, also pronounced Wadatsumi, is a legendary ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' (神, god; deity; spirit),

Japanese dragon Japanese dragons (, ''Nihon no ryū'') are diverse legendary creatures in Japanese mythology and folklore. Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories about dragons from China, Korea and the Indian subcontinent. The ...

and tutelary

water deity A water deity is a deity in mythology associated with water or various bodies of water. Water deities are common in mythology and were usually more important among civilizations in which the sea or ocean, or a great river was more important. Anoth ...

Japanese mythology Japanese mythology is a collection of traditional stories, folktales, and beliefs that emerged in the islands of the Japanese archipelago. Shinto and Buddhist traditions are the cornerstones of Japanese mythology. The history of thousands of year ...

. is believed to be another name for the sea deity

Ryūjin Ryūjin ( 龍神), which in some traditions is equivalent to Ōwatatsumi, was the tutelary deity of the sea in Japanese mythology. In many versions Ryūjin had the ability to transform into a human shape. Many believed the god had knowledge on ...

(龍神, Dragon God) and also for the , which rule the upper, middle and lower seas respectively and were created when

Izanagi Izanagi (イザナギ/伊邪那岐/伊弉諾) or Izanaki (イザナキ), formally known as , is the creator deity (''kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can b ...

was washing himself of the dragons blood when he returned from

Yomi is the Japanese word for the land of the dead (World of Darkness). According to Shinto mythology as related in '' Kojiki'', this is where the dead go in the afterlife. Once one has eaten at the hearth of Yomi it is (mostly) impossible to retur ...

, "the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

Name

The earliest written sources of

Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial. Old Jap ...

transcribe the name of the sea god in a diverse manner. The c. 712 CE ''

Kojiki The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperia ...

'' (tr.

Basil Hall Chamberlain Basil Hall Chamberlain (18 October 1850 – 15 February 1935) was a British academic and Japanologist. He was a professor of the Japanese language at Tokyo Imperial University and one of the foremost British Japanologists active in Japan during th ...

1883) writes it semantically as 海神 lit. "sea god" and transcribes it phonetically with

man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this ...

as Wata-tsu-mi, 綿津見, lit. "cotton port see" in identifying Ōwatsumi kami and the Watatsumi Sanjin. The c. 720 CE '' Nihongi'' (tr.

William George Aston William George Aston (9 April 1841 – 22 November 1911) was an Anglo-Irish diplomat, author and scholar-expert in the language and history of Japan and Korea. Early life Aston was born near Derry, Ireland.Ricorso Aston, bio notes/ref> He dis ...

1896) also writes Watatsumi as 海神 "sea god", along with 海童 "sea child" and 少童命 "small child lords" for the Watatsumi Sanjin. In the modern

Japanese writing system The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese wo ...

, the name Watatsumi is usually written either in

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

as ワタツミ or in

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

phonetically 綿津見 or semantically 海神 "sea god". Note that in addition to reading 海神 as ''watatsumi'', ''wata no kami'' or ''unagami'' in native Japanese

kun'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequen ...

pronunciation, it is also read ''kaijin'' or ''kaishin'' in Sino-Japanese

on'yomi are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequent ...

(from

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

''haishen'', 海神, "sea god"). The original Watatsumi meaning "

tutelary deity A tutelary () (also tutelar) is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and ...

of the sea" is semantically extended as a

synecdoche Synecdoche ( ) is a type of metonymy: it is a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something is used to refer to the whole (''pars pro toto''), or vice versa (''totum pro parte''). The term comes from Greek . Examples in common Engl ...

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...

meaning "the sea; the ocean; the main". The

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

of the sea god Watatsumi is uncertain. Marinus Willem de Visser (1913:137) notes consensus that ''wata'' is an

word for "sea; ocean" and ''tsu'' is a possessive particle, but disagreement whether ''mi'' means "snake" or "lord; god". "It is not impossible" he concludes, "that the old Japanese sea-gods were snakes or dragons." Compare the Japanese rain god Kuraokami that was similarly described as a giant snake or a dragon. The comparative linguist Paul K. Benedict proposed (1990:236–7) that Japanese ''wata'', 海, "sea" derives from

Proto-Austronesian Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify ...

