Piercing of the Soul

Piercing of the Soul "I can feel the thoughts of so many people being etched into me..." Kanji 刺魂の儀 Location Kuze Shrine Participants Tattooed Priestess & Engravers Frequency Unknown Purpose To engrave the pain/suffering of others onto the Priestess Game Fatal Frame III

The ritual in which the Ink of the Soul containing the pains and suffering of shrine visitors would be tattooed by Engravers onto the body of the Tattooed Priestess. These tattoos would include the symbols of the Snake & Holly Tattoo.

Preparation

In preparation for the ritual, the Engravers pierced their hands with needles and dyed them in pain. The Engravers then had to collect the red and indigo ink and mix them to create the Ink of the Soul, which was the ink used for the tattoos. The Tattooed Priestess had to break all of her attachments to the living world to ensure the success of the ritual.

The Ritual

The ritual was performed inside the Engraving Shrine, in which the Engravers tattooed the Tattooed Priestess. During the ritual, the Snake & Holly Tattoo was engraved onto the Priestess's body. The ritual was performed in the presence of the Kuze Family Head. The ritual sealed the pain of the living and the dead in the priestess's body, so that she would take it to the Other Side and stop it from spreading into the dreams of the living. Because of the sacred nature of the tattoos and the symbolic transfer of suffering from the worshipper to the priestess, no effort was made to lessen the pain of the process.

Unlike other rituals in the Fatal Frame Series, the Piercing of the Soul was not a one-off event but happened repeatedly over the course of the winter, with the Engravers adding tattoos gradually until the priestess's entire body was covered. In between sessions, the priestess would be confined to the Hanging Prison, which was thought to help temper the holly.

After the ritual, the Engravers' hands were cut off and cast away.

Result

Tattooed Priestess
The maiden's body is tattooed from head to toe with the Snake & Holly Tattoo, and the pain of the living who dreamed of of the dead was abated.

Misc. Info

• The name of the ritual is written with the characters 刺 (thorn) and 魂 (soul), and pronounced shikon. This is a homophone of 紫紺, which means means purple, a possible reference to the ink used in the tattoos (the name of which can also be read shikon).