Japan History and Culture

Japanese New Year Money Gift (Otoshidama)

Otoshidama is the lucky preserve of Japanese children. On January 1st, Japanese people have a custom of giving pocket money to children. The money comes from parents, grandparents and relatives this is known as Otoshidama, small gifts with money, colourful envelopes and a typical gift for a junior or senior high school student would be 5000 to 10000 yen ($50 - $100) per relative. That means that the money can add up pretty fast.

Accroding to Kumon Children’s Research Institute (1999), Otoshidama is usually given in decorative envelopes. It is estimated that the average child receives around 40,000 yen each year. Most save the money. Others spend it on relatively expensive computer games, clothes, and CDs.

In the Edo period, large stores and wealthy families gave out a small bag of mochi and a Mandarin orange to spread happiness all around. The amount of money given depends on the age of the child but is usually the same if there is more than one child so that no one feels slighted.

An arrow for the New Year (Hamaya, 破魔矢)

A talisman bought at the New Year in a shrine or temple with the wish for good luck.also used in rituals of exorcism. It is a sacred arrow with a white feather used as a special charm for good fortune.

Hamaya, Literally, “demon-breaking arrow,” a decorative arrow sold at Shinto shrines during at New Year’s to ward off misfortune and to attract good luck. Hamaya are popular among New Year’s visitors to shrines as one type of good-luck charm or engimono. From the Edo to the early Meiji period, hamaya were given as gifts to celebrate the first New Year of a male baby’s life, frequently in a set together with a pair of decorative bows called hamayumi (”demon-breaking bows”).

The custom of selling the arrow alone is thought to be a later abbreviation of this custom. Even today, the custom persists of standing such symbolic bows and arrows at the northeast and southwest corners of a new house (called kimon 鬼門, the directions thought particularly susceptible to evil influences) on the occasion of the roof-raising ceremonies (jōtōsai).

The etymological significance of hama is not clear, but it is said to have been an ancient word for an archery target or an archery contest. The practice of making round targets of braided bamboo or straw, or circles of wood, and throwing them into the air or rolling them on the ground as archery targets was a common children’s pastime, but it was also known as a form of New Year’s divination used to foretell the fortunes of the coming year (toshiura).

When these elements are considered in the context of the current use of hamaya as New Year’s good-luck charms, one must consider that the current interpretation of hamaya and hamayumi as “demon-quelling” arrows and bows was rejected by the Edo-period scholar Ise Sadafumi, who asserted that the characters used to express hama were originally adopted merely for their sound, and that the word’s true meaning lay elsewhere.