*''wacal'', "sea; open sea".

Ōwatatsumi

The ''

'' version of the Japanese creation myth honorifically refers to Watatsumi 海神 with the name Ōwatatsumi kami 大綿津見神 "Great Watatsumi god". Compare this sea god with mountain god named Ohoyamatsumi 大山積. The world-creating siblings

and

Izanami , formally known as , is the creator deity of both creation and death in Japanese mythology, as well as the Shinto mother goddess. She and her brother-husband Izanagi are the last of the seven generations of primordial deities that manifest ...

first give birth to the Japanese islands (''

kuniumi In Japanese mythology, is the traditional and legendary history of the emergence of the Japanese archipelago, of islands, as narrated in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. According to this legend, after the creation of Heaven and Earth, the gods Izanag ...

'') and then to the gods (''

kamiumi In Japanese mythology, the story of the occurs after the creation of Japan (''Kuniumi''). It concerns the birth of the divine (''kami'') descendants of Izanagi and Izanami. Story According to the Kojiki, various gods were born from the relations ...

'').

When they had finished giving birth to countries, they began afresh giving birth to Deities. So the name of the Deity they gave birth to was the Deity Great-Male-of-the-Great-Thing; next they gave birth to the Deity Rock-Earth-Prince; next they gave birth to the Deity Rock-Nest-Princess; next they gave birth to the Deity Great-Door-Sun-Youth; next they gave birth to the Deity Heavenly-Blowing-Male; next they gave birth to the Deity Great-House-Prince; next they gave birth to the Deity Youth-of-the-Wind-Breath-the-Great-Male; next they gave birth to the Sea-Deity, whose name is the Deity Great-Ocean-Possessor; next they gave birth to the Deity of the Water-Gates, whose name is the Deity Prince-of-Swift-Autumn; next they gave birth to his younger sister the Deity Princess-of-Swift-Autumn. (tr. Chamberlain 1919:28)

Chamberlain (1919:30) explains ''mochi'' 持ち "having; taking; holding; grasping; owning" behind translating Ōwatsumi kami as "Deity Great-Ocean-Possessor", "The interpretation of ''mochi'', "possessor," though not absolutely sure, has for it the weight both of authority and of likelihood." A subsequent ''Kojiki'' passage describes Watatsumi's daughter Otohime and her human husband

Hoori , also known as , is a figure in Japanese mythology, the third and youngest son of and the blossom princess . He is one of the ancestors of the Emperors of Japan as the grandfather of Emperor Jimmu. He is also known as . Mythology Hoori's lege ...

living with the sea god. After Hoori lost his brother

Hoderi , in Japanese mythology and folklore, was a deity of the bounty of the sea and enchanted fisherman. He is called in the ''Kojiki'', and or in the '' Nihon Shoki''. In Japanese mythology, he appears with his younger brother Yamasachi-hiko (Hoor ...

's fishhook, he went searching to the bottom of the sea, where he met and married the dragon goddess Otohime. They lived in the sea god's underwater palace

Ryūgū-jō or is the supernatural undersea palace of Ryūjin or Dragon God in Japanese tradition. It is best known as the place in fairytale where Urashima Tarō was invited after saving a turtle, where he was entertained by the Dragon God's princess Oto- ...

for three years before Hoori became homesick.

