| SPOILERS FOLLOW! As Miku is lying unconscious on the second day, she has a strange dream about children with gouged-out eyes joining hands and circling her, singing a creepy song. She sees the ghosts of the children running through the house, bells ringing in their wake. Later that night, standing in the weird altar in front of the Demon's Mouth, she has the same premonition of the children with bleeding eyes creeping up behind her, still singing that song. What the hell is up with that, you may ask? Basically it's a few childhood games being twisted into something disturbing, namely the "Demon Tag Ritual." DEMON TAG (鬼遊び) This is simply the usual game of "Tag", except that in Japan the "It" (in Tag, as well as in Kagome, Kagome) is called the Oni - the Demon. The Demon chases after the other children, and the first person caught by the Demon becomes the next Demon, you know the drill. Mikoto and her friends were playing this game when the ghost Long-Arms, the father of one of the Rope Miko, snatched the children away - one through the clock, one in the well, and one in the Doll Room. But the ghosts of the children are still running through the house, playing. KAGOME, KAGOME(かごめかごめ) Another game involving a Demon! The Demon sits in the middle, covering their eyes with their hands. The other children join hands and circle the Demon, singing the "kagome kagome" song. At the end of the song, when they ask who's behind the Demon, they stop, and the Demon has to guess from the sound who is directly behind him or her. If the Demon's right, that child becomes the next Demon, otherwise the game continues with the same Demon. Kagome Kagome, Kago no naka no tori wa, Itsu itsu deyaru? Yoake to ban ni. Tsuru to kame ga subetta, Ushiro no shoumen dare? Kagome, Kagome, When does the bird inside the cage come out? At dawns and evenings. When the crane and turtle slipped and fell, who is behind the one in front? You can hear the blinded children singing this song at least twice in the Second Night - that's what they're saying, and Miku is the Demon in this case! The second time she hears the song, the one behind her is the Blind Demon herself. Creepy. ONI-GOKKO (鬼ごっこ)/BLIND DEMON GAME This is a bit like blind-man's buff, where the Demon is blindfolded and has to grope around the room until he catches one of the other players, who becomes the next demon. THE DEMON TAG RITUAL / BLIND DEMON RITUAL (目隠鬼ノ儀式) On the 26th of November, ten years before the appointed date for the Strangling Ritual, a girl with "holy power" is chosen from the Himuro family. The only stipulation is that she has to be over the age of 7 years, 9 months, and 25 days. This girl will be the Blind Demon, so I suppose she's raised in seclusion similar to the Rope Miko. Ten years later, at the time of the Strangling Ritual, the four priests and the Himuro Master (wearing the Mask of Reflection) take the Blind Demon into the Blinding Room and place the Blinding Mask on her face, gouging her eyes out. Afterwards they take the newly-made Demon and the Blinding Mask down to the Demon Mouth, where the Mask is used as a key to the Forbidden Path, and the Demon is left to blindly grope along the cavern. I personally am not at all sure what the purpose of this ritual was. Munakata had this to say about it: The Blinding Ritual and the Demon Tag Ritual are performed by the Himuro family master. The master wears a mask when he performs the ritual. This is probably to eliminate the maiden of all wordly connections. All participants of the ritual are family members. Meaning, "The one who is sacrificed and the one who performs the sacrifice" may be directly related. My theory is that the mask serves to eliminate the maiden's attachment toward her family. Gouging out the eyes of the demon in the Blind Demon Ritual may have similar meaning. What does this mean? Well, it clearly states that masks are worn at all times during the Forbidden Rituals to isolate the sacrifices emotionally and physically from the people performing the rituals. The only purpose that I can imagine for these Blinding Rituals is perhaps a sort of scapegoat ritual, in which all the evil of the Malice and the people performing the sacrifice is put into the Demon, and then she is blinded to symbolically keep the evil from interfering with the holy rituals about to take place. However, I betcha the real meaning of the ceremony is that it's damn creepy, that's all! Especially with that ghost with gouged-out eyes fumbling around moaning "My eyes! There's no one here..." * back* |