Ushinokokumairi – Voodoo in Japan

For a country where countless cults, sects and religions with endless gods, kami and deities (Shintoism alone counts for 8 million of them) co-exist, it’s quite surprising that the average person is not at all religious in the western sense of the word. However almost all Japanese are highly superstitious. I guess this was the reason why it took me more than 2 years of casual research to find out more about Ushinokokumairi – the Japanese version of Voodoo. Almost nobody wanted to talk about it and came up with their individual version of “there was this strange girl in high-school which cursed a friend/family member/somebody I know who got sick/died/committed suicide” and this seemed to be a scary experience.

But this could not stop me to find out more about it. A special thanks goes to Ako for additional research, translation and organization and to Megumi for modeling for this post. Plus more thanks to all friends and acquaintances I scared with my curious questions. Sorry for that!

Ushinokokumairi freely translated means something like “Going to the Shrine at the time of the Ox”, while the Ox refers to the Chinese calendar applied to a clock and further translates into 2:00am in the morning. The thought of going to a shrine at 2:00am at full moon is scary enough, but being equipped with a straw doll (wara ningyo), a hammer and 15 centimeter long nails is even more.

The Ushinokokumairi ritual seem to origin around the year 800 at the Kibune Shrine in Kyoto, where a young beautiful woman cursed her husband in a 7 day long ritual for cheating on her. And to curse people who cheat is still one of the main uses of straw dolls today.

This is Megumi. While Megumi is superstitious, she agreed to be my model to demonstrate how to perform the ritual. The “home curse kit” can be conveniently ordered over the Internet…here really the future and the past come together!

A “home curse kit” is advertised as featuring a straw doll along nails, candles, a curse manual, and a curse-blocking bracelet to ward off return curses.

About 11,000Yen (~100USD) later the post delivers an unsuspicious looking parcel. These home curse kits appeared the first time in the 1980’s and were quite popular among school girls to be used against bullying and among housewifes who feared of being cheated by their husbands.

But what’s inside? A manual covers up most of the content.

Perfect, everything what’s needed, including a part of a Japanese cedar, so that Megumi actually can perform the ritual in the convenience of the own home instead of walking at night to a shrine. To make this actually work, most of the strict rules of the ritual were slightly reinterpreted and so a piece of wood is working as well as a real tree next to a shrine at night.

The unboxing reveals that the home curse kit contains a straw doll, a manual, a bracelet, a short rope, a candle holder, a hammer, 2 candles, 2 fifteen centimeter long nails, 1 wooden stick, 1 piece of a Japanese cedar and 2 long white gloves. The manual explains several ways how to use this kit, but also stresses that this is just the basic Ushinokokumairi equipment and offers a phone helpline or even suggests that they can perform the ritual for as little as 50,000Yen (~500USD) for you.

Based on the treatment and ritual, the straw doll can be used for a variety of purposes. If you tie it up with the supplied short rope, the targeted person will fall instantly in love with you. Or you nail the doll for 7 days and after that you daily pierce it with the supplied wooden stick and your enemy will be cursed. You also can use it to prevent sickness, diseases and even monsters by tying it up on a tree and hit a nail through the dolls chest.

Finally the doll can also help to get rid of Oni, Japanese devil-like demons with long nails, wild hair, a fierce look and two horns on their forehead who wear tight tiger skins and can fly while hunting for the souls of those who did evil things in their lives. Just perform a ritual and stick the doll on the north-east of your house and you are save.

No Japanese manual is complete without some statistics. The usual usage for this kit based on their questionnaire looks like this:

• 45% of the buyers use the doll for getting rid of sickness.
• 73% want to turn bad luck into luck.
• 73% want to prevent an affair of loved ones.
• 71% have a grudge against somebody related to money or work.
• 81% try to get or keep a loved one.
• 79% want to get rid (in the final sense of the word) of a love related enemy.

Before Megumi actually ordered the home curse kit, she agreed not to use the doll for actually killing somebody. This is part of the agreement on the order form…but as usual if you call for supernatural powers, something unexpected might happen.

Before she starts the ritual, lets check the equipment for completeness. Also studying the manual is essential. Of course there is even a section containing a warning. Ironically it doesn’t warn about the side-effects to your live in case your cursed enemy dies from your actions, but about the usage of a hammer (Do not hurt your finger!) and to prevent fire by handling the candles with care!

To make the curse work, you need to follow the manuals advice about the importance of creative visualisation in cursing. Stare at the doll and imagine what should happen to your enemy. And apply something out of the posession of your enemy, for example a hair, a photo or a piece of clothes.

The manual, Internet research and too many bad movies contradict each other a bit how the ritual actually has to be performed. Mainly you need white clothes, white powder in your face, thick lipstick, a mirror on your chest and a wax candle between your toes. However, ancient drawings also show candles attached to a head band, other sources talk about wearing white socks and black clogs while wearing a comb in your mouth. Again other sources write about having one of the 15 centimeter nails in your mouth. The home curse kit came with a not further explained bracelet and white long gloves, so instead Megumi used just this while nailing the doll on the supplied cedar block. You have to repeat this procedure for at least 7 days starting at full moon and each time at 2am or it will not work.

With the deep satisfaction of somebody who achieved her goal, Megumi looks at her work. But what now? How to store the doll from the home curse kit after the work is done?

Of course the manual has an answer, it says that you can send the straw doll back and they will dispose (and re-use?) it.

Disclaimer: This post was originally published on my old web site in 2005 and while this post sounds funny and some of the photos with Megumi are obviously staged, the kit is very real and still can be ordered. Performing the Ushinokokumairi ritual is quite a serious business for some. Remember: The power of believes is a very strong power. Be careful!