Izanagi and Izanami: The Creator Couple of Japanese Myth, the Birth of Death, and the First Descent into the Underworld
Izanagi wielding the jeweled spear Ame-no-Nuboko, with Izanami — Kobayashi Eitaku, 1880–1890, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The founding act of Japanese creation: the divine couple standing on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, stirring the primordial waters with the celestial spear until the first land emerges from the sea. In the beginning, before the islands of Japan existed, the heavens and the earth were still combined — an undifferentiated mass like an egg, the clear and light element rising to form the sky and the heavy and dark element sinking to form what would become the earth. From this separation emerged the first gods, one after another, until the divine pair was appointed: Izanagi-no-Mikoto ("the Male-Who-Invites") and Izanami-no-Mikoto ("the Female-Who-Invites"). The older gods of heaven gave them a jeweled spear — the Ame-no-Nuboko , the "Heavenly Jeweled Spear" — and instructed them to stand on the Floating Bridge of Heaven and stir th...