Standing on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, the divine siblings Izanagi and Izanami are given a jeweled spear by the elder gods and told to solidify the drifting, unformed land below. Lowering the spear and stirring the brine beneath them, they lift it out again, and the brine dripping from its tip congeals into the first solid ground, the island of Onogoro. Descending to the new island, they raise a great pillar and build a palace, and Izanagi proposes that they circle the pillar in opposite directions and marry when they meet. When they meet and Izanami, the female, speaks first in greeting, the marriage produces only misshapen offspring, the boneless leech child Hiruko, who is set adrift in a reed boat, and a small foam island, neither of which is counted among their true children.
Consulting the heavenly deities, the couple learn the fault lay in Izanami speaking before Izanagi in the marriage ritual. Repeating the ceremony correctly around the pillar, with Izanagi speaking first, they conceive successfully, and from their union come the many islands that make up Japan, followed by a great host of deities governing the sea, rivers, mountains, wind, trees, and the other features and forces of the natural world.