AMATERASU SHINTO GODDESS OF THE SUN

AMATERASU is the Japanese goddess of the sun in the Shinto religion. She is the ancestor of the Japanese Emperors and the central of the Kami, or Shinto ancestral deities. When she hid in a cave, there was darkeness. Singing, dancing, baudy ribaldry and the long singing (longcrowing) roosters crow led her from the cave in which she was hiding. She is the sun, and her associations are the rooster, the longtailed roosters and the longcrowing roosters. The TORII- gate (picture below) descendeds from this goddess and her myths, and is the sacred rooster perch, which has roof and rooster bar, to protect the rooster from predators, namely the fox. The ancient cult of longtailed and longcrowing roosters would have been encouraged and given fertile ground by the mythological cycle of AMATERASU. There are several breeds of longtailed fowl and longcrowing fowl in Japan to the modern day, with some cross-over of a few breeds that are longtailed and longcrowing both, such as totenko.

I have found several articles and links on AMATERASU and have made a page for them. CLICK HERE

The totenko is a red duckwing long crowing longtailed breed of Japan and is a very old breed. It's name literally means red sun rising or east sun rising. This bird has associations with Amaterasu. The totenko is one of the major ancestors of the onagadori (at right). The shojo onagadori is a variety of the onagadori said to be extinct in Japan at this time. The solid red bodied bird with the black tail is associated with the sun.

This is the minohiki in the shojo (black tailed red) variety. This bird is called raincoat bamboo dragger, or raincoat saddle dragger. This color is associated with the sun, the red eastern rising sun, also related to Amaterasu. These are three breeds from among many of the Japanese longtailed and long crowing breeds. The red colored varieties are most closely related to the rising sun.