Amaterasu

   Japanese sun goddess, the child of Izanagi and Izanami, and sister of Susano, the Japanese ocean god. From the marriage of these two sprang eight children, from one of whom the Japanese royal family claims descent. The story of her having shut herself up in the Cave of Heaven as a result of her brother’s ill treatment appears to be an attempt to link the personality of the sun priestess with some great catastrophe of the past. She was the most prominent member of the Shinto pantheon and her exalted rank shows that she belongs to a period anterior to the adoption of Chinese anti-feminist ideas in Japan. She had a sacred bird, the Yatagarasu, which may be identified with the Yangwu of Chinese myth.