This article examines the sensorial and theoretical interweaving betweenthe mummified bodies of Mount Yudono (present-day Yamagata prefecture) ascetics and a variety of external observers such as explorers, devotees, and academic scholars from the second half of the eighteenth century until the 1960s. Focusing on hitherto understudied Edo-period travel narratives and twentieth-century ethnographies, this study shows the modalities through which Yudono ascetics practically organized the cult of their mummified corpses and, at the same time, how these full-body relics were criticized, worshipped, studied, and even materially reassembled according to a plurality of hermeneutic agendas. The aim of this research is to emphasize the unrestrainable sociality and porous ontology of the taxidermic bodies, which are associated with the cult of Yudono eminent ascetics, highlighting how such uncanny remains overcome the boundaries of life and death while continuing to exert a strong pull of fascination on premodern as well as modern society.