Who Is Izanami (Yomotsu-Ōkami)?
The creator goddess who became queen of the dead
Izanami-no-Mikoto
Izanami (Izanami-no-Mikoto) is the female creator goddess of the Kojiki and the wife of Izanagi. She appeared alongside him at the end of the Seven Generations of the Age of the Gods and gave birth to the islands of Japan and many gods. Later she came to be called Yomotsu-Ōkami, the great goddess of Yomi, the land of the dead.
When the couple married by walking around a pillar on the island of Onogoro, she spoke first, so their first child, Hiruko, did not grow properly. They redid the ritual and gave birth to the Great Eight Islands. But she was burned while giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi, and she died. When her husband came to bring her back, she asked him not to look at her while she talked with the gods of Yomi. He peeked anyway, shaming her, and she sent the hags of Yomi (Yomotsu-shikome) and thunder gods to chase him. At last, speaking across the great boulder that blocked the way, she declared she would kill a thousand people a day, and her husband answered that he would build fifteen hundred birthing huts a day.
This exchange is told as the origin of why people die and why new people are born.
Episodes featuring this character2
Episode 1
The Gods Who Proposed in the Wrong OrderKuniumi: The Birth of Japan
Facing an empty, drifting sea, Izanagi and Izanami, the last two gods to be born, are handed a single spear and told to "make a land." Their first meeting goes in the wrong order and they lose their first child. They don't turn on each other. They go to the heavens together to ask why, try again, and give birth to the Eight Great Islands.
19 pages
Episode 2
She Begged Him Not to LookIzanagi and Izanami in Yomi, the Land of the Dead
Izanami dies after giving birth to the god of fire, and her husband Izanagi goes down to the land of the dead to bring her back. She asks him for one thing: don't look at her. He looks. With a great boulder between them, they trade vows of death and birth and part forever. Then, as Izanagi washes himself clean, the children of the sun, the moon and the storm are born.
19 pages