Meiji Jingu Doll Appreciation Festival

Meiji Jingu Doll Appreciation Festival, a set on Flickr.

In Japan, a person's doll is thought to be animated with a spirit, so when it's time to get rid of the dolls, you can't just throw them in the trash. You take them to the shrine on Doll Appreciation Day to be blessed or exorcised. A donation of 3000 yen or more is required. Judging by the people we watched handing over department store bags full of dolls and stuffed animals, it seems like this amount might cover as many as you like. A guide who was walking around with an info sheet in four languages said that they expected about 40,000 dolls to have been brought in on the one day. Even if a few people squeezed in an attic-ful of dolls in one go, that's a lot of money for the shrine.
They were separated by type to some extent: a row of tall southern belles with cartoon eyes here, some kewpie dolls there, an assembly of seated porcelain emperor and empress dolls spread out at the front. The variety was astonishing. There was a patch of Winnie the Poos (including one huge fellow with stuffing puffing out of where his right arm had been) from different eras clustered like a multi-year class reunion. There were traditional wooden kokeshi and the square Ainu figures that resemble totem poles. A few brand new Pokemon, as bright yellow as the day they were won (surely) in a street fair or amusement park. One or two old toddler-sized hard plastic dolls with eyes that slide open when they sit up, like we used to have in our own attic. In fact, I felt like I recognized at least a dozen as dolls that I'd had or seen growing up.
At four pm, a priest in white robes and tall black lacquered clogs sanctified the dolls by waving a bundle of young bamboo branches over them. Immediately, a team of older people with participant armbands began unpacking shopping bags and cardboard boxes to take them away. I asked the guide where they would be burned. "Someplace else," she said, and closed the conversation.
There were two dolls so caked in dirt that I couldn't help wondering if they'd drowned in the tsunami. I went back to take a picture of them and noticed they were gone before the collection started.