Of all the myths of Japan, none is more central to the Shintō imagination than the story of Amaterasu’s retreat into the cave called Ama-no-Iwato, the “Heavenly Rock-Cave.” When the sun goddess withdrew into the cave and sealed the entrance behind her, the world was plunged into eternal darkness, and the eight million kami had to devise a plan to bring her out. Their solution — a mirror, a jewel, and a lewd dance — is the origin myth of the sacred rope that still marks Shintō shrines to this day.
The Quarrel of Heaven
The conflict that drives the myth begins in the Kojiki, the oldest chronicle of Japan, compiled in 712 CE. The sun goddess Amaterasu had received from her father Izanagi the rule of the Plain of High Heaven. Her brother, the storm god Susanoo, had been assigned the dominion of the seas. But Susanoo was a restless, weeping god. He did not want to rule the sea. He wanted to join his sister in the heavens.
When Susanoo climbed up to Takamagahara, the Plain of High Heaven, his appearance was so terrible that Amaterasu’s attendants, seeing his wild hair and his ferocious features, fled in terror. Mountains and rivers echoed with his cries. Amaterasu, knowing that her brother had come to cause trouble, came forth to meet him and asked why he had ascended from his kingdom of the sea.
Susanoo replied that he had come to bid her farewell, and to produce, in proof of his pure intentions, children with her. But the children he produced were not children at all. They were rough, violent beings, the seeds of war and pestilence. Amaterasu was furious, and in retaliation she produced from her own body three noble children, the seeds of goodness. She declared these to be hers, and the violent ones to be his.
From that moment, the two siblings were at war. Susanoo rampaged through the heavenly realm. He broke down the boundaries of Amaterasu’s rice fields, letting the wild boars and the storm through. He fouled the hall where the first ritual harvest was being offered, dropping excrement into the sacred space. He broke a hole in the roof of Amaterasu’s weaving hall and dropped through it a flayed pony. One of the weaving maidens, looking up at the falling beast, was struck in the genitals and killed.
The Sun Goes Dark
For Amaterasu, this last outrage was the final straw. She retreated into the cave called Ama-no-Iwato, dragged a great boulder across the entrance, and sealed herself in. Without the sun goddess in the heavens, the world was plunged into darkness: crops failed, the rivers ceased to flow, and the eight million kami wandered in endless night.
The Assembly of the Kami
The eight million kami gathered in the dry riverbed of the heavenly river to discuss what should be done. They could not simply break into the cave, for Amaterasu was the supreme deity and the cave was sealed with her power. They had to coax her out, and coaxing her required both wisdom and cunning.
A plan was formed. The mirror would reflect Amaterasu’s own light back to her, and the jewel would glitter with a brightness like the sun. At the same time, the dawn goddess Ame-no-Uzume would perform a sacred dance, and the rest of the kami would laugh and cheer so loudly that Amaterasu’s curiosity would overcome her anger. The mirror was a deliberate imitation of the sun itself: Amaterasu would think that there was another sun in the world. The dance and laughter were a form of sacred play, the same asobi the gods had used to lure out the spirit of the world at the dawn of time.
Ame-no-Uzume and the Lewd Dance
The dance of Ame-no-Uzume is one of the most striking moments in the entire body of Japanese myth. According to the Kojiki, she overturned a bucket in front of the cave and on this improvised platform she began to dance. She pulled up her garments, exposing her breasts and her nether regions, and she stamped her feet in a wild, lewd rhythm. The eight million kami burst into laughter so loud that the heavens shook.
The dance is not mere clowning. In the archaic Shintō sensibility, fertility and laughter are profoundly sacred forces. Ame-no-Uzume calls upon the power of birth and generation itself to bring the sun goddess out of her sulking retreat. Her laughter is the laughter of the gods at the dawn of creation, an echo of the primal asobi by which the world was made. The ritual dance became one of the central performances of Shintō: traces of it survive in the kagura, the sacred dances performed at shrines to this day, and the goddess is still venerated as a protector of performers and of the morning.
The Mirror and the Jewel
While Ame-no-Uzume danced, two other kami carried out their parts of the plan. The mirror was hung on a sacred sakaki tree outside the cave, and the jewel was hung beside it. The great god Ame-no-Tajikarao, the “Heavenly Hand-Strong-Male,” stood hidden nearby with a rope.
When Amaterasu heard the laughter and felt the strange light outside her cave, she pushed the boulder slightly aside and peeped out. There, before her, was the mirror. She saw in it a face that seemed to be her own, a sun-like radiance shining back. She said, in the words of the Kojiki: “I had thought that I was the only one who should shine in the heavens. Who is this that shines beside me?”
At that moment Ame-no-Tajikarao stepped out, took her by the hand, and drew her out. The other kami, shouting with joy, rolled a great boulder in front of the entrance, sealing the cave shut. A sacred shimenawa, a twisted rope of rice straw, was hung across the opening to mark it as forbidden ground. The sun returned to the heavens, the rivers flowed, and the order of the cosmos was restored.
The Punishment of Susanoo
Susanoo was punished for his misbehavior. The gods shaved his beard and his hair, pulled out his fingernails and his toenails, stripped him of his treasures, and banished him from the heavens. Yet the myth has another twist. Even as he was being punished, Susanoo swore that he had not truly meant to harm his sister, and produced children in proof of his oath. He descended to the land of Izumo, where he performed his great feat, the slaying of the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi, and there he married and founded a lineage. The sword he discovered in the tail of the great serpent would be given to Amaterasu as a token of reconciliation, becoming the famous Kusanagi no Tsurugi, one of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan.
The Shimenawa and Shintō Ritual
The sealing of the cave with a sacred shimenawa rope is the origin of one of the most visible features of Shintō practice. To this day, sacred trees, stones, and the entrances of shrines are marked with twisted ropes of rice straw, hung with zigzag-folded paper streamers called shide. The rope marks the boundary of the sacred, separating the world of the kami from the world of the everyday.
The most famous place associated with the myth is the Amanoyasukawara at Ama-no-Iwato Shrine in Takachiho, Miyazaki Prefecture, where a smaller shrine marks the place where the kami gathered. Takachiho is also said to be the place where Amaterasu’s grandson Ninigi descended from the heavens to begin his rule — a place of cosmic beginnings, where the sun returned to the world and the line of the Japanese emperors began.
Symbolism of Light and Darkness
The myth of the cave is a myth of the triumph of light over darkness, but it is also a myth of the woundedness of the divine: Amaterasu withdraws because she has been hurt. The gods do not force her out. They use a mirror, a jewel, and a lewd dance to make the cosmos laugh — suggesting that the way to heal the divine is not by force but by play, not by command but by community. The myth has also been read as a ritual drama re-enacted at the New Year, when the long nights of winter begin to give way to the lengthening days.
Last reviewed: June 2026.