Himuro Mansion

The **Himuro Mansion** is a Japanese urban legend location that has become a mythical story that tells a dark story of a large haunted house and the killing of all the occupants of the house, this urban story is very well known in Japan and several entertainment worlds have used the story and this house as a story object, one of which is the game *Fatal Frame* which takes this haunted story and location.

## Background

According to legend, Himuro Mansion is very large and the building is a traditional Japanese building located in a rocky area not far from the city of Tokyo. This mansion is famous for being the site of the worst massacre in Japanese history. The Himuro family who are residents of this house are known to be followers of the ancient Shinto religion and it is believed that they are carrying out a forbidden ritual practice. One of the processes of the forbidden ritual is "The Strangling Ritual" which uses a young woman in the ritual. These ancient, forbidden rituals were performed for the sole reason of preventing bad karma from coming to the Himuro family that emerged from the courtyard.

The Strangling ritual is performed once every 50 years to avoid bad karma that can destroy the Himuro family. When the ritual will be carried out they will choose a baby girl from their family and then care for it until a certain age with a secret, they will call this baby girl "The Rope Shrine Maiden". The young girl who is the victim of this ritual is kept away from the outside world, isolated in a location in this big house because otherwise the ritual is believed to be unsuccessful.

When the time has come, the ritual will immediately take place. They would take the girl to a temple in the area of the house and then tie a rope around the girl's neck, hands and feet. Then a group of cows or buffaloes will pull the ropes tied around the girl's body in different directions, causing the girl's body to break into several parts. Then these bloody ropes will be placed in several places in this house to seal the door of evil karma, and this ritual will be repeated after half a century or 50 years because it is believed that the seal has weakened.

This forbidden ancient ritual tradition has been carried out for generations by the Himuro family, but a shocking story occurred in this forbidden ritual and at the same time being the last forbidden ritual ever performed by the Himuro family, the girl chosen to be the victim of this ritual fell in love with a man that he saw from the window of the house. Falling in love is something that is strictly prohibited in the ritual because after all the chosen girl must be pure and innocent from worldly things. After the ritual was carried out and the girl was sacrificed, the ritual failed because the girl was no longer pure.

After learning that the chosen girl had fallen in love, the leader of the Himuro family was very desperate because he was so sure that the ritual would go well. Because of his fear of bad karma that would destroy his family, with unstoppable stress thoughts he cruelly killed everyone in the house with a katana sword.

The head of the family believed that killing them would save them from some future calamity due to the failure of the ritual, after everyone had died in the big house he decided to commit suicide by stabbing the katana sword into himself. After the tragedy, residents around the village remained silent about the dark story that happened in the Himuro family for several decades and since then, supernatural or spiritual activities have often occurred around the house.

Bloody handprints and bloodstains can be seen on the walls of this grand old house, and ghost sightings occur both at night and during the day. According to the stories, these ghosts are members of the family who were killed by the head of the family and it is said that these spirits will repeat the forbidden ritual to anyone who dares to enter Himuro's house. Since then several people who visited were found dead with rope marks on their necks, hands and feet just like the process in the ritual and even several other victims were found cut into several parts in the tunnel under this house, and until now it is not known why there is a tunnel under Himuro's house, speculation says is an access road for the ritual process.

Apart from that, another scary story is that if someone takes a photo of the window of this house, you will see the ghost of a young girl wearing a kimono in the photo. This incident and story has indeed given a lot of fear to the Japanese people, especially residents of the city of Tokyo, and until now the deaths of 7 visitors at that location cannot be explained.