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between those two deities and by virtue of these jewels, (13) the child Akatsu-no-Mikoto (14) (one of our Heavenly Ancestors) was born. Amaterasu-O-Mikami brought up this boy, Akatsu-no-Mikoto, with maternal affection and especial care, frequently carrying him in her protecting arms. This fact originated the Japanese expression “Wakago,” which denotes a child held under its mother’s arm (The now current Japanese term for an infant, “Wakago,” is derived from the word “Wakigo”).
Then Susano-o-no-Kami’s conduct towards Amaterasu-O-Mikami was also excessively rude and he often resorted to one or another form of violence, such as breaking down the divisions of the rice-fields; filling up the irrigating channels; opening the flood-gate of the sluices; sowing seed over again; erecting rods in the rice-fields; (15) flaying live animals backwards, and spreading excrement over the doors (16) (When the Sun-Goddess was toiling in her rice-fields, Susano-o-no-Kami would stealthily creep there and erect rods in order to demonstrate his right of ownership over the fields; sowing seed again in the fields which had been already sown by Amaterasu-O-Mikami, so as to injure her first sown seed, thereby causing the quality of the rice to deteriorate; breaking down the low, narrow dykes, which divide rice fields from each other; filling up the channels of ditches through which the Sun-Goddess made the streams of water flow in order to irrigate the rice plants; mischievously leaving open the flood-gates of the sluices when unnecessary. For example, when Amaterasu-O-Mikami was about to celebrate the Ni-Name-Matsuri or New Rice-Crop Feast, Susano-o-no-Kami sacrilegiously
