Hihayahi-no-Kami

Hihayahi-no-Kami is recorded in Kojiki (712 CE) Upper Volume in the deity-making passage. After the cluster of deities arising from the blade base and hilt, the text reads, "And from the blood at the point of the sword, splashed onto the crowding rocks, there came into being Mikahayahi-no-Kami, next Hihayahi-no-Kami, next Takemikazuchi-no-O-no-Kami, also called Takefutsu-no-Kami, also called Toyofutsu-no-Kami." He stands among the three deities born from the tip of the sword that struck down Kagutsuchi. His father by generation is Izanagi-no-Mikoto, born from the sword's blood. His sibling deities Mikahayahi-no-Kami and Takemikazuchi-no-O-no-Kami stand alongside; Takemikazuchi later takes the principal role in the pacification of the land. Independent shrines that take Hihayahi alone as chief deity are limited, but he is set within the sword-deity traditions of Isonokami Jingu in Tenri, Nara, where Futsu-no-Mitama-Okami is enshrined, and is remembered alongside Takemikazuchi of Kashima Jingu in the sphere of ancient Mononobe ritual.