Amaterasu
Also: Ama-terasu, Amaterasu-Åmikami or hiru-menomuchi-no-kami
Japanese: 天照, 天照大神, 天照大御神 or 大日å貴神
Translation: Heaven Shining, That Which Illuminates Heaven
Amaterasu is the Shinto kami with the greatest stature within Japanese culture. She is a daughter of Izanagi, born from his left eye. She is the brother of Susanoo and Tsukuyomi, born of the same purification ritual as her brothers when Izanagi returned from the Yomi. The Japanese imperial line trace their ancestry back to Amaterasu. She is the grandmother of Ninigi, and great-great-grandmother to Jimmu Tenno who is the first emperor of Japan. Amaterasu along with her mirror are enshrined at Ise.
Amaterasu is the kami of the sun and is the ruler of Takamagahara, the celestial heaven in Shinto myth. She is considered the inventor of weaving on a loom, use of silkworms and the cultivation of rice and wheat.
Amaterasu became angry with Tsuki-yomi when he killed Uke-mochi that she refused to look at him every again. Since then she moved away from him in Takagarahara and she sits back to back with him in the celestial land creating the day/night phenomena.
She has an association with weaving. She was supposedly weaving the garments of the gods before she locked herself in the cave as described below.
She is also not friendly with her brother Susano. While Susano was visiting the celestial land, under the guise of saying goodbye before removing himself to the land of his mother, he laid waste to much of the Celestial Land. He destroyed the irrigation and threw a dead horse at Amaterasu’s handmaids causing them to die of frieght. Apparently he also “secretly voided excrement under her august seat” and she “was sickened.” In response Amaterasu withdrew to a cave and closed the entrance with a large rock. The world was plunged into eternal night. With the sun gone the evil spirits left their hiding places bringing grief and destruction to the world.
Jewels were made as well as the mirror of the eight hands. The mountain kami was charged with making 80 combs out of the 500 branched true sakaki tree, while the moor kami made an equal number of combs out of a form of grass. But nothing worked. Amaterasu would not leave her cave. Finally the kami came up with a trick. The mirror of eight hands as well as the jewels were hung on the branch of a true sakaki tree. Uzume, encouraged by many other minor kami, who laughed and sang, performed exotic dance (as in stripper) outside the cave. The assembled kami laughed and made merry. Her interest piqued by the racket Amaterasu asked what was going on. Uzume said that they had found an even better Sun kami. Curious, Amaterasu peeked out from the cave and saw her reflection in the mirror hanging from a limb of a true sakaki tree. She emerged a little further to get a better look and the rest of the kami grabbed her and pulled her out of the cave thus restoring light to the world again.
Susano was stripped of possessions, his fingernails were ripped out, his mustache and beard were shaved and he was banished to Izumo to keep this from happening again.