ushi no koku mairi

丑の刻参り

"Shrine visit on the hour of the ox". A Japanese ritual to curse someone to death. The person performing the ritual must dress in white, wear a tripod on their head holding three lit candles, and visit a shrine during the hour of the ox (1:00-3:00 AM). There, the person must nail a straw doll representing the target of the curse to a sacred tree using a five-inch nail. On the seventh day of performing this ritual without being discovered, the target will die.
Commonly associated with Mizuhashi Parsee due to the Bridge Princess character she's based on being the origin of the ritual, and one of her Spell Cards being named after it.

Since the image of a nail driven through a straw doll is ubiquitous to represent curses, this tag should be reserved for traditional portrayals of the ritual.

For another case where a character is wearing candles on their head (especially a number other than three), without the other parts of this ritual (i.e. no mallet, hammer, straw doll, or nails), it might instead be a reference to the youkai Hashihime.

External links

The following tags are aliased to this tag: ushi_no_toki_mairi (learn more).

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