So he dwelt in that land for three years. Hereupon His Augustness Fire-Subside thought of what had gone before, and heaved one deep sigh. So Her Augustness Luxuriant-Jewel-Princess, hearing the sigh, informed her father, saying: "Though he has dwelt three years ith us he had never sighed; but this night he heaved one deep sigh. What may be the cause of it?" The Great Deity her father asked his son-in-law saying: "This morning I heard my daughter speak, saying: 'Though he has dwelt three years ith us he had never sighed; but this night he heaved one deep sigh.' What may the cause be? Moreover what was the cause of thy coming here?" Then is Augustness Fire-Subsidetold the Great Deity exactly how his elder brother had pressed him for the lost fish-hook. Thereupon the Sea-Deity summoned together all the fishes of the sea, great and small, and asked them, saying: "Is there perchance any fish that has taken this fish-hook?" So all the fishes replied: "Lately the ''tahi'' has complained of something sticking in its throat preventing it from eating; so it doubtless has taken he hook" On the throat of the ''tahi'' being thereupon examined, there was the fish-hook
n it N, or n, is the fourteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet# ...
Being forthwith taken, it was washed and respectfully presented to His Augustness Fire-Subside, whom the Deity Great-Ocean-Possessor then instructed. (tr. Chamberlain 1919:149)

Watatsumi instructs Hoori how to deal with Hoderi, and chooses another mythic Japanese dragon, a

wani Wani may refer to: *Vani (custom), a child marriage custom in tribal areas of Pakistan *Wani (dragon), a Japanese dragon translated as "sea monster", "crocodile", or "shark" *Wani (scholar), a legendary scholar, sent from Korea to Japan during the ...

"crocodile" or "shark", to transport his daughter and son in law back to land. Two ''Nihongi'' contexts refer to Watatsumi in legends about

Emperor Keikō , also known as and , was the 12th legendary Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Both the ''Kojiki'', and the ''Nihon Shoki'' (collectively known as the ''Kiki'') record events that took place during Keikō's all ...

and

Emperor Jimmu was the legendary first emperor of Japan according to the '' Nihon Shoki'' and '' Kojiki''. His ascension is traditionally dated as 660 BC.Kelly, Charles F"Kofun Culture"Sagami Province was a province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu, Musashi, and Suruga. It had access to the Paci ...

Kazusa Province was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture. The province was located in the middle of the Bōsō Peninsula, whose name takes its first ''kanji'' from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa province ...

. The calamity is attributed to the Watatsumi 海神 "sea god" and placated through

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...

Next he marched on to Sagami, whence he desired to proceed to Kadzusa. Looking over the sea, he spake with a loud voice, and said: "This is but a little sea: one might even jump over it." But, when he came to the middle of the sea a storm suddenly arose, and the Prince's ship was tossed about, so that he could not cross over. At this time there was a concubine in the Prince's suite, named Oto-tachibana-hime. She was the daughter of Oshiyama no Sukune of the Hodzumi House. She addressed the Prince, saying: "This present uprising of the winds and rushing of the waves, so that the Prince's ship is like to sink, must be due to the wishes of the God of the Sea. I pray thee let me go into the sea, and so let the person of thy mean handmaiden be given to redeem the life of the Prince's Augustness." Having finished speaking, she plunged into the billows. The storm forthwith ceased, and the ship was enabled to reach the shore. Therefore the people of that time called that sea Hashiri-midzu. (tr. Aston 1896:206)

Second, the genealogy of Emperor Jimmu claims descent from the goddess

Toyotama-hime or Luxuriant-Jewel-Princess is a goddess in Japanese mythology in the episode of the "Luck of the Sea and the Luck of the Mountain" in the '' Kojiki'' as well as '' Nihon Shoki''. She is the daughter of the sea deity, Watatsumi. Toyotama marrie ...

, the daughter of Hori and Otohime, who is identified as the daughter of Watatsumi 海童.

The Emperor Kami Yamato Ihare-biko's personal name was Hiko-hoho-demi. He was the fourth child of Hiko-nagisa-takeu-gaya-fuki-ahezu no Mikoto. His mother's name was Tamayori-hime, daughter of the Sea-God. From his birth, this Emperor was of clear intelligence and resolute will. (tr. Aston 1896:109-110)

There is uncertainty whether ''Nihongi'' scribes wrote ''tsumi'' with ''dō'' 童 "child; boy" simply for pronunciation or for some semantic significance.

