Jinushigami
Asian folk deities
Jinushigami (地主神), also known as jigami (地神), tochigami (土地神), chi no kami (地の神; also read as ji no kami), or jinushisama (地主様), are Shinto folk deities, or kami, of an area of land (the name literally means "land-master-kami").
Their history goes back to at least the 9th century and possibly earlier. Originally, jinushigami were associated with new areas of land opened up for settlement. New residents of the land created shrines to the local resident kami either to gain its blessing/permission, or to bind it within the land to prevent its interference with, or cursing of, nearby humans. Jinushigami may be either ancestors of the original settlers of an area, or ancestors of a clan. They are also known as Landlord deities and sometimes described as genius loci.
Ōkuninushi is sometimes considered a Jinushigami of Japan as a whole.
Hokora are often created for Jinushigami, natural objects like trees are also often seen to be yorishiro or shintai for them.
The goal is to convince the cthonic deities of the ground to allow occupation.
Shinra Myōjin is considered such a deity and to have originated in Korea.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Jinushigami” is asian folk deities. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Jinushigami, Asian and folk, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4160872. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jinushigami” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.