Watatsumi

Watatsumi jinja [ja; simple], Shikaumi Shrine, Watatsumi (海神, 綿津見) [watatsɯmi], also pronounced Wadatsumi, is a legendary kami (神, god; deity; spirit), Japanese dragon and tutelary water deity in Japanese mythology.

The earliest written sources of Old Japanese transcribe the name of the sea god in a diverse manner.

In the modern Japanese writing system, the name Watatsumi is usually written either in katakana as ワタツミ or in kanji phonetically 綿津見 or semantically 海神 "sea god".

Note that in addition to reading 海神 as watatsumi, wata no kami or unagami in native Japanese kun'yomi pronunciation, it is also read kaijin or kaishin in Sino-Japanese on'yomi (from Chinese haishen, 海神, "sea god").

Marinus Willem de Visser (1913:137) notes consensus that wata is an Old Japanese word for "sea; ocean" and tsu is a possessive particle, but disagreement whether mi means "snake" or "lord; god".

Compare the Japanese rain god Kuraokami that was similarly described as a giant snake or a dragon.

The world-creating siblings Izanagi and Izanami first give birth to the Japanese islands (kuniumi) and then to the gods (kamiumi).

A subsequent Kojiki passage describes Watatsumi's daughter Otohime and her human husband Hoori living with the sea god.

After Hoori lost his brother Hoderi's fishhook, he went searching to the bottom of the sea, where he met and married the dragon goddess Otohime.

Then [His Augustness Fire-Subside] told the Great Deity exactly how his elder brother had pressed him for the lost fish-hook.

So all the fishes replied: "Lately the tahi has complained of something sticking in its throat preventing it from eating; so it doubtless has taken [the hook]."

Chamberlain 1919:149) Watatsumi instructs Hoori how to deal with Hoderi, and chooses another mythic Japanese dragon, a wani "crocodile" or "shark", to transport his daughter and son in law back to land.

I pray thee let me go into the sea, and so let the person of thy mean handmaiden be given to redeem the life of the Prince's Augustness."

Aston 1896:109-110) There is uncertainty whether Nihongi scribes wrote tsumi with dō 童 "child; boy" simply for pronunciation or for some semantic significance.

When Izanagi's sister-wife dies giving birth to the fire god Kagu-tsuchi, his destroying it creates various deities, including the snow dragon Kuraokami.

After Izanagi goes to the underworld in a futile attempt to bring Izanami back to life, he returns to the world and undergoes ritual purifications to cleanse himself of hellish filth.

With the tsu 津 in these three dragon names being read as the genitive particle "of", they rule different water depths in the sea, soko 底 "bottom; underneath", naka 中 "middle; center", and uwa 上 "above; top" (Kojiki) or uwa 表 "surface; top" (Nihongi).

Chamberlain (1919:48) notes, "There is the usual doubt as to the signification to be assigned to the syllable tsu in the second, fourth and last of these names.