Japanese folklore is replete with ghosts and a wide variety of spirits - good and evil. Among other things, it contains stories about mystical dolls based on very real events. The whole world learned about a creepy Japanese doll named Okiku. And its history began a century ago, in 1918. Then the seventeen-year-old boy Eikichi Suzuki, wanting to make a gift to his two-year-old sister Okiku, bought a doll in a shop on Tanuki-koji street in Sapporo (Hokkaido island). The girl was very happy with the new toy and did not part with it for whole days, even took it with her for a walk. She loved her doll so much that she called it by her own name. Suddenly, the child became very ill, moreover, after some time he died from complications of the flu.
In memory of their beloved daughter, and also because of her affection for the doll, the parents placed the toy on the home altar, where they prayed for Okiku daily. They soon began to notice something strange. The doll's hair, black and straight, began to grow imperceptibly for everyone in length - it grew as if it were alive!.. And when it went down to the knees, the family finally believed that the spirit of the deceased Okiku had apparently entered the doll. The parents began to cut the doll's hair, and each time they grew back to the level of the knees and stopped. This is the kind of hair that the deceased girl had.
In 1938, the family moved to Sakhalin, but they were afraid to take the doll with them. Her spouses brought to the Mannenji temple, which is located in the city of Iwamizawa, and, giving it to the minister, told about the amazing hair of this strange toy. The priest of the temple was not frightened, but, on the contrary, placed the Okiku-doll in the most prominent place in a wooden box specially made for this purpose. There she is to this day. The attendants periodically cut the doll's hair, which grows at the same rate as that of a small child, and has a corresponding structure.
Can the Okiku doll phenomenon be scientifically explained?
There are several versions regarding this phenomenon. For example, that the spirit of the girl after her death did not have time for some reason (unknown to us) to leave our world and was lost among the living. The ghost of three-year-old Okiku made the only correct (even original) step, possessing his favorite toy. Thanks to this, Okiku seemed to get a second life, so the property inherent in humans - hair growth - passed to her doll.
According to another version, the perpetrators of the incident were the relatives of the deceased girl, who grieved so much that in their thoughts they endowed the doll with Okiku's features. Thought, as you know, has tremendous power, so the girl did not rest in peace, but became a prisoner of her own doll.
Be that as it may, there is an indisputable fact: the toy Okiku has constantly growing hair. But this mystical quality is acquired, since the doll was originally completely ordinary. It became extraordinary due to tragic circumstances. By the way, eyewitnesses testify that the toy really seems alive, so it's even creepy to look at it.
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Despite the fact that the story of Okiku has long been known to the whole world, its mystery still remains unsolved. Until now, no one has dared to investigate this phenomenon, or maybe the servants of Manneji are opposed to this. True, once the hair of a mysterious doll was taken for analysis, which showed that it was indeed human. However, at the beginning of the last century, many dolls were made using human hair, and therefore this circumstance says little …