Watatsumi Sanjin

When Izanagi's sister-wife dies giving birth to the fire god

Kagutsuchi Kagutsuchi (カグツチ; Old Japanese: ''Kagututi''), also known as Hi-no-Kagutsuchi or Homusubi among other names, is the kami of fire in classical Japanese mythology. Mythology Kagutsuchi's birth burned his mother Izanami, causing her deat ...

, his destroying it creates various deities, including the snow dragon Kuraokami. After Izanagi goes to the underworld in a futile attempt to bring Izanami back to life, he returns to the world and undergoes ritual purifications to cleanse himself of hellish filth. He creates 12 deities from his garments and belongings and 14 (including the 3 Watatsumis) from bathing himself. With the ''tsu'' 津 in these three dragon names being read as the genitive particle "of", they rule different water depths in the sea, ''soko'' 底 "bottom; underneath", ''naka'' 中 "middle; center", and ''uwa'' 上 "above; top" (''Kojiki'') or ''uwa'' 表 "surface; top" (''Nihongi''). Chamberlain (1919:48) notes, "There is the usual doubt as to the signification to be assigned to the syllable ''tsu'' in the second, fourth and last of these names. If it really means, not "elder" but "possessor," we should be obliged to translate by "the Bottom-''Possessing''-Male," etc." The earlier ''Kojiki'' version of the "Three Watatsumi Gods" calls them Wakatsumikami 綿津見神 "Wakatsumi gods": Sokotsu Watatsumikami 底津, Nakatsu Watatsumikami 中津綿津見神, and Uwatsu Watatsumikami 上津綿津見神.

Thereupon saying: "The water in the upper reach is oorapid; the water in the lower reach is oosluggish," he went down and plunged in the middle reach; and, as he washed, there was first born the Wondrous-Deity-of-Eighty-Evils, and next the Wondrous-Deity-of-Great-Evils. These two Deities are the Deities that were born from the filth e contractedwhen he went to that polluted, hideous land. The names of the Deities that were next born to rectify those evils were: the Divine-Rectifying-Wondrous Deity, next the Great-Rectifying-Wondrous-Deity, next the Female-Deity-Idzu. The names of the Deities that were next born, as he bathed at the bottom of the water, were: the Deity Possessor-of-the-Ocean-Bottom, and next His Augustness Elder-Male-of-the-Bottom. The names of the Deities that were born as he bathed in the middle
f the water F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...
were: the Deity Possessor-of-the-Ocean-Middle, and next His Augustness Elder-Male-of-the-Middle. The names of the Deities that were born as he bathed at the top of the water were the Deity Possessor-of-the-Ocean-Surface, and next His Augustness Elder-Male-of-the-Surface. These three Ocean-Possessing Deities are the Deities held in reverence as their ancestral Deities by the Chiefs of Adzumi. So the Chiefs of Adzumi are the descendants of His Augustness Utsushi-hi-gana-saku, a child of these Ocean-Possessing Deities. These three Deities His Augustness Elder-Male-of-the-Bottom, His Augustness Elder-Male-of-the-Middle, and His Augustness Elder-Male-of-the-Surface are the three Great Deities of the Inlet of Sumi. (tr. Chamberlain 1919:45-46)

The later ''Nihongi'' version describes the "Three Watatsumi Gods" as Watatsumi Mikoto 少童命 "small child lords": Sokotsu Watatsumi Mikoto 底津少童命, Nakatsu Watatsumi Mikoto 中津少童命, and Uwatsu Watatsumi Mikoto 表津少童命. These Watatsumis are paired with three O Mikoto 男命 "male lords".

