There's some aspects of Japanese culture, well at least were, which believed in koujin. They were thought to be deities that kind of "covered the human like a placenta" and either cursed or protected them depending how you treated them. You were born with them, lived with them and died with them. At times the historical Matarajin was seen to be one of those. I find the idea of Okina-sama watching over me from gestation to birth and growth to adulthood very comforting.