page_title: Kuni-yuzuri
section_title: Futsunushi and Takemikazuchi
hierarchical_section_title: Kuni-yuzuri / Analysis / Futsunushi and Takemikazuchi
context_page_description: The kuni-yuzuri "Transfer of the land" was a mythological event in Japanese prehistory, related in sources such as the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. It relates the story of how the rulership of Japan passed from the earthly kami to the kami of Heaven and their eventual descendants, the Imperial House of Japan.
context_section_description: Both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki agree in naming one of the two messengers the gods of Takamagahara send to Ōkuninushi to be Takemikazuchi, the god of Kashima Shrine in Hitachi Province (modern Ibaraki Prefecture) who was worshipped by the influential Nakatomi clan, which oversaw the religious rituals of the Yamato court, and its offshoot, the Fujiwara clan. The second messenger meanwhile is identified in the Nihon Shoki as Futsunushi-no-kami (経津主神), the deity of Katori Shrine in Shimōsa Province (modern Chiba Prefecture) worshipped by the Mononobe clan.
  While in the Kojiki it is Takemikazuchi among the two messengers who takes center stage, the two versions of the myth found in Nihon Shoki and other sources imply that the central role was originally occupied by Futsunushi. For instance, both the Fudoki of Izumo Province and the Izumo-no-kuni-no-miyatsuko-no-kanyogoto (出雲国造神賀詞 "Divine Congratulatory Words of the Kuni-no-Miyatsuko of Izumo"), an address the chieftain or governor (kuni-no-miyatsuko/kokuzō) of Izumo offered to the Emperor on behalf of Izumo's deities as a sign of his allegiance to the imperial (Yamato) court, mention or imply only Futsunushi (recorded in both texts as 布都怒志命/布都努志命 Futsunushi-no-mikoto) as descending from heaven, with no mention of Takemikazuchi. It is therefore thought that Takemikazuchi gradually came to take on Futsunushi's attributes and roles, coinciding with the decline of the Mononobe and the rise of the Nakatomi.
caption: Ō no Yasumaro, compiler and editor of the Kojiki.
exif: {}