Yamatotohime

• • Period: Legendary Period
  • Occupation: Princess
  • Family: Emperor Kōgen (father) Uchishikome (mother) Emperor Kaika (brother) Ohobiko (brother)
  • Birth: –
  • Death: –

Yamatotohime

Yamatotohime (倭迹迹姫命) was the daughter of Emperor Kōgen and Uchishikome and so was the sister of Ohobiko and Emperor Kaika. She is also given the name of Yamatotohimomosobime¹. She does not appear to be mentioned in the kojiki.²

War with Takehaniyasu

When Ohobiko makes report to Emperor Sujin of a song he heard being sung by a woman he came across Yamatotohime deduces the song means that Takehaniyasuhiko means to attack the Emperor. She also believes further proof of this was that she saw his wife Atabime taking soil from Mount Kagu. Taking the soil, she placed it in her neckerchief and turned it over stating that it resembled the land of Yamato.¹

Marriage and Death

After the events of this war it is said she weds the kami Ōkuninushi. Never having seen his face as he only came at night, she asks him to show himself to her. He agrees, but says he will do so by hiding in her toilet bag.

In the morning when she opens it she finds a small snake inside and became startled. The kami embarassed she was fearful of him leaves her and returns to his home on Mount Mimoro. Saddened by this she kills herself by stabbing herself with chopsticks in her genitals.

She is then buried in Ohochi, her tomb coming to be known as Hashi no Haka (The Chopstick Tomb), a tomb which was built by men in the day time and the kami in the night. A song it also said to have been sung as it was built which went as follows:

If one passed from hand to hand
The rock
Built up
On Ohosaka
How hard twould be to send them!¹

Footnotes

1. Aston. W.G. (1896) “Nihongi Volume 1: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to AD697”. Tuttle Publishing.
2. Chamberlain, B. H. (1932) “Translation of the Kojiki.” Kobe: J.L. Thompson & Co.

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