Hitobashira

Hitobashira (人柱, "human pillar"), also known as Da sheng zhuang (simplified Chinese: 打生桩; traditional Chinese: 打生樁; pinyin: dǎshēngzhuāng; Jyutping: daa2saang1zong1) in China, is a cultural practice of human sacrifice in East Asia of premature burial before the construction of buildings.

A person was buried alive under or near large-scale buildings like dams, bridges and castles, as a prayer to Shinto gods.

However, the earliest archeological evidence of da sheng zhuang is a case discovered in the Dongzhao excavation in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, where the remains of an infant used in the foundation of the Erlitou culture city were found.

In 2006, discussion regarding daa saang zong was reignited when a large number of infant remains were discovered during water pipe laying at Princess Margaret Road, Ho Man Tin.

According to the tradition, a woman who was carrying a boy on her back was caught while she was passing along the river Nagara and was buried at the place where a large bridge was then to be built.

Her spirit felt resentful and made the moat overflow with spring rain when the season of cutting algae came in April every year.

People called it, "the rain caused by the tears of O-shizu's sorrow" and erected a small tomb to soothe her spirit.

Although built in the Momoyama period (1575-1600) the design is more indicative of earlier fortresses, the steep base features random-style stone piling which is suggested as the source of instability in the walls which may have led to the use of a human pillar during its construction.

The nearby park is named Gensuke in honour of the human sacrifice along with a memorial dedicated to the victims who died during the bridge's construction.

Millions of great stones were cast into the river to no purpose, for the work constructed by day was swept away or swallowed up by night.

Nevertheless, at last the bridge was built, but the pillars began to sink soon after it was finished; then a flood carried half of it away and as often as it was repaired so often it was wrecked.

Gensuke was buried alive in the river-bed below the place of the middle pillar, where the current is most treacherous, and thereafter the bridge remained immovable for three hundred years.

The legend is so profoundly believed, that when the new bridge was built in 1891, many local rural residents were afraid to come to town due to rumors that a new victim was needed, and would be chosen from among them.