Amatsuhikone- Japanese GodDeity"Ancestor of the Oshikochi Clans"
Also known as: 天津日子根命, 天津彦根命, and Ama-tsu-hikone
Description
Susanoo cracked Amaterasu's magatama beads between his teeth and breathed, and five gods appeared in the mist. Amatsuhikone was one of them. Amaterasu claimed all five as her own children, and through him the Oshikochi clans traced their line back to the sun goddess herself.
Mythology & Lore
The Oath at Takamagahara
Susanoo arrived at the High Celestial Plain claiming he had come only to say goodbye to his sister before descending to the land of the dead. Amaterasu did not believe him. She bound up her hair, strung a thousand magatama beads across her chest, slung a quiver over her back, and stamped the earth until it gave way beneath her feet. She stood knee-deep in the ground and demanded he prove himself.
The proof was the ukei, a ritual oath. Each would take something belonging to the other, chew it, and breathe life from it. The nature of what emerged would reveal the truth. Amaterasu took Susanoo's sword, snapped it into three pieces, rinsed the fragments in the heavenly well, and chewed them. Three goddesses appeared in her breath. Susanoo then took the string of magatama beads from Amaterasu's hair, cracked them between his teeth, and breathed out five male gods. Amatsuhikone was the third.
Because the five gods had come from Amaterasu's own beads, she claimed them as her children. Susanoo's oath was judged sincere: the male gods born from the sun goddess's possessions proved his heart was pure. He had not come to steal her realm.
Divine Ancestor
The Kojiki names Amatsuhikone as the founding ancestor of the Oshikochi no Kuni no Miyatsuko and the Nuka no Kuni no Miyatsuko, provincial clans who administered lands under the Yamato court. His birth from Amaterasu's regalia made these lineages children of the sun goddess by inheritance, a claim the court genealogies preserved in writing when the Kojiki was compiled in 712.