The myths and folklore about the origins of rice

In Asia, agricultural folklore and legends are profoundly important, particularly in East and Southeast Asia, because they serve as the cultural, religious, and social foundation of societies built upon the wet-rice economy. Many of the heroes of these myths and legends are still celebrated today.

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‘The Mountain Lad’

Origin: Japan
The Myth of Hoori and Toyotama-hime (‘Mountain-Luck Lad and Sea-Luck Lad’), was recorded in the Kojiki (712 BC) and Nihon Shoki (720 BC). It is one of the oldest and most important Japanese myths explaining the origin of wet-rice agriculture, and is still honoured today.

The legend goes that long ago, there were two brothers: Umi-sachi-hiko (‘Sea-Luck Lad’), the elder brother and a fisherman, and Yama-sachi-hiko (‘Mountain-Luck Lad), also called Hoori, whom was the younger brother and a hunter. They were the sons of Ninigi, the grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu who had descended to earth. One day, the brothers decided to swap tools for a day. Hoori thus took his brother’s fishhook to fish, but lost it at sea. Umi-sachi-hiko was furious and demanded the exact same hook back, refusing all replacements. As he couldn’t find the exact replacement, Hoori went to the seashore and wept.

An old man named Shiotsuchi-no-oji (Salt-Earth Elder) appeared, put Hoori in a basket, and lowered him to the underwater palace of the sea god Watatsumi (also called Ryūjin). There Hoori met the god’s beautiful daughter, Toyotama-hime (‘Rich-Jewel Princess’). They fell in love, married, and lived happily under the sea for three years, and while Hoori forgot about his brother during this time, he eventually remembered the lost fishhook and was determined to replace it.

To help his son-in-law, Watatsumi summoned all the fishes of the sea, and a fish coughed up the hook, which had been stuck in its throat.

At the same time, the Sea God also gave Hoori two magical tide jewels: shio-mitsu-tama (潮満珠), the ‘tide-flowing jewel’, which makes the tides rise, and shio-hiru-tama (潮干珠), the ‘tide-ebbing jewel’, which makes the tides fall.