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224 Before, then, the beginning of the world of men, there existed numerous generations of gods. The last of these "divine generations," as they are termed, were a brother and sister, named respectively Izanagi and Izanami, who, uniting in marriage, gave birth to the various islands of the Japanese archipelago and to a great number of additional gods and goddesses. The birth of the God of Fire caused Izanami's death, and the most striking episode of the whole Japanese mythology ensues, when her husband, Orpheus-like, visits her at the gate of the under-world to implore her to return to him. She would fain do so, and bids him wait while she takes counsel with the deities of the place. But he, impatient at her long tarrying, breaks off one of the teeth of the comb in his hair, lights it and goes in, only to find her a hideous mass of putrefaction, in the midst of which are seated the eight Gods of Thunder. Eight, be it observed, is the mystic number of the Japanese, as six is the mystic number of the Ainos whom their ancestors drove out.

Returning to south-western Japan, Izanagi purifies himself by bathing in a stream, and as he does so, fresh deities are born from each article of clothing that he throws down on the riverbank, and from each part of his person. One of these deities was the Sun-Goddess Ama-terasu, who was born from his left eye, while the Moon-God sprang from his right eye, and the last born of all, Susa-no-o, whose name means "the Impetuous Male," was born from his nose. Between these three children their father divides the inheritance of the universe.

At this point the story loses its unity. The Moon-God is no more heard of, and the traditions concerning the Sun-Goddess diverge from those concerning the Impetuous Male Deity in a manner which is productive of inconsistencies in the rest of the mythology. The Sun-Goddess and the Impetuous Male Deity have a violent quarrel, and at last the latter breaks a hole in the roof of the hall in Heaven, where his sister is sitting at work with her "celestial weaving-maidens," and through it lets fall "a heavenly piebald horse which he had flayed with a backward