Nunakawa-Hime

Nunakawa-Hime is recorded in Kojiki (712 CE) Upper Volume as a goddess of Koshi-no-Kuni, the region around present-day Itoigawa in Niigata Prefecture. The Sendai Kuji Hongi gives her name as Koshi-Nunakawa-Hime and the Izumo Fudoki as Nunagihahime-no-Mikoto, associated with the jade-craft tradition along the Hime River, an in situ deity of the locality. In the Okuninushi passage of Kojiki Upper Volume, Okuninushi under the name Yachihoko-no-Kami journeys to Koshi to woo Nunakawa-Hime, and a long courtship song-cycle (the night-visit yobai) is exchanged at the door of her house; she accepts him and they are joined at dawn in a song of union. Nihon Shoki does not record her in the main text. Her father is Hitsukushinai-no-Mikoto, her consort is Okuninushi (Yachihoko-no-Kami), and her children include Takeminakata-no-Kami, later chief deity of Suwa Taisha, and Mihosusumi-no-Mikoto. She is enshrined at Nunakawa Jinja and Amatsu Jinja in Itoigawa, and at Kota Jinja in Joetsu, and at the subsidiary Koyasu-no-Yashiro of Suwa Taisha as a deity of safe childbirth.