"Dogura Magura" is a novel considered to be the masterpiece of mystery novelist Yumeno Kyusaku, and was published in 1935 after more than 10 years of planning and writing. It is considered one of the three great Japanese mystery novels, alongside Oguri Mushitaro's The Black Death Mansion Murders and Nakai Hideo's An Offering to Nothingness.
In the story, the original meaning of "Dogura Magura" is explained as a dialect of the Nagasaki region, referring to the magic of Christians, priests, or as a corrupted version of "confused, taken aback" or "dōmawari, mekurami," but the details are unclear.[1][2]