Izanagi

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Izanagi (Katakana: イザナギノミコト, Kanji: Recorded in the Kojiki as 伊邪那岐命, and in the Nihonshoki as 伊弉諾神; also spelt as 伊弉諾尊) is a deity born of the seven divine generations in Japanese mythology and Shintoism, and is also referred to in the roughly translated Kojiki as "Male Who invites", or Izanagi-no-Mikoto.

He and his spouse Izanami bore many islands, deities, and forefathers of Japan. When Izanami died in childbirth, Izanagi tried (but failed) to retrieve her from Yomi (the underworld). In the cleansing rite after his return, he begot Amaterasu (the sun goddess) from his left eye, Tsukuyomi (the moon god) from his right eye, and Susanoo (tempest or storm god) from his nose. The story of Izanagi and Izanami has close parallels to the Greek Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but it also has a major difference. When Izanagi looks prematurely at his wife, he beholds her monstrous and hellish state and she is shamed and enraged. She pursues him in order to kill him. She fails to do so, but promises to kill a thousand of his people every day. Izanagi retorts that a thousand and five hundred will be born every day.

There are similarities also between Izanami and Izanagi on the one hand, and the Mayan deities Itzamna and Ix Chel on the other. Among the Maya as among the Yamato, the male god is a gentle deity, creator of the sun and moon, while the female goddess (Ix Chel in Central America) is only benevolent while in company of her husband. If isolated from him, she becomes a malevolent goddess of floods, destruction and death. She has a serpent growing from her head, much like Izanami in Yomi.

However, such parallels are common in ancient religions, and there is no hard evidence, linguistic, anthropological, or archeological to suggest any special connection between ancient Japan and the Americas. If such a connection exists, it probably dates to very ancient paleolithic prehistoric times, before the ancestors of the Maya crossed from northern Asia to the Americas.

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