Ushi no toki mairi

"ox-hour shrine-visit") or ushi no koku mairi (丑の刻参り)[2] refers to a prescribed method of laying a curse upon a target that is traditional to Japan, so-called because it is conducted during the hours of the Ox (between 1 and 3 AM).

The practitioner—typically a scorned woman[3][4]—while dressed in white and crowning herself with an iron ring set with three lit candles upright, hammers nails into a sacred tree (神木, shinboku) of the Shinto shrine.

[4][5] The ritual must be repeated seven days running, after which the curse is believed to succeed, causing death to the target,[6] but being witnessed in the act is thought to nullify the spell.

[15][16] According to legend, Hashihime in mortal life was the daughter of a certain nobleman, but consumed by jealousy, made a wish to become a kijin (an oni demon) capable of destroying her love rival.

"[17] Note that even though Kibune has later been seen as a mecca for the ritual, Hashihime only learned the recipe here, and enacted it miles away (Kifune is in the north of Kyoto, the Uji River is to the south).

[19] According to it, Hashihime was originally a mortal during the reign of Emperor Saga (809 to 823),[17] but after turning demon and killing her rival, her man's kinsmen, then indiscriminately other innocent parties, she lived on beyond the normal human life span, to prey on the samurai Watanabe no Tsuna at the Ichijo Modoribashi (一条戻橋) "Turning Back bridge at the street crossing of Ichijō and Horikawa" bridge, only to have her arm severed by the sword Higekiri (髭切).

Thus in the Tsurugi no maki can be seen such elements as the wearing of the tripod (here called kanawa (鉄輪)) and propping lit torches (similar to candles in later tradition), but the woman painted her entire face and body red, rather than remain in pure white garb.

[17] Therefore, the later form of the ushi no mairi developed afterwards, through the marriage of the use of dolls in the Japanese esoteric art of onmyōdō with the shrine visiting of the ox hour[citation needed].

The use of dolls in the cursing ritual has been practiced since antiquity, with a reference in the Nihon Shoki chronicle under the reign of Emperor Yōmei, which relates that in the year 587, Nakatomi no Katsumi no Muraji "prepared figures of the Imperial Prince Oshisaka no Hikohito no Ōe (押坂彦人大兄皇子) ... and [spellcast] them", but it did not work.