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Origin[]
Utagawa Kuniyoshi's portrait of Oiwa.
Oiwa's story is one of the most famous ghost stories in Japan. Oiwa was married to a man named Iyemon. Iyemon was a disgraced samurai, but Oiwa was the daughter of a person working in the government. They had a child and the child was of higher status than Iyemon. Iyemon soon becomes tired of Oiwa, and decided to poison her. As a baby shower gift, he gave her the vial of medicine to her, and later, her skin and hair started peeling off. She later committed suicide and cursed whoever had gave her the vial of poison. Iyemon responded to this by nailing her and a lawman, who he later killed, to a board and threw them down the river to make it look like a love suicide.