The Japanese Doll Festival (Hinamatsuri), or girl's day, was celebrated on March 3rd. What people do is they put up a display of dolls. According to
Wikipedia, these dolls were originally believed to contain bad spirits. I don't know if people still believe that, but they do continue to display dolls.
Like so many things in Japan, the placement of the dolls follows strict rules that everybody seems to obey. Although I have seen only one Hina doll display, it matched the one displayed on the Wikipedia article quite closely.
As you can see, there's an emperor and empress on the top level. On levels two to five, they are followed by court ladies, musicians, ministers, and helpers. Various objects occupy the last two levels. Have a look at some of the details:
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| Top level: the empress |
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| Second level: one of the court ladies |
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| Third level: a musician |
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| Fourth level: a minister |
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| Fifth level: one of the helpers (unhappy looking chap, ain't he?) |
All in all, I think that the doll display is rather indicative of Japanese society in general: very hierarchical, and with very strict rules that people obey without questioning.
