Kiku Doll: The Doll at the Temple in Hokkaido Whose Hair Grows

In Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, Japan, there is a temple called Mannen-ji, which enshrines a doll called Kiku Ningyo—the doll known online in Japan as “the doll whose hair grows.”

It is said to have come about like this: In 1918, a seventeen-year-old boy named Eikichi Suzuki went to a department store in Sapporo and saw a doll wearing a kimono with bangs. Thinking of his two-year-old sister at home, he bought it and brought it back. His sister was named Kikuko, so they called it “A-Kiku.”

Kikuko loved it very much, hugging it to sleep every day and even placing it beside her during meals. The following year, Kikuko fell ill with a fever and could not be saved. The family placed the doll on a Buddhist altar as a memorial to their sister.

Not long after, the family noticed that the doll’s hair seemed to be growing. Originally shoulder-length, it gradually reached down to the knees. Later, the family gave the doll to Mannen-ji, asking the monks to care for it, supposedly around 1938.

It is said that someone once had it tested, and the hair was human hair, from a child of two or three years old—not animal hair, nor thread. The resident priest of Mannen-ji said that every time the hair grew, they would cut it, and now it is still shoulder-length, but the cut hair they have kept on the altar.

Skeptics say that human hair expands and contracts with changes in humidity, making it look longer, and there could be other reasons, but the temple’s account differs.

Japanese television has filmed this story, and the temple now forbids photography and does not allow it to be sold for money. Those who wish to see it must queue in the main hall of the temple and take a look through the glass. It remains there, wearing a red kimono with bangs, just as it was more than seventy years ago.

#Ghosts #网络转载 #日本怪谈