Moreover, the Deities which were produced by his plunging down and washing in the bottom of the sea were called Soko-tsu-wata-tsu-mi no Mikoto and Sokotsutsu-wo no Mikoto. Moreover, when he plunged and washed in the mid-tide, there were Gods produced who were called Naka I tsu wata-dzu-mi no Mikoto, and next Naka-tsutsu-wo no Mikoto. Moreover, when he washed floating on the surface of the water, Gods were produced, who were called Uha-tsu-wata-dzu-mi no Mikoto and next Uhai-tsutsu-wo no Mikoto. There were in all nine Gods. The Gods Soko-tsutsu-wo no Mikoto, Naka-tsutsu-wo no Mikoto, and Soko-tsutsu-wo no Mikoto are the three great Gods of Suminoye. The Gods Soko-tsu-wata-dzu-mi no Mikoto, Naka-tsu-wata-dzu-mi no Mikoto, and Uha-tsu-wata-dzu-mi no Mikoto are the Gods worshipped by the Muraji of Adzumi. (tr. Aston 1896:27)

Aston notes translations of "Bottom-sea-of-body", "Middle-sea-god", and "upper".

Shrines

There are numerous

Shinto shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, meani ...

s dedicated to the sea god Watatsumi. Some examples include the Ōwatatsumi jinja or Daikai jinja 大海神社 in

Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka is one of 24 wards of Osaka, Japan. It is located on the southern part of the Uemachi Plateau, in the southernmost part of Osaka City, and is separated from Sakai City's Sakai-ku and Kita-ku by the Yamato River. There are six rail lines, and thr ...

(associated with the

Sumiyoshi Taisha , also known as Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine, is a Shinto shrine in Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It is the main shrine of all the Sumiyoshi shrines in Japan. However, the oldest shrine that enshrines the Sumiyoshi sanjin, the thr ...

shrine), the Watatsumi jinja 海神社 in

Tarumi-ku, Kobe is one of nine wards of Kobe, Japan. It has an area of 26.89 km², and a population of 219,958 (2008). Tarumi is a suburban area in western Kobe, providing residential towns for commuters to downtown Kobe and even Osaka. The Akashi Kaiky ...

, and the Watatsumi jinja 綿都美神社 in Kokura Minami-ku, Kitakyūshū.

References

*Aston, William George, tr. 1896
''Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697''
2 vols. Kegan Paul. *Benedict, Paul K. 1990. ''Japanese/Austro-Tai''. Karoma. *Chamberlain, Basil H., tr. 1919

Asiatic Society of Japan. *Visser, Marinus Willem de. 1913
''The Dragon in China and Japan''
J. Müller. *Yamanouchi, Midori and Joseph L. Quinn, trs. 2000. ''Listen to the Voices from the Sea: Writings of the Fallen Japanese Students (Kike Wadatsumi no Koe)''. University of Scranton Press. *manga:

Blue Exorcist is a Japanese dark fantasy manga series written and illustrated by Kazue Kato. The story revolves around Rin Okumura, a teenager who discovers he and his twin brother Yukio are the sons of Satan, born from a human woman, and he is the inhe ...

/Ao no Exorcist; chapter 36 *manga: in Eiichiro Oda's manga One Piece, Wadatsumi is a tiger blowfish fish-man whose name is derived from watatsumi, and who works for Captain Vander Decken IX. *manga:

Saint Seiya , also known as ''Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac'' or simply ''Knights of the Zodiac'' (translated from the French title ''Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque''), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masami Kurumada. It ...

Episode G Assassin; chapter 23 Game:

Genshin impact ''Genshin Impact'' is an action role-playing game developed and published by miHoYo. It was released for Android (operating system), Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, and Windows in 2020, on PlayStation 5 in 2021, and is set for release on Nintendo ...

Watatsumi shrine/Island during inazuma arc

External links

Watatsumi
Encyclopedia of Shinto {{Japanese folklore long Japanese gods Japanese dragons Sea and river gods Shinto kami