Case file · Haunting

The Okiku doll of Mannen-ji

Mannen-ji temple in Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, keeps a doll whose hair is said to keep growing; the family that owned it left it there in 1938.

1938 CE · 43.20, 141.78 · status: claim

The account

The story says a boy bought the doll in 1918 for his little sister Okiku, who died soon after, and the family took the growing hair as a sign of her spirit. Monks trim it from time to time.

The sceptical view

Accounts conflict on dates and details; hair glued into a doll can shift and appear longer, and the story has not been tested independently.

Sources

  1. The Ghost in My Machine: the Okiku doll
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