Izanagi and Izanami: Japan’s Creation Myth

The First Island

After the first appearance of heaven and earth, the youngest of the deities, Izanagi and Izanami, were ordered by the gods of heaven to complete the land. They stood together on the floating bridge between heaven and earth, lowered the heaven’s jeweled spear, and stirred it around until the brine that dripped from its tip solidified into an island. Then they descended to the new land that they had created.

Here they built a great pillar and a huge palace. Then Izanagi asked his sister Izanami, “What’s your body like?”

“It’s lacking in one place,” she replied.

“My body is excessive in one place,” he said. “I’d like to put that part into where you’re lacking, to give birth to the land. What do you think?”

“That would be good,” she said.

“Then let us circle around this pillar and have intercourse where we meet.”

So, they circled the pillar from right and left, and when they met, Izanami said, “What a lovely boy.”

And Izanagi said, “What a lovely girl.” But then he told her, “It was wrong for the woman to speak first.”

Still, they had intercourse, but the child they gave birth to was like a leech, and they floated it away in a boat made of reeds. The next child was an island of foam, and this was not counted either.

They went to consult the gods of heaven, who performed a divination and told them, “It was wrong that the woman spoke first. Return and say it again.”

So, the next time, Izanagi said first, “What a lovely girl.”

And Izanami said, “What a lovely boy.”

And this time their union was a fruitful one.

Births and Death

First, they gave birth to Awajishima, and then Shikoku and Kyūshū, each with their four faces, and then to all the rest of the islands of Japan. And when the country was complete, Izanami gave birth to deities. There were deities of the household, of the seas and rivers, of the wind and trees, of the moors and mountains, and of boats and grains.

But the next to be born was the fire deity Kagutsuchi, who burned Izanami’s genitals coming into the world. As she suffered, new deities sprang from her vomit, feces, and urine. And then she died and went to Yomi, the realm of the dead. All told, Izanami and Izanagi created fourteen islands in her lifetime, and thirty-five deities.

Izanagi wailed, “My beloved wife! To lose you to death for the sake of a single child!” He crawled around her body from the head to the feet, sobbing all the time, and birthing a new deity with his tears. Izanami was laid to rest on Mount Hiba between the lands of Izumo and Hōki.

Later, the raging Izanagi drew his great sword and chopped off Kagutsuchi’s head, and many more deities were born from the blood, and the body of the slain fire deity. It was at this time that Izanagi resolved to follow Izanami to the realm of the dead and find her there.

(© Stuart Ayre)

(Text by Richard Medhurst, based on the story in Kojiki. Illustrations © Stuart Ayre.)