Mysterious Dogu Spirit Vessels

The actual use of the dogus continue to be very mysterious, but countless of them have been discovered in old graves in japan and they all appear to have been cracked on purpose, and this shows that they had a strong ritualistic use.  Many people believe that they were created by a strange race of aliens, but most believe that they have a less exciting background than that.

There have been over 18,000 of the clay figures found and they all come in the shape of people or animals and in all shapes and sizes ranging from big 1 meter tall ones to small ones that can fit in your hand, but they tend to have big faces with big eyes, a compact body shape, and small arms and hands.  The oldest ones are from the Jomon period in Japan and date as far back as 12,500-300 BC.  It’s hard to figure out what their exact use was for because many depict different groups of things such as women giving birth, people wearing masks, and other figures having heart-shaped faces.  Many believe that they were supposed to be talismans that represented spirits or gods who protected women and children and some were spirit guides who would be buried along with a person in order to aid them in the afterlife.  Since most seem to represent women, many believe that they were used with the belief that they would be blessed with fertility, and this also suggests that they may have believed in a mother goddess.  Some have even been found purposely broken, but it’s still unknown the purpose of this type of ritual.  

What's your opinion on these statues, and what do you think they were used for?