Smoking Gun

In a television programme that introduces the culture of Japan, kokeshi dolls are often shown. This object is said to be invented in early 19 century in hot springs in the northern part of Japan, that is Tohoku. This object is always explained as a souvenir or a toy in public publication. But in fact the history of kokeshi is much older and used very differently than just an ornament. I have read this object was used to eliminate a child just before their birth in Tohoku, literally East-North region where famine was common throughout the history of Japan. This theory is even more explicable if it were used in hot springs, where prostitution was also common in those days.

Final assumption was made from the word itself, in kokeshi, ko means a child and keshi means an eliminator. They couldn't eliminate the name itself even though anyone forgot the abhorrent history along with the object itself.