Hagoita-kazari Ornament

Hagoita is a rectangular wooden paddle ostensibly used to play battledore and shuttlecock, and decorated with beautiful collages usually based on kabuki actors and titles as motifs. It is a Japanese custom to give a Hagoita to a girl when she has her first New Year, and to display it during every New Year thereafter. A fruit of the soapberry tree is used for the black ball of the shuttlecock, as it has been believed to protect children from disease. The feathers represent a dragonfly known as a beneficial insect, and it is said that playing battledore and shuttlecock in the New Year, prevents you from being bitten by mosquitoes in that summer.