The early parts of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki were for centuries considered to be imitations of Chinese models and it is not until the appearance of the brother/sister duo Izanagi and Izanami in the 12th generation of kami that they take on a fully Japanese persona. During the Edo period, however, Nativist scholars re-examined this interpretation and Hirata Atsutane propounded a theory contending that Ame-no-minaka-nushi was the primary kami of the seven major stars making up the Ursa Major constellation. Like Motoori, Hirata has been kamified and is enshrined at the Hirata-jinja in Tōkyō’s Shibuya-ku. His theory was taken up by the government during the early years of the Meiji Restoration as part of a nationalist drive to clearly separate Shintō and Buddhism and promote the former at the expense of the latter Shin-butsu bunri. Prior to this many shrines and Buddhist temples shared the same space and many Buddhist gods were also Shintō deities. One of these, Myōken, a bodhisattva considered to be the personification of the North Star, was replaced by Ame-no-minaka-nushi in shrines. I have identified 45 Myōken Jinja, 33 of them in the west of the country. It would seem a safe assumption that at least some of them were previously temples but at the moment I don’t have time to look into this. An interesting byway to meander along later.