Nakatsutsu-no-O-no-Mikoto

Nakatsutsu-no-O-no-Mikoto is recorded in Kojiki (712 CE) Upper Volume in the purification passage. The text reads, "While bathing in the middle of the water, there came into being the deities Nakatsu-Watatsumi-no-Kami and Nakatsutsu-no-O-no-Mikoto," placing this deity in the middle layer of the three-tiered birth from Izanagi-no-Mikoto's purification at the Tachibana-no-Odo-no-Awakihara in Tsukushi. In the bottom, middle and top of the water the three Watatsumi sea-deities and the three Sumiyoshi deities arise in paired strata. Nihon Shoki (720 CE) Jindai chapter five variant gives the corresponding form Nakatsutsu-no-O-no-Mikoto. The three Sumiyoshi deities together appear in later tradition to guide the ships of Empress Jingu in the campaign across the strait, linking Sumiyoshi worship to imperial ritual. He is enshrined in the second main hall of Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka, and at the Sumiyoshi Jinja of Hakata and Shimonoseki.