Shekou Shuide Temple

A yin temple in rural Xiluo, Yunlin, founded around 1875 after the bodies of an unidentified man and woman were found in a nearby irrigation channel. Villagers buried the remains and later built a shrine after the spirits reportedly began appearing in dreams and helping locate lost livestock. The deities venerated here, known as Shuiliu Gong (水流公) and Shuiliu Ma (水流媽), are the actual skulls of the deceased, wrapped in cloth and ritually painted with facial features in a rare practice known as kailian (開臉). The temple was rebuilt several times, most recently in 2004. It drew large crowds during the lottery craze (大家樂) of the late 1980s, when devotees sought winning numbers through divination. It continues to attract thousands of worshippers on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month every year.