Udo-jingu 鵜戸神宮

The beginnings of a nation

Rare are the places whose beauty lets think that they are the fruit of a divine intervention. Nestled in a cave at the bottom of a steep cliff, the Udo-jingu Shinto shrine in Nichinan is one of them. In addition to a landscape with an incredible chromatic palette and a unique view of the ocean , Udo-jingu is of particular importance with regard to the history of the Japanese nation . The shrine, founded in 1711, is dedicated to Ugayafukiaezu, the father of Emperor Jinmu (711-585 BC), the first emperor of the archipelago and founder of the Japanese empire on February 11, 660 BC. .-C. Ugayafukiaezu is the son of the hunter Hoori and Otohime, the daughter of the god of the seas. Ugayafukiaezu owes his name, which means "unfinished cormorant feather stubble", to the story of his birth .

To read: Japan's founding day

A sea monster under a feather roof

His father, Hoori , is one day forced to fetch the lost hook of his brother, the fisherman Hoderi, from the bottom of the ocean. There he meets Otohime whom he marries immediately. After three years spent at the bottom of the sea, the couple returns to dry land for the birth of their child. It is in a cave, sheltered under the hut of which they did not have time to entirely realize the roof in feathers of cormorants that Otohime is on the point of giving birth. She warns her husband. Under no circumstances should he watch her give birth. But, intrigued, Hoori breaks his promise and sneaks out to witness the birth. Alas, he took it very badly. Hoori screams in horror upon discovering that Otohime has reverted to his original form of wani , a fearsome sea monster . Furious, Otohime throws herself into the ocean forever abandoning Hoori and her newborn child.