Sarutahiko Ōkami

Also Known As: 猿田彦大神; also Saruta-biko-no-kami, Sarudahiko, Sadahiko; the written name reads roughly as “monkey field prince”, though the first element may simply be a place
Region/Culture: East Asia
Mythos: Japanese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: He shines upward into the Plain of High Heaven and downward into the reed plains of the earth, and he opens and holds the roads that other beings have to travel.
Role in Mythos: He meets the heavenly grandchild Ninigi at the eight-forked road of heaven and goes before him as vanguard for the descent to earth.
Relation to Humans: Mortals meet him at edges, at village boundaries and forked roads and the beginning of anything new, where his work is to let the right traffic through and turn the rest back. He is asked for michihiraki, the opening of the way, and his long-nosed mask goes in front of the portable shrine at festivals so the procession has someone to follow.

The light was coming from below as well as above. Something stood at the eight-forked road of heaven and threw a glare that climbed all the way up into the Plain of High Heaven and spilled all the way down across the reed plains of the earth, and the procession assembled for the descent stopped where it was. They had prepared for resistance. Nobody had prepared for a lamp in the road.

Amaterasu and Takamimusubi did not send a warrior to deal with it. They sent Ame-no-Uzume, and the brief they gave her was almost a compliment: she was a slight woman who could face down anything divine and win the staring contest. Go and ask, they said, who is standing in the road our august child means to come down by. She went. The answer came back in the voice of something enormous and perfectly civil. I am an earthly deity, it said, and my name is Sarutahiko, and having heard that the child of the heavenly gods was coming down, I came out to meet him and to walk in front.

That is the entire encounter in the Kojiki, and it is over in three sentences. The Nihon Shoki, finished eight years later in 720, could not leave the picture so bare. It gives him a nose seven hands long, a back running seven fathoms, a mouth and hindquarters glowing red, and eyeballs like eight-hand mirrors with a ruddy shine in them, the colour of a winter cherry held against a flame. None of that is flattering and none of it is decorative. A god who stands where two roads part needs to be seen coming from a long way off.

His name has been argued over for centuries and the argument is not settled. Written out, Sarutahiko reads as something close to “monkey field”, and the monkey has stayed attached to him ever since: the red face, the red rear, the long odd features that no other kami in the descent story carries. Hirata Atsutane thought the first element was a place name, Saruda or Sada, and that the god was called after a patch of ground the way a great many older kami are. Motoori Norinaga built a far more elaborate reading, which his translator Basil Hall Chamberlain later waved away as etymological gymnastics. Nobody has won. What survives is a figure the texts label an earthly deity, a kunitsukami, born of the land rather than sent down onto it, and later tradition promotes him to the chief of that whole company.

The politics of the meeting are quieter than the light. The Central Land of Reed-Plains had already been pacified by the time Ninigi was told to descend, which in practice meant the earthly gods had been talked or beaten into agreement. Sarutahiko is not one of the beaten. He is standing in the road because he wants to, and what he offers is not surrender but employment. He will go first.

Afterwards that became the shape of his work everywhere else. Stand at the edge of a village on a cold morning, at the point where the cultivated ground gives out and the track goes into the trees, and the thing you want at your back is exactly this: enormous, luminous, unmistakably strange, and facing outward. Sickness travels by road. So do bad people. A guardian with mirror eyes and a body seven fathoms across is a reasonable answer to both, and shrines across Japan came to treat him as the kami of the way, the same office held by the roadside dōsojin stones that still sit at crossroads and village boundaries.

Ninigi came down onto the peak of Kushifuru at Takachiho carrying the mirror, the curved jewels and the Herb-Quelling sword, with five chiefs of companies in attendance and Sarutahiko in front. When it was done, Ninigi turned to Ame-no-Uzume with an order that reads oddly at first: escort this great deity home, and take his name for your own. She did both. Her descendants were the Sarume no Kimi, the female ritual specialists who carried a male god’s name down the generations because their ancestress was the only one who had been willing to walk up and talk to him.

