Amaterasu vs Malina (the Sun Woman)

Supreme goddess of the sun and universe. Ruler of the High Celestial Plain. Divine ancestor of the Japanese Imperial family. Most important deity in Shinto.

Born from Izanagi's left eye during his purification ritual. She was assigned to rule the heavens. Her grandson Ninigi descended to Earth, becoming ancestor of Japan's emperors.

**Amaterasu-omikami** stands as the most important deity in Shinto, embodying the sun itself and serving as the divine ancestor of Japan's Imperial family. Her name translates to "Great Divinity Illuminating Heaven," reflecting her role as the source of all light and life in the cosmos.

The sister who became the sun: when she discovered that the visitor in the dark was her brother, she fled with a burning torch into the sky, and he has pursued her ever since as the moon.

In the widely told Inuit story of the sun and moon, a young woman is visited in the dark by a man she cannot see. To find out who he is, she blackens her hands with soot from the lamp and marks him. When the lamps are lit she sees the marks on her brother. In anger and shame she flees with a burning torch; he follows with his own, but his falls or burns down to embers. Both rise into the sky, where she becomes the sun and he, with his faint light, becomes the moon.