The Land-Pulling Myth and Some Aspects of Historic Reality

Izumo fudoki describes Izumo Province, situated in today's Shimane Prefecture and facing the Japan Sea. It is the oldest surviving Japanese text compiled by aristocrats from a region, hence giving us unique information about a Japanese province during the Nara period. However, Izumo fudoki has been little consulted by Western scholars. The land-pulling myth is the first myth to be related in Izumo fudoki; it narrates how one of the local deities looks across the Japan Sea and decides to pull land from four of the places that he can see, including from the Korean Peninsula. This land he cuts off, pulls across the sea, and attaches to Izumo, hence making the province larger. This article discusses two ways of interpreting the myth. One possible interpretation is that the four places from which land is being pulled correspond to an area that was in different ways connected to Izumo during the late Yayoi period. The other, perhaps more worthwhile, explanation of the myth is to see how it supported the local aristocracy in Izumo Province as it tried to maintain partial autonomy vis-a-vis the central government. KEYWORDS: Izumo fudoki-Izumo Province-Izumo no Omi-myths-deities-burial mounds-kofun-Yayoi period-Nara period (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) The eighth-century text Izumo (no kuni) fudoki ... (733) narrates several intriguing myths, most of them not mentioned in the official records, Kojiki ... (712) and Nihon shoki ... (720), compiled by the central government.1 The myths not only differ from the ones of the central tradition; some of them even outright oppose the hegemony of the court. Almost all of the myths included in Izumo fudoki are fragmentary: either they only recount one short part of a myth, or just briefly allude to a tale where gods are the principle characters. However, two myths appear to be related in their full length. One of these, the land-pulling myth (kunibiki shinwa ...), is without a doubt the most impressive of the narratives included in Izumo fudoki. It tells of how the great god Yatsukamizu Omitsuno ... finds the land of Izumo too small. As a consequence, he looks across the ocean and learns that excessive land exists in Silla ..., a territory on the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. After cutting off a piece of this land and pulling it across the Japan Sea, he attaches the land to Izumo and moors it firmly to a nearby mountain. This is how the first part of the land-pulling myth ends, but Omitsuno is still far from content, and he further pulls land from three other localities bordering the Japan Sea (see Okimori et al., 2005, 8-9). The Izumo region is special in many ways. Archaeological finds from as far back as the Yayoi ... period (ca. 400 bc-ca. ad 250) imply that the area nurtured its own unique culture. Towards the late Yayoi period, this culture culminated in what has been described as the "Izumo Alliance" (Izumo rengo ...; see, for example, Watanabe 1995), spreading out eastward from Izumo to the Hokuriku ... region, and northward to the Oki islands ... During the following period, the Kofun ... period (ca. 250-592), the awareness of there being an Izumo culture seems to have remained, as it is reflected in the special types of tombs built in Izumo. Judging from the historical records that have survived, the distinctive Izumo culture can be further traced up to the Nara period (710-784). Could it be possible that the land-pulling myth describes the geographical extent of the "Izumo Alliance" and the character of the Izumo culture in the Yayoi period? Would this be the reason why the myth is related in Izumo fudoki? Or, could there be another, more intricate, motive for the compilers of the book to incorporate the myth in Izumo fudoki? Is it possible that the myth is an answer to political tension between the center and periphery in eighth century Japan? In search of an answer, this article intends to relate the land-pulling myth to some aspects of historic reality. …