The Kaikidan Ekotoba is a mysterious handscroll that
profiles 33 legendary monsters and human oddities, mostly from the
Kyushu region of Japan (with several from overseas). The cartoonish
document, whose author is unknown, is believed to date from the mid-19th
century.
The above image tells a tale of a man with massive testicles
who reportedly made a living as a sideshow attraction at Mt. Satta, on
the old Tokaido Road near the city of Shizuoka. His scrotum is said to
have measured about a meter across.
Eight years after the “Anatomy Murderers” Burke and Hare were
apprehended in Edinburgh, Scotland, two boys discovered sixteen tiny
dolls, each nested into a miniature coffin hidden away in a rocky niche
on the north-eastern slopes of Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh in June 1836.
At first, theories on the dolls significance ranged from
witchcraft to child’s toys, but eventually it began to seem that the
sixteen tiny figures were most likely effigies for the sixteen murder
victims of Burke and Hare made by Burke himself.
From January through October 1828, William Burke and William
Hare had lured in and murdered their lodgers in a scheme to provide
fresh bodies to the local anatomy school for money. They killed a total
of sixteen people: twelve women, three men and one child. Dr. Robert
Knox, a brilliant and well known local anatomy lecturer purchased the
bodies, and most likely knew what was going on but was not arrested for
the murders due to insufficient evidence.
The crimes were exposed when another lodger discovered the body
of a previous tenant, and reported it to the police. Burke and Hare were
apprehended along with Burke’s mistress, Helen McDougal, and Hare’s
wife, Margaret. Despite finding the body of the last lodger in Knox’s
classroom, ready for dissection, the evidence was not truly damning
until Hare gave a full confession.
William and Margaret Hare turned King’s witnesses, that is,
witnesses for the prosecution, in return for immunity. Burke and
McDougal were tried for the murders. McDougal was acquitted while Burke
was convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed on January 28,
1829 by hanging.
His body was handed over for dissection, and his skeleton and a book bound from his skin (pictured above) remain in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh.
The miniature dolls and coffins were in the hands of a
private collector until 1901, when eight of them were handed over to the
National Museums Scotland. Although it is generally agreed that the
mysterious little dolls are associated with the crimes of Burke &
Hare, no one is certain who among the killers created them. DNA studies
conducted in 2005, using DNA extracted from Burke’s skeleton, attempted
to prove that he had created them to assuage his guilty conscience, but
the tests proved inconclusive.
