The First People (Japanese myth)

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 501 CE–1000 CE

Country or Culture: Japan

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

Out of the “clouds and mists” at the beginning of the universe, the man Izanagi (Izana-gi) and the woman Izanami (Izana-mi) are created (Colum 249). They are the last beings in a succession of deities. In the primeval landscape, they walk onto a rainbow bridge. There, Izanagi casts his spear downward and waterdrops run down the spear’s shaft to its tip, where they freeze, forming a place for the couple to stay.

In this place, they have many different children who become “the ancestors of men and women” (250). Yet after Izanami gives birth to the fire children, she falls fatally ill and disappears from the surface of the earth.

Through a cave, Izanagi enters the underworld, called “Meido, Place of Gloom,” in search of his wife (250). Underground, in a loud voice, Izanami tells him to stop and not to look at her. Yet Izanami lights a torch and approaches her. He is horrified by her appearance. Her eyes are hollow in her bare skull, and her mouth has no lips.

Angry at her husband’s defiance, Izanami vows not to let him return to their children above. Izanagi runs away. He is pursued by Izanami and her fellow “dread dwellers of the Place of Gloom” (250). Izanagi facilitates his escape by throwing bamboo shoots and grapes from his comb to the ground. There, his pursuers stop to eat them. He finally exits the cave and blocks its entrance with a big rock.

Izanami curses him. She announces that as his punishment, she will draw one thousand people down to Meido each day. Undeterred, Izanagi promises he will bring about the birth of fifteen hundred persons each day.

Beyond the cave, Izanagi bathes in a stream to wash off the pollution of the underworld. From the dirt he washes off, people are born. From them, one thousand have to die each day. This necessitates Izanagi to have his followers give birth to fifteen hundred people each day.

Because Izanagi defied Izanami’s orders not to look at her in the underworld, and because of her ensuing vengeance, the first couple becomes separated. As consequence, there are “death and separation in the world” ever since their hateful last encounter (251).

SIGNIFICANCE

In Orpheus: Myths of the World (1930), Irish author Pádraic Colum published his rendition of the Japanese myth of Izanami and Izanagi as “The First People.” In his retelling, Colum takes great creative liberties with the original Japanese creation myth of Izanami and Izanagi, which was first transcribed in Japan by Ō no Yasumaro in the Kojiki (Record of ancient matters) in 712 CE. The myth was later made part of the Nihongi (Chronicle of Japan), which was compiled and edited by Prince Toneri in 720 CE. Until the early twentieth century, this myth was taught to Japanese children as a historical chronicle of the creation of the Japanese islands and its earliest inhabitants.

Colum’s “The First People” condenses and alters the story of Izanami and Izanagi in some significant ways. Omitted is their creation, on the rainbow bridge, of the islands of Japan. Also, in the original, Izanami and Izanagi do not create human children, as in Colum’s rendition, but kami (spirits or deities).

The death of Izanami from giving birth to fire children, or the fire kami in the Japanese original, is central to the story. It alludes to the historical danger of death from childbirth. Even a deity such as Izanami was not immune to this tragic death.

Izanagi’s encounter with Izanami in the underworld is true to the Japanese original. The Japanese people of the Kofun period (ca. 250–535 CE), when the story most likely originated, did not cremate their dead. Instead, they buried them in impressive tombs, called “tumuli.” Some of these tombs have survived to the present day, such as the Daisen Kofun in Osaka. The Kofun people were familiar with the decay of the body after death. They envisioned the underworld as a horrific, dreadful place. Even a deity like Izanami faces bodily decay and disfigurement after death. She so resents her husband seeing her in this awful state that she forever severs ties with him.

Colum’s “The First People” omits the creation of the sun goddess Amaterasu, the divine ancestress of the Japanese emperors. In the original, Amaterasu is given birth either by Izanagi and Izanami together or by Izanagi alone after Izanami’s death. Both accounts are given in the Japanese chronicles.

Instead, Colum uses elements from the Chinese creation myth of Pangu when he states that people are created from the polluted dirt off Izanagi’s body. In the Chinese myth, common people are created from vermin in Pangu’s clothes. This presents a similarly discomfiting image totally absent in the Japanese original, in which Izanagi creates only three more kami after his return from the underworld.

In Japan, the story of Izanami and Izanagi is still popular and widely known. The two characters can be found in manga, anime, films, and computer games, for example. In the field of literature, prominent Japanese crime author Natsuo Kirino (pen name of Mariko Hashioka) retold the story from Izanami’s female point of view in Joshinki (2008; The Goddess Chronicle, 2012).

Colum’s “The First People” represents an interesting Western rendition of the Japanese myth of Izanami and Izanagi. Colum downplays the divine elements of the story. He focuses instead on the effects of the conflict of the first couple on humanity’s ensuing fate.

Colum was drawn to the Japanese story’s coincidental similarity to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Both tales feature a lover’s travel to the netherworld. In the Greek myth, however, Eurydice retains her beauty, and the two lovers do not fight each other, even after their separation in the underworld. For Izanagi and Izanami, their love ends. This is because Izanagi defies Izanami’s plea not to look at her figure, which has become a decomposing corpse. Their divorce definitively separates the world of the living from the world of the dead and introduces the cycle of life and death to the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aston, William George, trans. Nihongi. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1985. Print.

Chamberlain, Basil Hall, trans. The Kojiki. Kobe: Thompson, 1919: 19–51. Print.

Colum, Pádraic. “The First People.” Orpheus: Myths of the World. New York: Macmillan, 1930. 249–51. Print.

Kirino, Natsuo. The Goddess Chronicle. Trans. Rebecca Copeland. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2012. Print.

Philippi, Donald, trans. The Kojiki. Tokyo: U of Tokyo P, 1977: 48–73. Print.