
, also known as the , is a
Japanese festival originating from the Chinese
Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars
Vega and
Altair
Altair is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila (constellation), Aquila and the list of brightest stars, twelfth-brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation Alpha Aquilae, which is Latinisation of name ...
respectively). According to legend, the
Milky Way
The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...
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
A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, that combines monthly lunar cycles with the solar year. As with all calendars which divide the year into months, there is an additional requirement that the year have a whole number of mont ...
. The date of Tanabata varies by region of the country, but the first festivities begin on 7 July of the
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It went into effect in October 1582 following the papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII, which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian cale ...
. The celebration is held at various days between July and August.
History
The festival was introduced to Japan by the
Empress Kōken in 755. It originated from , an alternative name for
Qixi which is celebrated in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
and also was adopted in the
Kyoto Imperial Palace from the
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...
.
The festival gained widespread popularity amongst the general public by the early
Edo period
The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
,
when it became mixed with various
Obon or Bon traditions (because Bon was held on 15th of the seventh month then), and developed into the modern Tanabata festival. Popular customs relating to the festival varied by region of the country,
but generally, girls wished for better
sewing and
craftsmanship, and boys wished for better
handwriting
Handwriting in Italian schools (XXth - XXIst century)
Handwriting is the personal and unique style of writing with a writing instrument, such as a pen or pencil in the hand. Handwriting includes both block and cursive styles and is separa ...
by writing wishes on strips of paper. At this time, the custom was to use
dew
Dew is water in the form of droplets that appears on thin, exposed objects in the morning or evening due to condensation.
As the exposed surface cools by thermal radiation, radiating its heat, atmospheric moisture condenses at a rate grea ...
left on
taro
Taro (; ''Colocasia esculenta'') is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, stems and Petiole (botany), petioles. Taro corms are a ...
leaves to create the ink used to write wishes. Incidentally, Bon is now held on 15 August on the
solar calendar
A solar calendar is a calendar whose dates indicates the season or almost equivalently the apparent position of the Sun relative to the stars. The Gregorian calendar, widely accepted as a standard in the world, is an example of a solar calendar ...
, close to its original date on the
lunar calendar
A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases ( synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based on the solar year, and lunisolar calendars, whose lunar months are br ...
, making Tanabata and Bon separate events.
The name Tanabata is remotely related to the
Japanese reading of the Chinese characters 七夕, which used to be read as "Shichiseki" (see
explanation about the various kanji readings). It is believed that a
Shinto
, also called Shintoism, is a religion originating in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religions, East Asian religion by Religious studies, scholars of religion, it is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as ...
purification ceremony existed around the same time, in which a Shinto
miko
A , or shrine maiden,Groemer, 28. is a young priestess who works at a Shinto shrine. were once likely seen as Shamanism, shamans,Picken, 140. but are understood in modern Japanese culture to be an institutionalized role in daily life, trained ...
wove a special cloth on a loom called a and offered it to a god to pray for protection of
rice
Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...
crops from rain or storm and for good harvest later in autumn. Gradually this ceremony merged with ''Kikkōden'' to become ''Tanabata''. The Chinese characters 七夕 and the Japanese reading ''Tanabata'' joined to mean the same festival, although originally they were two different things, an example of ''
jukujikun
are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...
''.
Story
Like Qixi and
Chilseok
Chilseok () is a Korean traditional festival which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Korean lunisolar calendar, originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. Chilseok is a period where the heat starts to dwindle and the Wet se ...
, Tanabata was inspired by the famous
Chinese folklore story, "
The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl". Some versions were included in the ''
Man'yōshū
The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...
''.
The most popular version is as follows:
, daughter of the , wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the . 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 (also referred to as ) 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 would no longer 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. 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
magpie
Magpies are birds of various species of the family Corvidae. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent c ...
s 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 because of the rise of the river and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet. The rain of this day is called "The tears of Orihime and Hikoboshi".
Names
Characters
''Orihime'' and ''Hikoboshi'' are called various names in the different versions of the story.
Festival
The Festival of ''Tanabata'' is also known by various names:
Other stories
Human male and Heavenly female
Japanese scholars pointed out that some tales of the ''Tanabata'' cross over with the character of the ''
Celestial Maiden'' (otherwise known in Japan as ''Tennin Nyoobo'' or ''Hagoromo'').
Comparative scholarship on the Japanese variants points that at the beginning of the story, the human male goes near a lake for a variety of reasons (a prayer to the gods for a wife; a vision sent in a dream; a grateful animal points him the way). Over the course of the story, the human partner reaches the celestial realm where his wife and her family live. Once there, he is forced to perform tasks before they reunite. At the end of the narrative, the husband breaks a taboo (he should not eat a certain melon/gourd, but he does and is washed away) and he and his celestial wife are separated, only to reunite again during the night of 7 July.
