What is the Okiku doll?
The Okiku doll is a Japanese doll about 40 cm tall enshrined at Mannenji Temple in Iwamizawa, Hokkaido. Known as “the doll whose hair grows,” it has been featured many times on television and in magazines and is one of the most famous mysterious dolls in Japan.
The legend of the Okiku doll
According to the temple’s story, in the Taisho era a young man bought a Japanese doll with bobbed hair at an exposition in Sapporo for his little sister Kikuko. Kikuko loved the doll dearly and always kept it by her side, but she died of illness at the age of three.
Her family placed the doll in the household Buddhist altar together with her ashes, called it “Okiku doll” and treasured it. After a while, however, the doll’s bobbed hair is said to have begun to grow little by little. The family believed Kikuko’s soul had entered the doll, and it was later entrusted to Mannenji Temple to be memorialized.
The mystery of the doll’s hair
The doll’s hair is said to have grown to around its shoulders, and the temple is also said to trim it regularly. One explanation is that the human hair used for the doll gradually slipped out from where it had been folded in when it was made.
Whatever the truth, the Okiku doll is still carefully memorialized along with her family’s love for the girl who died. Mannenji is a temple, so please be quiet and respectful if you visit.
