Mt. Asoあそさん

Kihachi was a savage deity who served as an arrow retriever for Takeiwatatsu-no-Mikoto, the pioneer god of Aso. Exhausted from his duties, he kicked an arrow back with his foot, enraging the god, who chased him to Takachiho and struck him down. Yet his severed body attempted to knit itself back together to revive, and even when buried in three separate pieces, he laid a curse, swearing to "make frost fall upon the Aso Valley." Left with no choice, Takeiwatatsu-no-Mikoto enshrined Kihachi as a deity at Shimo Shrine, where every year for fifty-nine days, a young maiden keeps a sacred fire burning day and night to warm his cold, severed body—a ritual that continues to this very day. A demon that brings the chill of frost to Aso, the Mountain of Fire. Slain only to become a god, he is the embodiment of the deep, complex layers of mythology woven into this land.