Koitama is the female creator deity of Miyako Island. In the creation account preserved in the royal-government record Miyakojima kiji shitsugi (1748), the Heavenly Emperor first charged the god Koitsuno with bringing the newly made island to order; when Koitsuno pleaded that all creation requires the union of yin and yang, the goddess Koitama was sent down to join him. Descending together at the spring of Harimizu, the pair cultivated the land, bore the ancestors of the island's people, and, their work complete, returned to heaven. Koitama is enshrined together with Koitsuno at Harimizu utaki in Hirara, the foremost sacred grove of Miyako, whose worship predates the founding of the Ryukyu Kingdom.