Story Laboratory: Storybook Research
While researching, my main goal was to deepen my understanding of the characters Izanagi and Izanami, and pick up some general knowledge of the creation myth in Japanese mythology that these two divine beings are a part of. Like other culture's gods and goddesses, Izanami and Izanagi are both siblings and spouses, and lots of other gods in Japanese mythology are descended from them somehow. Their names actually mean "he/she who invites", which sort of makes sense for two gods involved in a creation story, since in a way I suppose they're inviting in all sorts of new life forms.
Izanami and Izanagi are the children of many previous generations of gods and goddesses, but they were the ones who were assigned to bring the world into fruition. The older gods gave them a tool to help them accomplish this task, a spear called 'Ama no Nuboko'. Izanami and Izanagi were pretty confused, but it turns out that once they shoved the stick down towards the chaos that was pre-Earth, some stuff started happening and the island of Japan was formed!
Izanami and Izanagi moved down to Earth and started a family on the island of Japan. They had some trouble starting a family at first, but got advice and were able to successfully have some babies, which became the smaller islands surrounding Japan. Then, Izanami had even more children who represented other elements besides land, like wind, plant-life, water, etc. However, trouble struck when Izanami gave birth to Kagutsuchi, her child that represented the element of fire. Izanami died during childbirth, since Kagutsuchi fatally burned her.
Izanagi was understandably grief-stricken, but perhaps not so understandably he took out his anger on his newborn son and killed Kagutsuchi. (Only in some versions of the story. In others, Izanagi simply buries his wife.) Izanagi then still was grief-stricken, and set about to bring his wife and sister Izanami back from the dead. In Japanese mythology, the underworld/land of the dead is known as 'Yomi', and this is where Izanagi traveled to.
Izanagi found his wife in the underworld, but she wasn't able to leave the land of the dead because she ate food while there. However, the two did not give up, and Izanami went to ask the god who ruled Yomi if she could leave with her husband and return to the land of the living. Before she left, she told her husband not to enter the god's palace, but Izanami grew impatient and followed her inside.
When he went inside, though, he found his wife's rotting corpse. Even worse, there were baby gods still attached to it! Izanagi was disgusted and left Yomi, but was chased by Izanami and the baby gods. Izanagi escaped, but had to trap his wife Izanami in Yomi in order to do so, and so Izanami became the goddess of Yomi.
Here's a helpful video I found while researching!
Here are the links to the resources I used.
https://www.ancient.eu/video/913/ (Video above)
During my research for the story of Izanagi and Izanami, I also found some images that I thought would be useful for their Storybook section. These are both depictions of the god and goddess by Japanese artists and are really beautiful!
Izanagi and Izanami as depicted by Kobayashi Eitaku in 1885
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
"The God Izanagi and Goddess Izanami" as depicted by Nishikawa Sukenobu during the Edo Period
(Image source: Picryl)
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