JAPANESE KITE HISTORY
It is believed that kites were first introduced into Japan by Buddhist
missionaries who travelled from China in the Nara period (649-794 AD) and were
mainly used in religious and thanks giving ceremonies.
A Japanese dictionary dated 981 AD was the first to record the Japanese word
for kite and used the characters for "Kami Tobi" meaning paper hawk - which
suggests that the first kites were bird shaped.
The Japanese absorbed much of the Chinese culture but they developed their own
distinctive kite designs and traditions.
Traditionally kites are flown on boy's day May 5th, (the 5th day of the 5th
month) at religious festivals, public holidays and New Year. One of the most
famous kite festivals is Hamamatsu where kite teams battle against each other.
Japan, like China, has many stories about kites being used to carry or lift humans
either for military purposes or for personal gain. One favorite story is about a
samurai warrior who broke the law of the Emperor. He was punished by being
exiled with his son to a small island. Because he did not want his son to spend his
life on a deserted island, the warrior built a large kite. He tied his son to the kite
and then lifted him from the island to the mainland.
During the past two to three hundred years much of the religious significance of
kite flying has been replaced by more secular pleasures. Today, only the very
oldest Japanese people might accept the direction in which a kite has fallen as a
prediction of the success or failure of the year's rice crop, but kites are still a
part of festivals and religious holidays. A New Year kite means much the same to
a Japanese child as a birthday or Christmas present means to a Western child.
https://ntieva.unt.edu//download/teaching/Curr_resources/mutli_culture/Japan/
Other/History_Kites_Japan_Other_Parts_World.pdf
Raunak,Sakshi ,Maitraya