp/matsuritoasobi/fuyu/hari-kuyo/

http://www.senso-ji.jp/annual_event/06.html

Photo thanks to 豊瀬源一 @ WikiMedia.org.

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