Izanami- Japanese PrimordialPrimordial"She Who Invites"

The Spear and the Pillar

Izanagi and Izanami were the last of the primordial generations, the first gods given a task. The world below heaven was a formless ocean. The heavenly gods commanded them to give it shape.

Standing on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, they thrust the jeweled spear Ame-no-Nuhoko into the water and stirred. Brine dripped from the spear's tip and coagulated into Onogoro-shima, the first solid land. On this island they erected the Heavenly Pillar and walked around it in opposite directions to perform the first marriage. When they met, Izanami spoke first, praising Izanagi's beauty.

Their first child was Hiruko, the Leech Child, boneless and unable to stand even at the age of three. They set Hiruko adrift in a reed boat. Their second child was a mass of foam that refused to solidify. The couple ascended to heaven and consulted the elder gods, who determined through divination that the woman should not have spoken first. They returned, repeated the ritual with Izanagi speaking first, and the births that followed were blessed.

The Islands

Izanami gave birth to the eight great islands of Japan, then to the kami of every natural force: gods of mountains and sea, of wind and trees. Each deity took a piece of the new world. The land her body had produced was now populated by the children of her body.

The Fire God

Izanami's last child was Kagutsuchi, the god of fire. As he emerged, his flames consumed her from within. Even dying, she continued to create: from her body came gods of metal and of water. But these final births could not save her. She died, the first death among the divine.

Izanagi wept. From his tears sprang the weeping goddess Nakisawame. Then his grief became rage. He drew his sword and beheaded Kagutsuchi. From the fire god's blood and dismembered body more deities were born.

Yomi

Izanagi followed his wife into Yomi-no-kuni, the land beneath the earth. He found her at the entrance to the palace of the dead and begged her to return. She said she had already eaten the food of Yomi and was bound to it. She would petition the gods of the dead for release, but he must not look at her.

He waited in darkness. His patience broke. He snapped a tooth from his comb, lit it as a torch, and entered the hall where she rested. Her body was rotting, crawling with maggots, swollen with decay. Thunder Gods had been born from her corrupting flesh: Great Thunder in her head, Fire Thunder in her breast.

"You have shamed me!" she screamed. She sent the Yomotsu-shikome, the hags of Yomi, after him. Izanagi ran.

The Boulder and the Vow

Izanagi fled through the darkness. He cast his headdress behind him and it became grapes; his comb became bamboo shoots. The hags stopped to eat. He gained ground. Izanami sent the Thunder Gods and fifteen hundred warriors of the dead.

At the slope of Yomotsu Hirasaka, where the world of the living met the world of the dead, Izanagi found three peaches growing. He hurled them at his pursuers. Their vital force drove back the dead.

Izanami herself came last. Izanagi heaved a massive boulder into the passage and sealed it. They faced each other across the stone.

"My beloved husband, if you do this, I will strangle to death one thousand of your people every day."

"My beloved wife, if you do this, I will cause one thousand five hundred to be born every day."

She became Yomotsu-Ōkami, the Great Goddess of Yomi. The boundary between the living and the dead was closed. Every day since, her curse has taken a thousand lives, and his answer has brought fifteen hundred more into the light.