Myths and Legends

Izanagi and Izanami

So their story is part of Japan's creation myth. Izanagi and Izanami are husband and wife and created the islands of Japan, or at least according to Shinto. This story is short is often compared to the whole Persephone incident..and Orpheus incident...I blame Christians and their love of comparing two completely different cultures and their stories. 

So Izanagi and Izanami were the parents of Japan. Now Izanami gave birth to a lot of Japan's deities and the first emperor of Japan. In fact a lot of the past rulers traced their line to them..or one of their children, not a lot of agreements in that area. But this story being with the birth of the fire god, Kagutsuchi. He was a little...too hot to handle.( I'm sorry for that), and Izanami died from the burns she received from birthing the little fireball...So Izanagi went to visit her in Yomi aka the underworld.

Now it was dark and depressing, but Izanagi managed to find Izanami and was like,"I'm here to take you home." and Izanami is like,"...Okay. Not sure how you're going to pull that off, seeing how you're a little late. But in the meantime you can't look at me. Atleast until I can figure something out"

Now this is where the story is compared to the story of how Persephone was bound to the underworld.Izanami ate some rice in the underworld. This caused her to become more corpse like, and she couldn't leave. Now she wanted to try and work something out so she asked Yomi for permission. 

Now onto the comparison to Orpheus. Now when Izanami told Izanagi not to look at her, he was a little confused, but respected her wishes. He got a little impatient so he lit a torch and saw how she turned into a corpse...You had one job Izanagi. If you know the story of Orpheus and how he did the one thing he was told not to do you'd understand how they came to this connection. 

This also woke up a sleeping Izanami, and pissed her off. Freaked out he ran and sealed off the entrance to Yomi ...mostly due to the dead coming after him. Izanami promised to kill 1000 living residents of the islands everyday and Izanagi promised to give life to 1500 living residents everyday. I'm guessing the divorce hearing went horribly.....

Wow this was short..I am doing Purgatorio and the Norse Afterlife. Give me some time I'm finishing up on midterms.