After the birth of the god of fire, which nearly destroyed the mother's life, Izanami fled to the land of roots or of darkness, that is into Hades. Izanagi, like a true Orpheus, followed his Eurydice and beseeched her to come back to earth to complete with him the work of creation. She parleyed so long with the gods of the underworld that her consort, breaking off a tooth of his comb, lighted it as a torch and rushed in. He found her putrefied body, out of which had been born the eight gods of thunder. Horrified at the awful foulness which he found in the underworld, he rushed up and out, pursued by the Ugly-Female-of-Hades. By artifices that bear a wonderful resemblance to those in Teutonic fairy tales, he blocked up the way. His head-dress, thrown at his pursuer, turned into grapes which she stopped to eat. The teeth of his comb sprouted into a bamboo forest, which detained her. The three peaches were used as projectiles; his staff which stuck up in the ground became a gate, and a mighty rock was used to block up the narrow pass through the mountains. Each of these objects has its relation to place-names in Idzumo or to superstitions that are still extant. The peaches and the rocks became gods, and on this incident, by which the beings in Hades were prevented from advance and successful mischief on earth, is founded one of the norito which Mr. Satow gives in condensed form. The names of the three gods,[4] Youth and Maiden of the Many Road-forkings, and Come-no-further Gate, are expressed and invoked in the praises bestowed on them in connection with the offerings.
He (the priest) says: I declare in the presence of the sovran gods, who like innumerable piles of rocks sit closing up the way in the multitudinous road-forkings.... I fulfil your praises by declaring your NAMES, Youth and Maiden of the Many Road-forkings and Come-no-further Gate, and say: for the OFFERINGS set up that you may prevent [the servants of the monarch] from being poisoned by and agreeing with the things which shall come roughly-acting and hating from the Root-country, the Bottom-country, that you may guard the bottom (of the gate) when they come from the bottom, guard the top when they come from the top, guarding with nightly guard and with daily guard, and may praise them—peacefully take the great OFFERINGS which are set up by piling them up like a range of hills, that is to say, providing bright cloth, etc., ... and sitting closing-up the way like innumerable piles of rock in the multitudinous road-forkings, deign to praise the sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness eternally and unchangingly, and to bless his age as a luxuriant AGE.
Retreating to another part of the world—that is, into southwestern Japan—Izanami purified himself by bathing in a stream. While washing himself,[5] many kami were borne from the rinsings of his person, one of them, from the left eye (the left in Japanese is always the honorable side), being the far-shining or heaven-illuminating kami, whose name, Amatérasŭ, or Heaven-shiner, is usually translated "The Sun-goddess." This personage is the centre of the system of Shintō. The creation of gods by a process of cleansing has had a powerful effect on the Japanese, who usually associate cleanliness of the body (less moral, than physical) with godliness.
It is not necessary to detail further the various stories which make up the Japanese mythology. Some of these are lovely and beautiful, but others are horrible and disgusting, while the dominant note throughout is abundant filthiness.
Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, who has done the world such good service in translating into English the whole of the Kojiki, and furnishing it with learned commentary and notes, has well said:
"The shocking obscenity of word and act to which the 'Records' bear witness is another ugly feature which must not quite be passed over in silence. It is true that decency, as we understand it, is a very modern product, and it is not to be looked for in any society in the barbarous stage. At the same time, the whole range of literature might perhaps be ransacked for a parallel to the naïve filthiness of the passage forming Sec. IV. of the following translation, or to the extraordinary topic which the hero Yamato-Také and his mistress Miyadzŭ are made to select as the theme of poetical repartee. One passage likewise would lead us to suppose that the most beastly crimes were commonly committed."[6]
Indeed, it happens in several instances that the thread by which the marvellous patchwork of unrelated and varying local myths is joined together, is an indecent love story.
A thousand years after the traditions of the Kojiki had been committed to writing, and orthodox Shintō commentators had learned science from the Dutch at Nagasaki, the stirring of the world mud by Izanagi's spear[7] was gravely asserted to be the cause of the diurnal revolution of the earth upon its axis, the point of the axis being still the jewel spear.[8] Onogoro-jima, or the Island of the Congealed Drop, was formerly at the north pole,[9] but subsequently removed to its present position. How this happened is not told.