| SPOILERS FOLLOW! Underneath Himuro Mansion lies the gate to the underworld, the Hell Gate. In Japanese it's known as the 黄泉の門 - the Gate of Yomi. Yomi is the Shinto underworld, and although it is not traditionally a place of punishment, monsters guard the gate, and diseases and evil are sent out to punish the living. If these gates are not kept closed, Malice (瘴気) can escape, and the Calamity (禍刻) will occur. The Gate of Yomi seems to only open on December 13 of particular years, and the Strangling Ritual has to be successfully completed to keep the Gate closed. It was the sacred duty of the Himuro family to keep the Gate closed by performing the ritual, but local superstition about the 13th of December probably confused the opening of the Hell Gate with the ritual being performed, which is why people were afraid to approach the mansion and kept their houses closed on that date. For the ritual to succeed, a young girl with no attachments to the world must be torn apart by five ropes to provide the ropes with holy power to keep the Gate closed. It's gruesome, but being killed by the ropes seems to imbue the ropes with her soul. This girl is known as the Rope Shrine Maiden or Rope Miko (縄の巫女). She is selected (with or without the permission of her family, judging from the existence of Long-Arms, the angry ghost of the father of a Rope Miko) and put into near-total seclusion for about ten years. She is kept in "The Room That Has Never Been Opened," which is a small jail cell hidden in the attic of the mansion. On the night of December 13, she is taken to the Tsukuyomi Shrine in the courtyard, where the four priests and the family master use their seals to open up a hidden pathway to the Moon Well. The Miko descends into the well and purifies her body in the moonlight reflected in from outside by a giant mirror. The first Rope Miko is mummified and enshrined in this well, and all subsequent Mikos have a symbolic doll enshrined in the Doll Room. After purifying herself, the Rope Miko takes a path from the well to join the rest of the family on the Hell Bridge (they came through the Demon Mouth and down the Banned Path). At the end of the Hell Bridge is the room with the Rope Altar, which has five wheels to pull the ropes and gutters cut into the ground to drain away the blood. (...o.o;;) The Truth Binder puts five holy shrine ropes around her arms, legs, and neck, and the four priests and the Himuro master turn the wheels until the Rope Miko is pulled to pieces. In Shinto shrines, holy ropes are used to mark off any sacred or holy place (such as the ropes around the doll of the Rope Miko in the Doll Room), and these ropes are also hung over the entranceways, so, in a twisted sort of way, this rope ritual makes sense... The sanctified ropes are taken from the Altar down the Baptism Path to the Gate of Yomi. While the ropes are tied across the Gate, the True Holy Mirror is placed in the Mirror Rock to reflect the evil escaping. Mirrors are important in Shinto mythology - personal Shinto shrines have a mirror in them so that they can be connected to the main temple and the gods can look out through the mirrors. Tying the ropes in place ties the soul of the Miko to the gate, and she is supposed to keep the gate shut until the next ritual. In the ending sequence, this is symbolized by showing Kirie suspended off the ground in a sort of cruciform pose, with the ropes on her arms tied to the opposite posts of the doorway. As the gate tries to open against her, Kirie's arms are almost pulled from their sockets. It's a sad fate, but a necessary one to keep evil from overwhelming the land. * back* |