Nakisawame
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Nakisawame (Japanese: ナキサワメ, recorded in the Kojiki as 泣沢女神 and in the Nihon Shoki as 啼沢女命, sometimes also written as 哭沢女命) is a female kami in Japanese mythology. Her name means "crying weeping female".[1]
During the myth of the Birth of the Gods, in which the goddess Izanami died after giving birth to the fire deity Kagu-tsuchi, Izanagi clung to his wife's dead body and cried. From his tears, Nakisawame emerged. She is considered a spirit of spring water.
According to the Shinto creation myth, she lives at the foot of Mount Kagu.[1] In the Kojiki she is also named "Kakuyama-no-uneo-no-konoshita-ni-zasu-kami" (香山（かぐやま）の畝尾の木の下に坐す神). The engishiki jinmyōchō (延喜式神名帳) mentions the Uneotsu-Tamoto shrine (畝尾都多本神社, uneotsu-tamoto jinja), located in Kinomoto, Kashihara, Nara, nicknamed Nakisawa shrine (哭沢神社), in which Nakisawame is enshrined.
References
[edit]- ^ a b Roberts, Jeremy (2004). Japanese Mythology A to Z. New York: Facts on File. p. 81. ISBN 0-8160-4871-1.