Izanami (Izanami-no-Mikoto)

In the Kojiki-derived cosmogony recorded in early Japanese sources, Izanami and her brother-husband Izanagi are the last of a sequence of primordial deities charged with creating the first land. Together they give birth to the islands of Japan and to many kami, including Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, Susanoo, and Kagu-tsuchi. Izanami dies in childbirth giving birth to the fire kami Kagu-tsuchi. After her death she goes to Yomi (the land of the dead); having eaten the food of Yomi she becomes one with that realm and cannot return to the living, and later attempts to request permission to leave but instead becomes an active underworld presence who pursues Izanagi when he visits Yomi.

In the creation narratives Izanami is presented as a beautiful and graceful goddess prior to her death. In the Yomi episode when Izanagi lights a torch, her true postmortem form is revealed: a rotting, ravaged body described as covered with maggots and foul creatures. Before illumination her appearance is hidden by shadows in Yomi.

Izanami functions as a progenitor deity who, with Izanagi, produces islands and many kami and whose death institutes mortality for humans. After becoming one with Yomi (by eating underworld food) she resides in the land of the dead and dispatches underworld agents — named in the narrative as Yakusa-no-ikazuchi-no-kami (thunder-like demons) and shikome (foul women) — to pursue Izanagi when he flees. She cannot return to the living after consuming the food of Yomi but seeks permission to leave; she is an active source of pursuit from the underworld rather than a distant, inactive ancestor.