He went back to Ise, to the country around the upper Isuzu, and there the story ends badly and without ceremony. Living at Azaka, he went out fishing, and a hirabu shellfish closed on his hand and would not let go. The tide came in over him. He drowned in shallow water with his hand stuck in a shell.

The record does something strange and rather beautiful with the drowning: it gives him a different name for each stage of it. Going under, he is Soko-doku-mitama, the spirit that touches the bottom. When the seawater came gurgling up over him he is Tsubu-tatsu-mitama, the spirit of the rising water. When the bubbles reached the surface and broke he is Awa-saku-mitama, the spirit of the bursting foam, using the same verb the language uses for a flower opening. Three names for one death, spaced out like breaths.

Uzume came back from the funeral errand in a foul temper and took it out on the fish. She herded together everything broad of fin and everything narrow of fin and demanded to know whether they would serve the heavenly grandchild. All of them said yes. The sea cucumber said nothing at all, so she drew the small knife from inside her belt and slit its mouth open, and that is why it has one now. From that reign onward, when the first-fruits of Shima were presented at court, a share went to the Sarume.

What he can do is narrow and absolute. He shines, which is not a weapon but is unanswerable. He opens roads, and holds them, and stands in gaps. His face is so peculiar that it outlived him and became somebody else’s: the long nose, the red skin and the mountain habitat fed directly into the image of the tengu, and at festivals the masked figure walking ahead of the mikoshi is still understood as Sarutahiko clearing the way for the god riding behind. What he cannot do is the interesting part. In no version does he fight anyone. He has no weapon, no cunning, no myth cycle of his own beyond the two hours he spent being useful in a road. Set an army in front of him and the texts have nothing to say; set a shellfish on his hand and he dies.

Two shrines still contest his headship. Tsubaki Grand Shrine at Suzuka in Mie holds him as its principal deity and is reckoned by many to be the head of some two thousand Sarutahiko shrines nationwide. Sarutahiko Shrine in Ise stands almost against the Inner Shrine and enshrines him alongside Ōta-no-Mikoto, said to be his descendant, with a priestly family that has claimed descent from both for generations. People go there to ask for michihiraki, the opening of the way, which is the only thing anyone ever recorded him doing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Sarutahiko Ōkami?

Sarutahiko Ōkami is a Japanese earthly deity, a kunitsukami, who stood shining at the eight-forked road of heaven and guided Ninigi and the heavenly gods down to earth. He appears in both the Kojiki of 712 and the Nihon Shoki of 720, and later tradition makes him chief of the earthly kami. He is worshipped as the god of roads, boundaries and michihiraki, the opening of the way.

What does Sarutahiko look like?

The Nihon Shoki describes Sarutahiko with a nose seven hands long, a back seven fathoms across, a red mouth and hindquarters, and eyeballs like eight-hand mirrors glowing red. The Kojiki does not describe him at all beyond his light, which reached up into the high heavens and down to the earth. His red face and long nose are usually connected to the word saru, meaning monkey.

How did Sarutahiko die?

Sarutahiko drowned at Azaka in Ise while out fishing, after a hirabu shellfish caught his hand and held it as the tide rose. The Kojiki gives him three separate names for the three stages of the drowning: Soko-doku-mitama as he touched the bottom, Tsubu-tatsu-mitama as the water gurgled up, and Awa-saku-mitama as the bubbles burst at the surface.

Is Sarutahiko a tengu?

No, but his appearance is widely regarded as the origin of the tengu’s. The long nose, red face and mountain associations transferred from Sarutahiko into the popular image of the tengu, and the long-nosed masked figure who leads a mikoshi procession at Japanese festivals represents Sarutahiko guiding the god in the portable shrine.

What is Sarutahiko’s relationship to Ame-no-Uzume?

Ame-no-Uzume was the only deity sent to confront Sarutahiko at the crossroads, and afterwards Ninigi ordered her to escort him back to Ise and to take his name as her own. Her descendants were consequently called the Sarume no Kimi, a line of female ritual specialists. Later tradition treats the two as a married pair.