A son of Okuninushi. He appeared at the negotiation over the ceding of the land after his father and brother had already consented, and challenged Takemikazuchi to a trial of strength.
He came carrying on his fingertips a boulder a thousand men would strain to move. But when he took Takemikazuchi's hand, that hand turned to an icicle, and then to the blade of a sword. As he drew back in fear he was seized and thrown like a reed pulled from the ground.
He fled, and was run down at the sea of Suwa in the province of Shinano — Lake Suwa. There he swore never to leave that place, never to go against the word of his father and brother, and to yield the land to the child of the heavenly gods. His life was spared.
A defeated god stays in the place he fled to and is worshipped there as its kami. The story of the ceding records not only where the winners went, but where the one who withdrew ended up.
Suwa Taisha is divided into upper and lower shrines, and neither has a main hall. The upper shrine takes Mount Moriya as its body, the lower a sacred tree. The older arrangement, in which the mountain and the tree come before the building, has simply remained.
Wind and water, hunting, and war. In the medieval period he was widely revered as a god of arms, and the name of Suwa appears through the war tales. Suwa shrines are found across Japan.
Every seventh year, the Onbashira festival brings great fir trunks down from the mountain, hauled by hand, to be raised at the four corners of each shrine. Raising a single enormous tree is itself the rite — something rare even in Japan.
A stick that recalls the onbashira: long, heavy, straight, and asking to be stood upright.
The Bureau sends this kami down on a stick that suits standing better than lying — not one for swinging, not one for thrusting, but one that will hold itself up when planted. That is the shape of the god of Suwa.
Note: this section is the Bureau's own reading, not a record from the chronicles.
not yet recorded
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.