Yamato Takeru Kumaso Conquest

The Kojiki, Book Two, Keiko-tennō section, records that the prince Ousu was sent by Emperor Keiko to subjugate the Kumaso of southern Kyushu. He received a woman's garment from his aunt Yamato-hime-no-Mikoto and, dressed as a woman, infiltrated a banquet of the Kumasotakeru brothers. Striking when they were drunk, he killed the elder brother, then turned on the younger. The dying younger Kumasotakeru praised him, saying that no warrior in the land of Yamato matched him, and offered the name Yamato Takeru. The Nihon Shoki account differs in that only one figure, Kawakami no Takeru, is named.

The episode unfolds as Emperor Keiko's command, the bestowal of the disguise by Yamato-hime, infiltration of the banquet, the killing of the two Kumaso chieftains, and the naming as Yamato Takeru.

Southern Kyushu (modern Kagoshima and Miyazaki Prefectures) is named as the stage of the Kumaso. Related sites include Ise Jingu (where Yamato-hime was an attendant) and Takebe Taisha in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, which enshrines Yamato Takeru.

Kojiki, Book Two, Keiko-tennō section. Nihon Shoki, Book Seven, Keiko-tennō chronicle. The Tanaka Yoritsune annotated edition (Meiji 20 / 1887, NDL pid/772098) provides a pre-1945 critical text.