Okamuzumi-no-Mikoto

Okamuzumi-no-Mikoto (意富加牟豆美命) is a deity recorded in the Kojiki (712 CE). The name is interpreted as "great deified spirit", also written as 大神実命. According to the Kojiki upper scroll, when Izanagi fled from his deceased wife Izanami along Yomotsuhirasaka (the slope between worlds), he threw three peaches from a tree at the foot of the slope to repel the pursuing forces of Yomi and the eight thunder deities. Izanagi then commanded the peaches: "When the mortal people of the central reed-plain country are in distress, help them," and conferred the name Okamuzumi-no-Mikoto. The Nihon Shoki (720 CE) records the same scene without naming the deity. The peach-power tradition connects with the imported Chinese association of peaches with the dispelling of malign forces, and traces survive in the Hina-matsuri (peach festival).