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Michiko Aoki, in her ''[[Records of Wind and Earth]]'' (pages 15-19) chronicles the disagreements between Ôkuninushi and Ame no Hiboko. She raises the interesting point that Ôkuninushi belonged to the Izumo region, which lies along the Japan Sea side of the archipelago. Ame no Hiboko, the foreign immigrant, came to the region and was denied entrance to the land by the aforementioned diety. However, by means of magic (Ame no Hiboko's powers have already been brought up), he proved to Ôkuninushi that he was not going to flee. The ''[[fudoki]]'' are filled with occurences of battles between these two deities.  

Michiko Aoki, in her ''[[Records of Wind and Earth]]'' (pages 15-19) chronicles the disagreements between Ôkuninushi and Ame no Hiboko. She raises the interesting point that Ôkuninushi belonged to the Izumo region, which lies along the Japan Sea side of the archipelago. Ame no Hiboko, the foreign immigrant, came to the region and was denied entrance to the land by the aforementioned diety. However, by means of magic (Ame no Hiboko's powers have already been brought up), he proved to Ôkuninushi that he was not going to flee. The ''[[fudoki]]'' are filled with occurences of battles between these two deities.  

Aoki suggests that the name ''Ame no Hiboko'' (Spear of the Heavenly Sun) gives clues to the foreign immigrants' place in early Japan. The people already established in the Izumo region must have had to contend with immigrants who brought with them iron weapons or implements. It is an interesting hypothesis, one that is given much credit by the fact that the Izumo kami are barely mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, as compared to the Kojiki (Cambridge History of Japan).

Aoki suggests that the name ''Ame no Hiboko'' (Spear of the Heavenly Sun) gives clues to the foreign immigrants' place in early Japan. The people already established in the Izumo region must have had to contend with immigrants who brought with them iron weapons or implements. If you pay attention to the dates (usually not to be trusted within many of the books within the Nihon Shoki) given by Aston, above, you'll notice they roughly correspond to the time when iron and bronze was brought to Japan.  It is an interesting hypothesis, one that is given much credit by the fact that the Izumo kami are barely mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, as compared to the earlier Kojiki (Cambridge History of Japan).

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