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Tanabata’s Festival: old Legends vs. Popular Trends

by Carolyn Venice Mateo Camacho

Are the old legends important for our culture?
Every country around the world has many different festivals and celebrations. Most of them are based on old myths that remain nowadays.
The Japanese are no exception and likewise celebrate Tanabata, meaning “Evening of the Seventh”, which is a Japanese star festival.
All the festivals around the world have their own peculiarities, so why should we let them vanish on time?

Tanabata’s Festival celebrates the meeting of Orihime (the star Vega) and Hikoboshi (the star Altair), lovers separated by the Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, who are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The Tanabata festival is a traditional celebration held as a tribute to love and is held in the evening since the stars come out only at night.
The story, basically recounts the love story of Orihime, daughter of Tenkou the Sky King, who wove beautiful cloth by the bank of Amanogawa, the River of Heaven. Orihime knew that her father loved the cloth so she worked very hard every day to weave it. But she was sad because she felt could never meet and fall in love with anyone because of her hard work. Seeing his daughter’s sadness, Tenkou arranged a meeting with Hikoboshi, a cow herder who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. Orihime and Hikoboshi fell instantly in love with each other and were shortly married. However, after marriage, Orihime no longer weaved cloth for Tenkou and Hikoboshi’s cows strayed all over Heaven. This angered Tenkou, prompting him to separate the two lovers across the Amanogawa. Orihime became very sad and begged her father to let her be with her husband again. Moved by his daughter’s tears, Tenkou finally allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month but only if Orihime returned to her weaving. However, the first time they tried to meet, they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of celestial magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river and the two lovers could renew their pledge of love.
In order that the princess could cross the river the people of Japan acquired the habit of hang on small colored paper of the branches of bamboo trees hoping that it would not rain that day. And gradually this custom was roll-over to the current, by which the 7th of July, or even some days before, people hang rectangular strips of paper, called tanzaku, in which they write their own desires sometimes in the form of poetry, hoping that their wishes during that year can get granted.

Whether based on old myths or new customs these holydays are very important for our culture, however lately many of these festivals have been disappearing or getting lost by the time goes. If we consider it, most of these myths promote real feelings, and also responsibility. Our legends contain values that appreciate human being, and make us be what we are nowadays.
So, why change our traditional festivals for popular consumerist holydays. What do you prefer Día de Muertos or Halloween? Tanabata or St. Valentine?