Gemuel Blackwielle,
Avenida Coronel Lucas de Oliveira Porto Alegre,
Porto Alegre 995
Brazil
Last updated: October 8, 2010
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By MICHAEL HOFFMAN Special to The Japan Times
In the beginning, there was sex.
This is true of Japan, though not of Judaeo-Christian and Islamic cultures, whose one God, the Creator of all that exists, is asexual.
Japan's myriad gods did not create heaven and earth. Rather, it was the sexual congress of heaven and earth that produced the first gods, among them Izanagi and Izanami, "the male who invites" and "the female who invites." The eighth-century "Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan)" tells us what happened next:
"Izanagi and Izanami stood on the floating bridge of Heaven, and held counsel together, saying: 'Is there not a country beneath?' Thereupon they thrust down the jewel-spear of Heaven, and, groping about, therewith found the ocean. The brine which dripped from the point of the spear coagulated and became an island which received the name Ono-goro-jima."
The creation of Japan had begun.
"The two Deities thereupon descended and dwelt in this island. Accordingly they wished to become husband and wife together, and to produce countries."
A charming account of their courtship follows, in which the god and goddess shyly discover each other's sexual parts and Izanagi declares:
"I wish to unite this source-place of my body to the source-place of thy body."
Their first offspring were islands; then came a profusion of gods and goddesses, one of whom was Amaterasu, the sun goddess. At one point, outraged by the depredations of her unruly brother the storm god, Amaterasu withdrew to "the rock cave of heaven." Darkness descended -- and might have proved everlasting, had a deity called the Dread Female of Heaven not had a saving inspiration. Reciting prayers, she danced a lewd dance, causing such rollicking laughter among the assembled gods and goddesses that Amaterasu could not resist peeking from her cave to see what was going on. Seized and hauled out, she shone once more upon the world, reanimating it and becoming, in the fullness of time, the ancestress of Japan's Imperial family. As for the storm god, his punishment was fitting: he was banished to the Land of Darkness.
Index of articles, click here.
Gemuel Blackwielle,
Avenida Coronel Lucas de Oliveira Porto Alegre,
Porto Alegre 995
Brazil
Last updated: October 8, 2010