There were conflicts in various locations in Japan over the claim on or ownership of a mountain, or boundaries of villages or towns, and those conflicts consequently left the people involved with bitter disappointment or damage, and in addition those locations were sacred places such as the Shinto shrine precincts; then mounds were erected to shrine the god residing there and the people who died in the conflicts.
入山権や山の帰属や村境や町境をめぐって紛争があり、人々の無念の思いや被害があったことや、その場所がいわゆる神域などの神聖な場所であったことから、そこに宿る神や紛争で命を落としたものに対して、祭った塚が日本各地に存在する。