James Danandjaja relates the Japanese tale of ''Amafuri Otome'' ("The Woman who came from the Sky"), as a similar tale of the unmarried mortal man, named Mikeran, who withholds the
kimono from a bathing lady so she cannot fly home to the sky. Years after they marry, she finds her kimono and flies home with their children. Mikeran fashions a thousand straw sandals to reach the sky world and find his wife. When he meets his parents-in-law, the father-in-law forces him to perform some tasks, and tricks the human with cutting a thousand
watermelon
The watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Cucurbitaceae, that has a large, edible fruit. It is a Glossary of botanical terms#scandent, scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, and is plant breeding ...
s in one day. The human's sky wife knows it is a trap, but he does it anyway and is washed away by a flood created from the watermelons. Thus, they can only meet on the night of the ''Tanabata'' festival.
Human female and Heavenly male
Professors Masako Satō and
Noriko T. Reider provided a narrative analysis of an ancient tale involving a human female and her future consort, Prince
Ame-waka-hiko. In this tale of the ''
Otogi-zōshi'' genre, the Prince takes the form of a serpent and marries a human woman. He later reveals he is a heavenly deity named Dragon Prince. After some time, he disappears and his human bride must seek him out (akin to the Graeco-Roman myth of
Cupid and Psyche), even reaching the heavenly realm, where his father, an ''
oni'', lives. At the end of this tale, the lovers are forcibly separated by the oni father and can only reunite during the ''Tanabata''.
Noriko T. Reider draws attention to a second story of this combination: the "Qian Luwei Tale". In this version, the human wife's father is identified as Qian Luwei, and the male deity is Hikoboshi, the son of "Bontennō",
Brahma
Brahma (, ) is a Hindu god, referred to as "the Creator" within the Trimurti, the triple deity, trinity of Para Brahman, supreme divinity that includes Vishnu and Shiva.Jan Gonda (1969)The Hindu Trinity, Anthropos, Bd 63/64, H 1/2, pp. 212– ...
.
Customs
Tanzaku hanging on bamboo
In present-day Japan, people generally celebrate this day by writing wishes, sometimes in the form of poetry, on , small pieces of paper, and hanging them on
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...
, sometimes with other decorations (see also
Wish Tree). The bamboo and decorations are often set afloat on a river or burned after the festival, around midnight or on the next day. This is analogous to the custom of floating paper ships and candles on rivers during Obon. Many areas in Japan have their own Tanabata customs, which are mostly related to local
Obon traditions. There is also a traditional Tanabata song:
Date
The original Tanabata date was based on the Japanese lunisolar calendar, which is about a month behind the Gregorian calendar. As a result, some festivals are held on 7 July, some are held on a few days around 7 August (
according to the "One-Month Delay" way), while the others are still held on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the traditional Japanese lunisolar calendar, which is usually in August in the Gregorian Calendar.
The Gregorian dates of "the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the Japanese lunisolar calendar" for the coming years are:
* 2018: August 17
* 2019: August 7
* 2020: August 25
* 2021: August 14
* 2022: August 4
* 2023: August 22
* 2024: August 10
* 2025: August 29
* 2026: August 19
Festivals

Large-scale Tanabata festivals are held in many places in Japan, mainly along shopping malls and streets, which are decorated with large, colorful streamers. The most famous Tanabata festival is held in
Sendai
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan.
...
from 6 to 8 August. In the
Kantō area, two of the largest Tanabata festivals are held in
Hiratsuka, Kanagawa (around 7 July) and in
Asagaya,
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
immediately prior to the start of the Obon holiday in mid August. A Tanabata festival is also held in
São Paulo
São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
,
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
around the first weekend of July and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
in the beginning of August.
Although Tanabata festivals vary by region, most festivals involve Tanabata decoration competitions. Other events may include parades and Miss Tanabata contests. Like other Japanese
matsuri, many outdoor stalls sell food, provide
carnival
Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.
Carnival typi ...
games, etc., and add to the festive atmosphere.
Tokyo Disneyland
is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo. Its main gate is directly adjacent to both Maihama Station and Tokyo Disneyland Station. It was the first Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Disney park t ...
and
Tokyo DisneySea
is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, just next to Tokyo. It opened on 4 September 2001, at a cost of 335 billion yen. The Oriental Land Company owns the park, and licenses intellectual prope ...
often celebrates the Tanabata Festival featuring a greeting parade with
Minnie Mouse
Minerva "Minnie" Mouse is an American cartoon character created by the Walt Disney Company. The longtime sweetheart of Mickey Mouse, she is an anthropomorphic mouse with white gloves, a red or pink bow, blue (or pink or red) polka-dotted dress, w ...
as Orihime and
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white ...
as Hikoboshi.
File:MoriokaShoppingMall.JPG, In a shopping mall at Morioka, 2003
File:Asagaya Tanabata 09-2.jpg, Asagaya, Suginami Ward in Tokyo, 2009
File:Shōnan Hiratsuka Tanabata Matsuri -03.jpg, Hiratsuka, 2011
File:SendaiTanabata2.jpg, Sendai
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan.
...
, 2005
Sendai festival
The
Sendai
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan.
...
