Shinto

Tradition·Founding date unrecorded·est. ~100 million ritual participants, loosely held

Shinto → 1 branch

Branch
A Figure of Shinto

Ame-no-Uzume — the dancer.

When the sun hid, the gods tried force and failed. Uzume overturned a tub, danced on it until her robe came loose, and the assembled gods laughed so loudly that Amaterasu opened the door to see what she was missing. The world is recovered by comedy, and Japanese performance dates itself from that dance.

Names & titlesAme-no-Uzume no Mikoto
DomainDance, laughter, and the arts of performance
RelationsThe one who dances on an overturned tub outside the cave and makes the gods laugh
Depicted asMid-dance, robe loosened, holding bamboo grass
StandingClaimed as the origin of kagura and by extension of Japanese theatre; the sun is recovered by comedy rather than by force
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Uzume's dance is the pivot of the cave story and its logic is worth noticing: the assembled gods have already tried reasoning and force, and what works is a comic striptease that makes eight hundred myriads of kami laugh so loudly that the sun becomes curious. She is credited as the origin of kagura, and by extension of the whole line of Japanese performing arts that runs through Noh and Kabuki. She appears again as the only kami willing to confront the enormous glowering Sarutahiko at the crossroads during Ninigi's descent, and she does it by baring her chest and laughing at him; they subsequently marry, and the two are frequently paired as roadside stones. Her name is attached to the Sarume, a hereditary guild of court dancers. The tradition's founding recovery of light is achieved by a woman being funny and rude, which is not the shape of most cosmogonic crises.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
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