The White Hare of Inaba

Ōkuni-nushi has four other names. In the Kojiki he is a sixth-generation descendant of Susano-o: the main entry in the Nihon Shoki says he is Susano-o's son, an alternative passage agrees with the Kojiki version. 

 

As well as five names he also has eighty brothers (81), although none of them are named. Each of these brothers wanted to marry Yagami-hime of Inaba (83), and one day they all set off to Inaba to meet her.

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Ōkuni-nushi must have been the youngest brother, or very unassertive, because he was taken along only as the bag carrier, a very lowly position. On the way they came across a rabbit (Hakuto-jin, “The White Rabbit of Inaba,” 82) which due to its own deceit had been left furless and exposed to the elements to die. The eighty brothers gave the rabbit advice, which if acted on, which would probably have hastened its demise. Ōkuni-nushi seems to have been the last to pass the rabbit because he stopped and told it how to save its life. The rabbit then told Ōkuni-nushi that he would be the one to take Yagami-hime to wife.

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Yagami-hime and  the Trials & Tribulations of Ōkuni-nushi... 

This comment was apparently instantly communicated to  Yagami-hime because she then declared that she would marry only Ōkuni-nushi of the 81 brothers. This brought about great trials and tribulations, including death and resurrection, for the Master of the Great Land.

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...At the Hands of His Eighty Brothers

On hearing Yagami-hime's declaration the 80 brothers decided to kill Ōkuni-nushi. They made two attempts on his life, both successful in the short term, unsuccessful in the medium term. On the first occasion, his mother, not named but presumably Sashikuni-waka-hime (79C), seeing her son dead ascended to heaven and pleaded with Kami-Musubi-kami (3). He dispatched two princesses, Kisagai-hime (84A) and Umugi-hime (94B), who restored Ōkuni-nushi to life and he walked away as a beautiful young man. Seeing this, the eighty brothers followed him and "led him into the mountains. They cut down a large tree, drove a wedge into the tree, and put him inside. Then they removed him and crushed him to death." (Philippi p97). His mother found him, restored him to life, and told him that if he wished to escape from his eighty brothers he should flee to the land of Ki, where Ōya-hiko-kami (71A)  was living. This he did, but his tribulations proved to be far from over. Note that Ōya-hiko-kami is an alternative name for Iso-takeru-kami (71A), the son of Susano-o.

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...At the Hands of Susano-o in Hades​

Ōya-hiko-kami advised Ōkuni-nushi to visit Susano-o in Hades, where he was now living. On his arrival at Susano-o's palace the latter's daughter, Suseri-hime (85), came out to greet him. It was love at first sight and they became man and wife on the spot. She went back into the palace and told her father that a beautiful deity had arrived, inadvertently starting the next round of Ōkuni-nushi's tribulations. Recognizing his sixth-generation  grandson immediately, Susano-o invited him in and had him sleep in the snake house. Seeing this Suseri gave her new husband a scarf, telling him to wave it three times to ward off the snakes. He did, and emerged unscathed. Next night the process was repeated in the centipede and wasp house, and our hero again emerged unscathed.

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Susano-o then changed his tactics: he fired an arrow into the middle of a moor and told his son-in-law to go and fetch it. When Ōkuni-nushi was close to the arrow Susano-o set fire to the moor and Ōkuni-nushi was soon surrounded by fire with no apparent means of escape.  Deliverance came in the form of a "wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie" (aka a mouse) which guided him to what seems to have been a cavern in the ground with a narrow entrance where he sheltered until the fire had burnt itself out. When he had left the cavern he mouse brought the arrow to him in its mouth.

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The Wooing of Ōkuni-nushi

No sooner had this happened than a tearful Suseri came along carrying mourning implements. Susano-o had also come out on to the moor, thinking that Ōkuni-nushi was dead. Why had he wanted him dead? Philippi points out that Motoori was of the opinion that Susano-o was actually trying to test Ōkuni-nushi's mettle and that he had come out to the moor to search lovingly for his body (Philippi p101). The now very much alive Ōkuni-nushi came up to his ancestor and presented him with the arrow.

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They then went back to the palace and Susano-o bade Ōkuni-nushi take the lice out of his hair. He started to do this but quickly found centipedes there as well and it soon becomes clear that neither Ōkuni-nushi nor Suseri trust her father. Suseri gave her husband some berries and red earth which he started to chew in his mouth and spit out. Seeing this, Susano-o thought that Ōkuni-nushi was spitting out the centipedes and contentedly fell asleep.

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Ōkuni-nushi Escapes from Susano-o...

Ōkuni-nushi seized the opportunity to tie Susano-o's hair to the rafters of the room and block the entrance to the palace with a huge boulder.  He fled the palace carrying Suseri on his back and taking along with him Susano's sword of life, bow and arrow of life and his heavenly lute.

On the way the latter brushed against a tree and a sound reverberated along the ground, a reverberation strong enough to wake the still sleeping Susano-o, who once he woke managed to untangle his hair from the rafters, and set off after the fleeing couple. He was unable to catch up, however, and on reaching the Even Pass of Hades, where Izanagi had bid his tragic farewell to Izanami, was reduced to shouting a series of admonitions at Ōkuni-nushi in a mixture of exasperation and affection.

