Hina doll at Awashima Jinja in Wakayama prefecture. Many Japanese people believe that dolls have souls, so instead of throwing them in the garbage, they take them to a shrine where they are blessed and ritually burned or thrown into the sea.

Other posts with pictures of Awashima Jinja:

https://www.meanwhile-in-japan.com/?s=awashima

Editor’s note: this post was originally published in December 2008 and has been updated.