Tanabata Festival is the most famous in Japan. Tanabata has been celebrated in the region since the time of Date Masamune (1567–1636) who was the first
warlord
Warlords are individuals who exercise military, Economy, economic, and Politics, political control over a region, often one State collapse, without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over Militia, local ...
in the Sendai area.
The festival began shortly after the city was founded in the early
Edo Period
The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
. The Tanabata festival gradually developed and became larger over the years. Although the festival's popularity started to dwindle after the
Meiji Restoration
The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...
, and almost disappeared during the economic depression that occurred after World War I, volunteers in Sendai revived the festival in 1928 and established the tradition of holding the festival from 6 to 8 August.
During World War II it was impossible to hold the festival, and almost no decorations were seen in the city from 1943 to 1945, but after the war, the first major Tanabata festival in Sendai was held in 1946, and featured 52 decorations. In 1947, the
Showa Emperor Hirohito visited Sendai and was greeted by 5,000 Tanabata decorations. The festival subsequently developed into one of the three major summer festivals in the
Tōhoku region
The , Northeast region, , or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata.
Tōhoku retains ...
and has become a major
tourist attraction
A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement.
Types
Places of natural beaut ...
. The festival now includes a
fireworks
Fireworks are Explosive, low explosive Pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large numbe ...
show that is held on 5 August.
At the Sendai Tanabata Festival, people traditionally use seven different kinds of decorations, which each represent different meanings. The seven decorations and their symbolic meanings are:
File:Tanzaku.jpg, : Handwritten wishes for a good future to the earth and a thanks note
File:Hanging kamigoromo.jpg, : Paper decoration
File:TanabataOrizuru.jpg, : Origami decoration for long life
File:Kinchaku.jpg, : Decoration for good business
File:Toami.jpg, : Paper decoration for good fishing
File:Kuzukago.jpg, : Paper decoration for cleanliness
File:TanabataStreamer.jpg, : Paper tubular streamer for improved weaving skills
The ornamental ball (薬玉;
Kusudama) often decorated above streamers in present-day Tanabata decorations was originally conceived in 1946 by the owner of a shop in downtown Sendai. The ball was originally modeled after the
dahlia
''Dahlia'' ( , ) is a genus of bushy, tuberous, herbaceous perennial plants native to Mexico and Central America. Dahlias are members of the Asteraceae (synonym name: Compositae) family of dicotyledonous plants, its relatives include the sun ...
flower. In recent years, box-shaped ornaments have become popular alternatives to the ornamental ball. Since 2018, streamers inspired by the costumes of the
two-time Olympic figure skating
Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, with its introduction occurring at the Figure skating at the 1908 Summer Olympi ...
champion
Yuzuru Hanyu have been on display at the
Zuihōden.
G8 summit in 2008

In 2008, the
34th G8 summit in
Tōyako, Hokkaidō coincided with Tanabata. As host,
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda invited the G8 leaders to participate in the spirit of the festival. They were each asked to write a wish on a piece of paper called ''tanzaku'', to hang the ''tanzaku'' on a
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...
tree, and then to take the necessary actions to change the world for the better. As a symbolic gesture, the actual writing and the act of hanging up that note is at least a first step.
The
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs made colored strips of paper and a bamboo tree for G8 wishes available in
Roppongi during the summit. Protesting organizations in
Sapporo
is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in Hokkaido, Japan. Located in the southwest of Hokkaido, it lies within the alluvial fan of the Toyohira River, a tributary of the Ishikari River. Sapporo is the capital ...
during the G8 summit also tried to use the spirit of Tanabata to focus attention on a somewhat different set of wishes.
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...
s including
Oxfam and
CARE International set up an online wish petition campaign to coincide with the G8 Summit and Tanabata. Outside Japan, Fukuda's timely gesture had unanticipated consequences. For example, the Indian nationally circulated newspaper, ''
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...
'', picked up on this festival theme by printing an editorial featuring unconventional Tanabata wishes.
Fukuda also invited his fellow citizens to try turning off the lights in their house and stepping outside to enjoy with their family the sight of the Milky Way in the night sky. On 7 July, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment anticipated that over 70,000 facilities and households across Japan would switch off their lights from 20:00 to 22:00 as a symbolic step and as a wish for the future.
"Lights to be turned off at 72,000 facilities on Tanabata night,"
''Hokkaido Shimbun'' (Sapporo). 4 July 2008.
See also
* '' Sekidera Komachi'', a famous Noh play set during the Tanabata festival
* Mobara Tanabata Festival
* Qixi Festival
* Chilseok
Chilseok () is a Korean traditional festival which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Korean lunisolar calendar, originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. Chilseok is a period where the heat starts to dwindle and the Wet se ...
* Japanese festivals
Explanatory footnotes
References
Further reading
* Como, Michael. ''Weaving and Binding: Immigrants Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan''. University of Hawai'i Press, 2009. Accessed June 30, 2021. .
External links
{{Commons category
Kids Web Japan
Tanabata Festival in Sendai
HK
August observances
Festivals in Japan
July observances
Observances set by the traditional Japanese calendar
Shinto