Takeminakata

The first recorded sumo bout, and it is fixed: one contestant's arm turns into a weapon. Japanese wrestling traces itself to this hold and so does the Suwa shrine's claim on its god. The political reading is hard to miss — a province is annexed, the compliant heir vanishes, the resisting one is chased to a lake three hundred kilometres away and kept there, and the whole thing is recorded as a voluntary transfer with a building thrown in.

Parentage

• Ōkuninushi

Domains

• strength
• warfare

Relations

• enemy: Takemikazuchi

Sources

• Reference treatments of the kuni-yuzuri and of Takeminakata.