So, this doll is part of Japanese popular folklore. The doll is real, and supposedly it belonged to a 2 year old girl who died suddenly of a cold. The doll wound up in a local temple where it stays to this day. You can go see it. The funky part is that the doll’s hair keeps growing. They trim it, and it grows back.
So, is there a store-room with 100 wigs of various sizes (“Yo Tanaka, wig 38 this year!”), or is there maybe some sorta fungus that exudes hair, or can you think of something else that might be going on?
It’s probably either a hoax or it was built that way. The Japanese had a tradition of clockwork dolls that could accomplish various feats. There might be a mechanism inside of it that slowly extends the hair and is rewound when you move the doll to cut it.
Wow, awesome find Sage Rat. You still live in Japan right? Anyway, I’m guessing it would be a trivial thing to make a gear that shifts slowly enough for nobody to notice any sudden shifts in hair length. I mean, look at mechanical watches. And the technology was there in the early 20th century too. Seems like this myth is fairly well busted.
The back story to the doll was invented out of whole cloth. It first appeared in a 1962 article in a women’s magazine, although the story offered in that article differs from the current version in terms of:
[ul]
[li]the name of the dead girl[/li][li]the year the doll was given to the temple[/li][li]who gave the doll to the temple and what their relationship was to the girl[/li][li]how the growing hair was discovered[/li][/ul]
The current version of the story first appears in a 1968 article… written by the same author as the 1962 article. Oops.
The analysis gives a couple of potential explanations for why a doll’s hair might change length, but nothing that would change it significantly enough to match the claims made by the urban legend.
But more importantly, the analysis states that the claim is just that the doll’s hair grew, not that it has been continuously growing ever since the girl’s death. That claim wasn’t made in either of the original articles, or in a version of the myth from a collection of Japanese urban legends cited on the page. It must have been tacked on by someone at some point.
Also, dolls in prewar Japan were made with real human hair. So there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about that.
Haha, this is an old thread… i hope there’s more info out there by now, and further interest on here…
first off, ya’ll are rather uneducated on this subject… im not saying its a true miraculous event but honestly, if you dont even know the facts of the myth, you have absolutely no right to argue it. You dont even know what you’re arguing, just arguing cause its there to argue…
is the doll’s hair still growing? Did it legitimately keep grrowing? Is there the deceased skull of a child growing the hair under the porcelain (Hair grows after death. Totally possible assuming the hair is no longer actually growing)? Is it a total hoax or are the monks fooled as well? Because, in casr you didnt know… this is more akin to a national landmark than urban legend. People travel across the world to see this fukking doll. So, no matter what you think, this is not some random legend; its more akin to lochness or the yeti than some simple rumor overblown; this is a piece of national interest. So debunk it. But for real, not this bs “it has to be a hoax!” Stupidity. If you dont have a point to prove with logic or facts, your opinion is just as applicible as those of the monks: nill.
Well, is there any evidence of the hair being cut and regrowing? All I am seeing is photos of a doll with long hair and text telling me that the hair used to be short. This is… not 100% conclusive.
That is not correct. It’s a widely repeated myth, but neither hair nor fingernails keep growing post-mortem. Also, your hair does not grow out of your *skull, *Christ. Talk about not knowing ground facts… Anyway, why would they keep growing ? Hair is not magic, it’s the by-product of the activity of living cells which, along with every other type of cell, die shortly after the whole dude keels over.
Rather, what happens is that as a corpse decomposes the layers of muscle and fat under the skin dehydrate along with the skin itself, which in turn pulls the skin closer to the bone and exposes more of the hair and nails. Ta-daaa, visibly longer fingernails/hair when someone cracks open the coffin lid.
First, hair does not continue growing after death (more precisely, after death of the hair germinal follicles).
As to your other point (s?): You seem to be saying there is potential that the perceived hair “growth” of this doll may or may not be a violation of natural law, and that those who make an immediate decision that no natural law has been violated do so without knowing all the facts (some of which might support a conclusion that natural law has been violated).
This is incorrect, and no further investigation is needed. There is no missing information the introduction of which should lead to a conclusion that something miraculous is happening.
First off, I looked at the Constitution, then I asked God, and then I thought of Cecil, and then TubaDiva, and decided no one has the right to tell me if I have the or a right to “argue” anything here. Certainly not anyone who can’t care to even find the fucking Caps key.
Minus access to the doll, everything is speculation. But if one is going to speculate, it makes more sense to base it on things that are possible, given what we know about the world.
I have no hard evidence one way or the other. But I did have information to share about what sort of mechanisms exist that would explain the phenomena.
So what are the actual facts, aside from what is stated in the website?
No evidence has been provided that it ever grew, let alone is still growing.
Why should anyone suppose that?
As has been said, hair doesn’t grow after death.
It doesn’t make much difference as to whether something “miraculous” is going on or not.
So what? There are lots of hoaxes and fraudulent objects that attract crowds - The Shroud of Turin for one.
Like I said, no actual facts or evidence has been presented. If you have something other than what’s stated on the website, please provide it. Otherwise you opinion is worth nothing.
