Bon Flowers (bonbana)

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Bon Flowers (bonbana)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Early Autumn
***** Category: Observance

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Explanation

Before the beginning of the Bon Festival (o-bon) ,
in the morning of August 13 (according to the lunar calendar, it was the 11th of July), people would go outside in the nearby fields and woods to collect flowers as decorations for the Bon Shelf. Since the souls of the ancestors are believed to live in the mountains, this was a way of leading the sould on the way home. The flowers served as some kind of anchor for the souls.

These flowers varied from region to region in Japan, they included
bushclover (hagi), lilies (yuri), mountain pink (nadeshiko), lantern flowes (hoozuki), baloon flowers (kikyoo) and others.

The floweres were cut and arranged on the Bon shelf for the souls, to welcome the souls with flowers, bonbana mukae 盆花迎え.

When people started to live in big cities, it was difficult to go to a local mountain and soon markets appeared in town for these flowers. Nowadays, you can even get some plastic varieties.





bonbana 盆花 (ぼんばな) flowers for O-Bon

flowers for the shelf of the souls, shooryoobana 精霊花
welcoming with Bon-flowers, bonbana mukae 盆花迎え

breaking the bon flowers, bonbana ori 盆花折

sellilng bon flowers, bonbana uri 盆花売


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Artificial Bon Flowers



http://www.takayamashoji.co.jp/bon/ar5-7.html
赤二輪　赤三輪　赤五輪　赤七輪
金二輪　金三輪　金五輪　金七輪
銀二輪　銀三輪　銀五輪　銀七輪


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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU


盆花売亡き母のことたづねけり
bonbana uri naki haha no koto tazunekeri

selling bon flowers -
asking for
my dead mother

西浦昭美 Nishiura Akemi
http://www2.famille.ne.jp/~haiku/sho-kansai40.html


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　盆花や駅は電車の止まる処
bonbana ya eki wa densha no tomaru tokoro

bon flowers -
the train station a place
where trains stop

麻里伊 Marii
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~xl4o-endu/mizu.htm


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Related words

***** Lampionflower (hoozuki, Japan)

***** Bon Festival (o-bon)

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