Amenominakanushi ('Lord of the Center of the High Plain of Heaven') is the deity of the heavenly highland in the Kojiki. In the creation passage, after the primordial beings are named, it is the 'high plain of heaven' and its deities that produce the pair who will form the islands: the Kojiki says the kami of the high plain 'gave birth' to Izanagi and Izanami and ordered them to shape and settle the earthly islands [S1]. The Nihon Shoki gives a parallel but differently-worded account, and the precise mechanism (whether 'birth' is literal or a ritual/creative command) is one of the classic ambiguities in Japanese cosmogony [S1][S2]. He functions less as a character and more as the heavenly authority from which the creative pair is sent.