<--   -->   A   B   C   D   ... index image map  ...

Uzume  
Uzume

Other names:

Location:  Japan

Notes from Hrana

Goddesses & Heroines text

 

 

© ! print is available

PREVIOUS | NEXT | A,B,C, D,E, F,G,H,I, J,K,L,M, N,O,P,Q, R,S, T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z | Help | ALL | INDEX


Hrana's Notes

I painted Uzume in 1996 for The Goddess Oracle.


Uzume
from Goddesses and Heroines
  Exerpt from Goddess & Heroines by Patricia Monaghan
[Used by permission. This text is NOT included in the Goddess Oracle]
Ancient Japan's shaman goddess was the one who lured the sun-goddess Amaterasu from the cave where she'd hidden. She did so by a merry mockery of shamanic ritual. Tying her sleeves above her elbows with moss cords and fastening bells around her wrists, she danced on an overturned tub before the heavenly Sky-Rock-Cave. Tapping out a rhythm with her feet, she exposed her breasts and then her genitals in the direction of the sun. So comic did she make this striptease that the myriad gods and goddesses began to clap and laugh -- an uproar that finally brought the curious sun back to warm the earth.

Shaman women who followed Uzume were called miko in ancient Japan. First queens like Himiko, later they were princesses and even later, commonborn women. Some Japanese women today, especially those called nuru and yata in Okinawa and the surrounding islands, still practice shamanic divination.

Back to TOP Text from Patricia Monaghan's The New Book of Goddesses and Heroines
Published by Llewellyn, copyright 1997.   Used by permission of the author.


<--   -->   A   B   C   D   ... index image map  ...