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to search for prey over a large area while their bodies remain in one spot. Like the Nukekubi, they look like normal humans during the day and only hunt at night.
This depiction of a Rokuro-Kubi was drawn by the 18th-century artist Sawaki Suushi. Note the extremely long neck.
Religious Body Piercing
During an annual Hindu festival called Thaipusam, some of the participants undergo a form of body piercing in which hooks, skewers, and small spears are inserted into their bodies. The hooks and other sharp objects are inserted into various parts of the body, including the tongue, the cheeks, the forehead, the back, the abdomen, and the buttocks. Sometimes other objects are suspended from the hooks to add weight and thereby increase the pain. Some people also wear special shoes containing upturned nails that push into the soles of their feet.
The practice of body piercing is most common at the Thaipusam festivals held in predominantly Hindu areas of the Malay peninsula. Several of these festivals attract very large crowds, including as many as a million people at the festival associated with the temple at Batu Caves near Kuala Lumpur. But at most festivals only a small percentage of the devotees, almost all of them men, undergo body piercing. The large
