Yasakatome

is a kami in Shinto. She is worshipped in the Suwa Taisha network of shrines. She is the wife of Takeminakata and most often considered to be the deity of the Lower Shrine of Suwa or the Shimosha.Muraoka (1969). pp. 5–6. Unlike the relatively well-documented Suwa Kamisha, very little concrete information is available regarding the origins of the Shimosha and its goddess.Suwa Shishi Hensan Iinkai, ed. (1995). p. 696. At Suwa Taisha Takeminakata is enshrined at Hon Miya and Yasakatome is enshrined in Mae Miya.

Yasakatome's first historical attestation is in the Shoku Nihon Kōki, where the goddess is given the rank of junior fifth, lower grade (従五位下) by the imperial court in the tenth month of Jōwa 9 (842 CE), five months after the same rank was conferred on Takeminakata. She is not found in the Kojiki or the Nihonshoki. As Takeminakata rose up in rank, so did Yasakatome,Miyasaka (1987). pp. 37-38. so that by 867 CE, Yasakatome had been promoted to senior second (正二位). The goddess was finally promoted to senior first rank (正一位) in 1074 (Jōhō 1).Ōwa (1990). p. 221-223.

Regarding her genealogy, according to the records of Kawaai Shrine in Kitaazumi District, Yasakatome was a younger sister of Utsushihikanasaku and the daughter of the god of the sea Ōwatatsumi太田亮『諏訪神社誌第一巻』官幣大社諏訪神社附属諏訪明神講社、1926年、12-13頁。宮坂光昭「強大なる神の国―諏訪信仰の特質」『御柱祭と諏訪大社』筑摩書房、1987年、39頁。 which has been seen as hinting to a connection between the goddess and the seafaring Azumi clan (安曇氏).Miyasaka (1987). p. 39. There is also a theory that Yasakatome was alternately the daughter of Ame no Yasakahiko (son of Nagashiraha no Kami, the sixth-generation descendant of Kamimusubi), a god recorded in the Sendai Kuji Hongi as one of the 32 guardians dispatched by Takamimusubi to defend Ninigi's elder brother Nigihayahi when the latter received the command to descend from Takamagahara aboard the ship Ame no Iwafune. However this theory of Yasakatome being the daughter of Yasakahiko is considered an unreliable conjecture from the Edo period that simply connected the partially similar names of Yasakatome (八坂刀売) and Yasakahiko (八坂彦) and does not have much evidence.宮地直一『諏訪史第2巻後編』信濃教育会諏訪部会、1937年、19頁。

Local Shinto tradition of Lake Suwa holds that the ridges are formed by the gods crossing the lake when traveling between the various buildings of the Suwa Grand Shrine. Folklore says it is the guardian god of Suwa, Takeminakata-no-kami, leaving his sanctuary to meet with his wife, the goddess Yasakatome, joining the opposite bank by walking on frozen water. The ice cracks that appear on Lake Suwa during cold winters, the omiwatari (see above) are reputed in folklore to be caused by Suwa Myōjin's crossing the frozen lake to visit Yasakatome.

An alternative explanation for the word -tomi (as well as the -tome in 'Yasakatome', the name of this god's consort) is to link it with dialectal words for "snake" (tomi, tobe, or tōbe), thereby seeing the name as hinting to the god being a kind of serpentine water deity (mizuchi).Tomiku, Takashi (1970). Himiko (卑弥呼). Gakuseisha. p. 48, cited in Kanai (1982). p. 6.

Yasakatome

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