7-5-3 Festival

The 7-5-3- Festival celebrated the children of the Empire. All five-year-old boys and seven- or three-year-old girls went to a shrine to be blessed. Because these numbers were considered unlucky, these children might be most vulnerable to evil spirits. The children dressed in their finest clothing for the occasion, and their families wore white veils over their faces. After visiting the shrine, it was considered lucky to buy chitose-ame, 'thousand-year candy', so that the ancestors of the last thousand years would be included in the rite.