In the Kojiki and related creation genealogies (Kamiumi), Ōyamatsumi is presented among the elder generation of kami born in the primordial age associated with Izanagi and Izanami; he functions as an ancestral node whose offspring populate later mythic narratives. Variant textual traditions in the Nihon Shoki and later medieval scholastic charts present alternate filiations for certain figures (for example, some later charts list Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi as his children). In the Tenson Kōrin account he interacts with Ninigi-no-Mikoto by offering his daughters Konohanasakuya-hime and Iwanaga-hime; when Ninigi sends Iwanaga-hime back, Ōyamatsumi remarks that the rejection shortens the heavenly grandson's intended longevity, an etiological element linking divine marriage choices to human / imperial fortunes.
Classical narrative sources supplied do not provide a detailed physical description of Ōyamatsumi. Rather than a fixed anthropomorphic portrait, his presence in the tradition is attested through genealogy and place: he is enshrined and venerated at Ōyamazumi Shrine on Ōmishima, and cultic representation is therefore principally mediated by shrine practice and local sacred objects rather than by standardized textual iconography in the cited sources. The textual corpus emphasizes his status as an elder mountain/island/sea kami and progenitor rather than describing a consistent physical form.
The primary functions attributed to Ōyamatsumi in the cited sources are genealogical and territorial: he fathers numerous kami (with Kaya-no-hime in Kojiki producing eight named offspring and additional offspring named without a mother in the lists), acts as a regional and landscape ancestor linked to mountains, islands, and the sea, and plays a role in sanctioning marriage alliances of the heavenly line (offering daughters to Ninigi). Secondary summaries associate him with war in modern descriptions, but the core texts emphasize lineage, place-guardianship, and the offering of daughters (Konohanasakuya-hime and Iwanaga-hime) that bear on imperial legitimacy and human mortality rather than enumerating overt combative feats.
5 Ronin
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Abumi-guchi
A Japanese yōkai classed as a tsukumogami: an animated stirrup (abumi) depicted in Sekien Toriyama's Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. Traditional accounts say it is formed from a stirrup that belonged to a soldier who fell in battle and that it waits where the stirrup lies for its dead owner to return.
Abura-akago
An Edo-period yōkai depicted as an oil‑licking infant or a ball of flame. First recorded in illustrated compendia (notably Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki), the Abura-akago is tied to tales of oil‑stealing fires and functions in part as an etiological warning about wasting or stealing oil.
Abura-sumashi
A yōkai spirit from the Amakusa region of Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, said to inhabit mountain passes. Traditionally explained as the ghost of a person who stole oil, it appears to surprise travelers and is represented in modern media with a straw-coat body and a potato- or stone-like head.
Aburabō / Abura-bōzu / Aosaginohi (traditions)
Two distinct Japanese traditions appear under related flame imagery: Aosaginohi/Aosagibi is presented as a will-o'-the-wisp type luminous night phenomenon interpreted as reflections from herons; aburabōzu (abura bōzu, "oil monk") appears in a separate anecdote as a reported fire-breathing apparition in a 12th-century Yasaka Shrine tale. The sources treat them as separate portrayals rather than a single unified being.
Acala
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Agaru
Agaru (attested historically as Agarum) appears in the supplied sources as a Bronze Age Near Eastern toponym—often identified with Failaka Island—and as a modern personal or media name. The provided material contains no evidence that Agaru is a supernatural being in any traditional cosmology.
Ajisukitakahikone
Ajisukitakahikone is a kami in Japanese mythic literature (Kojiki/Nihon Shoki). He appears in the transfer-of-rule cycle between heaven and earth, is described as a son of Ōkuninushi, associated with the Kamo cult (called Kamo no ōmikami in some modern museum/catalog entries), and features in narratives that explain landscape formation and meteorological genealogy.
Aka Manto
Aka Manto (赤マント, "Red Cloak") is a Japanese urban legend and schoolyard ghost-story about a masked, cloaked figure who appears in public or school toilet stalls and forces occupants to choose between colored toilet paper; each choice in the tale produces a violent supernatural consequence. The legend is part of modern popular folklore recorded in school contexts from the 1930s onward rather than a formal religious myth.
Akaname
Akaname is a Japanese yōkai associated with baths, bathtubs, toilets, and other places where scum and filth accumulate. Traditionally depicted as a child-like creature that licks grime, it functions in folklore as a cautionary figure tied to cleanliness; a few narrative variants cast it as dangerously predatory.
Akashaguma
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Akashita
Akashita (赤舌, lit. “red tongue”) is an Edo-period pictorial yōkai commonly represented as a hairy, clawed face emerging from dark clouds with a wide open mouth and a conspicuous red tongue. The figure appears in yōkai emaki and Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyō; Sekien’s plate shows it atop a sluice, but the original pictorial tradition provides no explanatory caption. Later folklorists and popular writers (Shōwa and later) have variously interpreted the image as a punitive spirit linked to irrigation/floodgate justice or as a kidnapper in evening skies, though these narrative roles are post-hoc.
Community Record
- [1]Ōyamatsumi - Wikipedia. Wikipedia: Ōyamatsumi (summary of Kojiki/Nihon Shoki material and shrine information)wiki
- [2]Ōyamatsumi - Wikidata. Wikidata entry for Ōyamatsumiwiki
- [3]Iwanaga-hime - Wikipedia. Wikipedia: Iwanaga-hime (context for Tenson Kōrin episode and daughter-offering motif)wiki