Born when blood gathered on the hilt of the sword that killed Kagutsuchi and ran out between Izanagi's fingers. The Kojiki names Kura-Okami and Kura-Mitsuha; the name Taka-Okami also appears.
'Taka' is taken to mean the mountain heights and 'kura' the ravine, so this kami governs both the rain that falls on the peaks and the water that runs in the valley.
'Okami' is understood in the old language to mean a dragon-serpent. This kami has the power both to bring rain and to stop it.
Records survive of black horses offered in drought and white horses in long rain. The later practice of offering a painted board in place of a living horse is held to be the origin of the ema votive tablet.
Whether Taka-Okami and Kura-Okami are two aspects of one kami or two separate kami has been argued since antiquity.
The Bureau reconciles them as one. Rain falling on the peaks and water running in the ravine are the same water in different places; counting them apart would take us further from what water is, not closer.
Rain and the sources of water. Kifune Jinja in Kyoto enshrines Taka-Okami and has long received imperial rites for rain and for its cessation; Niukawakami Jinja in Nara serves the same role.
A shrine that holds the headwaters holds everything downstream. It is no accident that Kifune stands where the capital's water begins. Prayer to this kami was never only for rain, but for where the rain would go.
A wet stick, or one that has drunk water: a branch picked up after rain, wood gone mossy, something found beside a mountain stream.
Where Watatsumi is the kami of sea and tide, this one is the kami of water that falls and water that rises. Within the same water element the Bureau separates them by origin — a stick from the end of the flow belongs to Watatsumi, one from its beginning to Okami.
Note: this section is the Bureau's own reading, not a record from the chronicles.
The share of issued certificates in which this kami appeared. It shifts as more sticks are appraised. Variant spellings are reconciled before counting.
No published certificate bears this kami yet.