UZUME

Ancient Japan's shaman goddess was the one who lured the Sun goddess Amaterasu from the cave where she'd hidden. The 8 million gods and goddesses pleaded and begged. Still, the Sun goddess refused to come out. Uzume saved the Earth from perishing. She did so by a merry mockery of shamanic ritual. Tying her sleeves abover her elbows with moss chords and fastening bells around her wrists, she danced on an overturned tub before the heavenly Sky-Rock-Cave. Tapping out a rhythm with her feet, she exposed her breasts and thenher genitals in the direction of the Sun. So comic did she make this striptease that the myriad gods and goddesses began to clap and howl with laughter--an uproar that finally brought the curious Sun back to warm and light the Earth. From Goddesses and Heroines by Patricia Monaghan