Ryujin vs Sedna (the Sea Woman)

Dragon god of the sea who dwells in an underwater palace made of red and white coral. Ruler of all sea creatures and controller of the tides through his magical tide jewels.

Ryujin emerged as a kami of the ocean depths in early Shinto belief. According to the **Kojiki**, he is the father of **Toyotama-hime**, who married the hunter Hoori and became grandmother to Japan's first emperor Jimmu. His coral palace **Ryugu-jo** lies beneath the waves, where time flows differently than on land.

**Ryujin** (also called Watatsumi) is the dragon deity who rules the ocean from his magnificent coral palace **Ryugu-jo** beneath the waves. He commands all sea creatures—fish, turtles, jellyfish, and other marine life serve as his messengers and attendants. His kingdom exists in a realm where time moves differently; what seems like days underwater may be centuries on the surface.

The woman at the bottom of the sea who keeps the seals, walrus, and whales, known by different names across the Arctic (Sedna on Baffin Island, Nuliajuk among the Netsilingmiut, Takannaaluk in Iglulik, Sassuma Arnaa in Greenland); when people break taboos, the animals are held back until an angakkuq combs her hair.

Across the Inuit Arctic there is a woman who lives at the bottom of the sea and keeps the sea mammals on which people depend. Her names differ by region, and so do her stories. Franz Boas recorded her as Sedna in Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island, in the 1880s, and that is the name most outsiders know; the Netsilingmiut call her Nuliajuk; in Iglulik she is Takannaaluk and, in the telling of elders interviewed for Nunavut Arctic College, Uinigumasuittuq, "the one who did not want a husband"; in West Greenland she is Sassuma Arnaa, "mother of the deep". This site uses "Sedna" only as the most widely recognised name.