Skewered Dolls is a file in Fatal Frame III: The Tormented.
Transcript[]
In many regions, particularly in the mountain areas, there remains a folk practice of dressing up dolls they make from straw, earth or cloth and worshipping them as idols. the doll in the picture was reported by an Iwate resident. It is called Kushimi and when someone dies in the village, they weave the hair of the deceased into the straw and have it were his or her kimono.
The doll is fixed onto skewers and put before a shrine at the edge of the mountain.
the doll is enshrined for up to one month after the death, and after that period passes, it is cast into the river behind the shrine together with various offerings.
In this region's tradition, there is said to be a cave in the mountain connecting to the land of the gods. the dead who became Kushimi stand between the village and the mountain. they take upon the village's evil and head to the land of the gods.
In the neighboring village, there is said to be a similar doll called Igushi, but this one is the spirit of a person who died young and is deified in the mountains.
In one interpretation, both village and mountain have a protective deity standing in the border between people and gods. In another sense, burdening the dead with evil, or deifying the spirit of the young in a mountain, connotes human sacrifice.
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