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VIDEO: Watanagashi-hen | TIP 14: From the Scrapbook VI
BGM: Silver Mirror
Watanagashi—a festival of hunting for sacrifices and feasting on them.
While the festival itself is remarkable, it has come to be considered a form of entertainment as well.
(Perhaps it was because of the disparity between being both an egregious act and a form of entertainment that the perpetrators began to believe themselves transcendent.)
However, I found some very interesting literature that appears to raise questions about that explanation.
As with most oral traditions, it's not easily swallowed, but it does mention a few things that spark my interest.
Women and children would grow pale and tremble, and those of weak constitution would vomit—but it said that the feast (the dissection) was an obligatory viewing.
This is an extremely curious tale.
Until now, I'd thought that the residents of Onigafuchi Village were fascinated by the Watanagashi ritual.
They looked down on those vulgar, barbaric humans, cut them open like fish, and by eating them, they reaffirmed their own holiness... at least, that's what I thought.
However, if what the villagers gained from this ritual was not fascination, but fear, then that would suggest the ritual meant something entirely different.
There's the possibility that the executions were meant as warnings, encouraging the villagers to strictly follow religious precepts created by those with power for their own convenience.
Without investigating the Three Families, I probably won't get any closer to the truth of Onigafuchi Village.