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...Kills His Eighty (Half) Brothers, and Begins the Creation of the Land

His son-in-law was to use the weapons he had taken and drive his 80 brothers, although they are now described as half-brothers, to the farthest reaches of the rivers and then  become in name and reality both the Master of the Great Land and the Spirit of the Living Land (Utsushi-kuni-tama-no-kami), make Suseri his primary wife, and at the foot of Mt. Uka (now considered to be the site of Izumo Taisha) build a palace with "crossbeams high enough to reach the Plain of High Heaven."  ("Crossbeams" is a translation of chigi. While it seems unlikely that the crossbeams ever reached as high as the Plain of High Heaven there is some evidence that even in the Heian Period Izumo Taisha was much higher than it is now.)  Ōkuni-nushi did as he was instructed, and then he began the creation of the land.

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This latter phrase has traditionally been taken to mean that Ōkuni-nushi resumed the task which had been left unfinished by Izanagi and Izanami. Philippi, however, speculates that what is happening here is the combining of two different creation myths, those of Yamato and Izumo. In the former, the creation of the land is carried out by Izanagi and Izanami, in the latter by Ōkuni-nushi and Sukuna-hiko-na (101). As we have already seen, Yamato emerged as the dominant force and thus was able to use the writing of history to legitimatize its own position: Philippi opines that the Izumo myth was incorporated into the Yamato myth "as a concession to the pride of the Izumo people" (p103).

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Back to the story. The trials and tribulations that Ōkuni-nushi has just overcome began with Yagami-hime's declaration that of the 81 brothers she would wed only him. The two now 　entered into conjugal relations and Ōkuni-nushi took his new wife back to his palace. She soon bore a child but so fearful was she of her new husband's primary wife, Suseri, that she fled the palace and left her son wedged in the fork of a tree. He was accordingly named Ki-no-mata-kami, lit. Tree Fork Deity (86).

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Ōkuni-nush woos Numakawa-hime, is Wooed by Suseri

Ōkuni-nushi then went to the Land of Koshi to woo a wise and beauteous maiden of those parts, Numakawa-hime (87). The wooing consisted largely of the exchange of what were in part largely formulaic songs and was apparently sight unseen, the exchanges taking place from either side of a closed door.  Ōkuni-nushi won his maiden, although they did not sleep together until the day after the exchange of songs.

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Back in Izumo Ōkuni-nushi quickly became tired of Suseri's jealousy of his philandering and told her, through the medium of song, that he was leaving Izumo for Yamato. However, Suseri, singing a song which in parts was very similar to that sung by Numakawa-hime, was able to dissuade him, and after an exchange of wine cups the couple were reunited in what seems to have been eternal happiness.

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Ōkuni-nushi Creates the Land

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Sukunabi-kona-no-kami Appears

One day Ōkuni-nushi was at Cape Miho in Izumo when an incoming wave brought in a small boat carrying very small deity wearing the skin of a tadpole. On being asked by Ōkuni-nushi who he was he remained silent and none of his accompanying deities knew he was. In response to being told by Tani-guku (100A), the toad, that Kue-biko-kami (100B), later revealed to be the scarecrow of the mountain paddies, would know, Ōkuni-nushi summoned the latter and was told by him that the very small deity was  Sukunabi-kona-no-kami, the son of  none other than Kamu-Musubi-kami (3), the third of the three Creation Kami. Kamu-Musubi-kami confirmed to Ōkuni-nushi that his was indeed the case, but that this child had slipped between his fingers. He, Kamu-Musubi-kami, enjoined  Ōkuni-nushi to become brothers with Sukunabi-kona-no-kami and together make and consolidate the land. Which they did.

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The Nihon Shoki has a different take on this episode, saying that Takami-Musubi-kami (2), the second of the three Creation Kami, had fathered 1,500 children, and that :- “Amongst them one (Sukunabi-kona-no-kami) was very wicked, and would not yield compliance to my instructions. He slipped through between my fingers and fell. This must be that child. Let him be loved and nurtured.” (Aston, p 63).

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After Ōkuni-nushi and Sukunabi-kona-no-kami had made and consolidated the land, Sukunabi passed on to Toko-yo-kuni (lit. "Land Beyond the Seas," "The Eternal Land" (Chamberlain p 104). Despite the land apparently having already been made and consolidated Sukunabi's passing on  led Ōkuni-nushi to wonder out loud how he could create the land by himself and what deity he could find to help him with the task.  He was soon given an an answer as a deity appeared illuminating the sea and told him that if he worshipped the Deity properly the Deity would help with the task, if not it would be difficult for the land to be formed. Ōkuni-nushi then asked how he should worship the Deity properly. The answer was, in Philippi's translation "Worship me on the eastern mountain of the verdant fence of Yamato. This is the deity who dwells on Mount Mimoro (Mount Miwa)  (p 117 ). 

On the same p 63 Aston has a footnote to the effect that Hirata identifies Sukunabi-kona-no-kami with Ebisu and Ōkuni-nushi with Daikokuten, but that "All these identifications, of which Hirata is profuse, are somewhat problematical."