Handmade Ceramic Folk Toys 【Ozaki Dolls】 Sparrow "In 1281, during the Mongol invasions of Japan (the Koan War), Mongol soldiers captured as prisoners made dolls and blew them to remember their distant homeland. The doll-making techniques were then passed on to the local people, and pottery flourished." Production of Ozaki dolls ceased in the mid-Showa era, but they were revived in the Heisei era thanks to the efforts of local people, and are still being made today by Masahiro Takayanagi, the successor. 【Hime Daruma Bell】 In the second year of Keian, Aya, the wife of Saiga Kanzaemon, a low-ranking samurai of the former Oka clan, was driven out of her home one snowy night due to old-fashioned family circumstances. Unable to leave the house she had married into, she sat in front of the shed for two days and two nights, and was about to die when her husband rescued her. After that, she woke up and lived a pure and beautiful life with her mother-in-law and family. This typical image of a woman is now passed down as the folk toy "Takeda Hime Daruma," and is also made as a clay bell.