Koitsuno is the male creator deity of Miyako Island. According to the creation account preserved in the royal-government record Miyakojima kiji shitsugi (1748), after the island had been raised from the sea the Heavenly Emperor charged Koitsuno with bringing it to order; Koitsuno answered that all things require the pairing of yin and yang and that a male god alone could not create, so the goddess Koitama was sent down with him. Descending at the spring of Harimizu, the two cultivated the land, begot the human inhabitants of the island, and, their work complete, returned to heaven. The pair are enshrined at Harimizu utaki in Hirara, the foremost sacred grove of Miyako, worshipped since before the founding of the Ryukyu Kingdom and also famous as the seat of the island's white-serpent legends.