Awashima Myojin is a Shinto deity primarily venerated at Awashima Shrine in Wakayama, traditionally associated with women's health, fertility, and safe childbirth, and closely linked to the practice of hina-nagashi, the ritual releasing of dolls into the sea. The shrine is widely known as a repository for unwanted or retired dolls, which are brought there to be blessed and ceremonially disposed of, a practice tied to ideas of purification and honoring objects imbued with sentiment. While popular devotion attributes various protective and healing roles to Awashima Myojin, these associations rest on folk tradition and shrine practice rather than a single canonical scripture.”