Ameno Uzume

• • Affiliation: Shinto
  • Kami of:
  • Family: Sarume Clan

Ameno Uzume

Ameno Uzume (天宇受売命, 天鈿女命) is known to be the ancestor of the Sarume Clan.²

She is mentioned in the nihongi and kojiki during the time when Amaterasu hides herself in the Sacred Rock Cave because of the actions of her brother Susano-o. She performs a dance in an attempt to get Amaterasu to leave the Rock Cave. The dance is said to have cause the kami to laugh, causing Amaterasu to peek out from the Rock Cave as she couldn’t understand how people could be happy wth her being absent.¹²

The kojiki states that it was a lewd dance, in which she became possessed, showing her breasts and pushing her girdle down past her privates. She is said to have danced on an upturned bucket, dressed in vines and ivy.¹

In the nihongi it is described as a ‘mimic dance,’ and it is said she danced with a spear wreathed in grass, dancing with a headress made from an uprooted tree from Mount Kagu which was decorated with a mirror and magatama.²

An alternative version in the nihongi mentions how, when Susano-o comes to Takamagahara for the last time to see his sister, she warns Amaterasu, causing her to dress in warrior garb.²

Footnotes

1. Yasumaro. O, translated by Gustav Heldt. (2014) “Kojiki. An Account of Ancient Matters”. New York: Columbia University Press.
2. Aston. W.G. (1896) “Nihongi Volume 1: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to AD697”. Tuttle Publishing.

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