Ahoge Peninsula’s Mythology, Explained

Ahoge Peninsula is a peninsula located north of Kozankyo, the capital of the Federal Kingdom of Gensokyo. It has appeared in two games of the Drillimation Danmaku Universe: the original Chuhou Joutai and Touhou Kourinden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria. Those two games marked the beginning of Phases One and Two and their respective franchises. It is an important location in the former game and is also the main setting of their postgame content.

Creation Story

Formation

Ahoge Peninsula was said to have formed over 11,000 years ago following the conclusion of the last ice age during the Jomon Period in roughly 9000 BC. A local legend was a great spirit led the youkai-borns to the peninsula due to its location of valuable resources including minerals, the abundance of clean fresh water that surrounded it, and the cool breezes coming from eastern Russia and Alaska.

Myths Involving the Peninsula

Youkai-borns who lived on the Peninsula lived mostly in multi-family long houses surrounded by palisades. The best-known kami and goddess of the peninsula, Takemameuri no Mikoto (穀豆瓜の命), was largely responsible for growing corn, beans, and squash during the warm season, and the people lived off these stored crops alongside animals taken during hunts.

Birch trees mostly grew on the peninsula, and its wood was used to construct canoes. Takemameuri used one of these when navigating the waters.

Another legend involving the peninsula was youkai-borns would venture off the northern coast of the peninsula in search of the land where the sun had set. Another kami by the name of Kitakaze no Kami (北風の神), who was the husband of Takemameuri, would outstretch his arms into the northern sea to protect the peninsula and its people from the storms that would rage over.

When Kitakaze could not protect the peninsula, a series of rock barriers were erected by him so that large waves would not crash into the peninsula during storms. One of these rocks even has been stained with a yellow-brownish color. Why is that? When Takemameuri gave birth to her first child, the child was born en caul – a rare type of birth where the child is completely encased in the amniotic sac, which protects a developing fetus until birth. In that case, Kitakaze, who was responsible for delivering the child, ripped open the sac with his bare hands, and the amniotic fluid spilled onto the rocks, staining it yellow-brown.

In 1680, while the current Chief Priest of the Hakurei Shrine and his daughter Reimu were visiting the peninsula, he reportedly found the skeletal remains of both Kitakaze and Takemameuri. They were both killed when the Gensokyo Socialite Order invaded the island and were killed by poison poured by Vladrouge Scarlet into their ears. They were not cremated when they died and were decomposed by the insects that fed on their flesh.

Shinto shrines on the peninsula have both their souls enshrined as a kami and would have their descendants serve as head priests.

Brief History

Youkai-born Settlement

In fact, youkai-borns were the first to inhabit the peninsula during the early Edo Period in the 1650s, and their habitation spots were nearly exterminated by the Gensokyo Socialite Order when it first came to power the following decade in 1665. Captured youkai-borns were enslaved by the Crimsonite grunts, and their villages were destroyed by the grunts over five years which resulted in the destruction of their food, loss of life, and no way to survive the winter. The attacks by the Order forced them to leave the peninsula and the survivors largely assimilated into majority youkai-born cultures.

Swedish and Gensokyo Humanoid Settlement

Once settlers from Sweden began to come to Gensokyo, the demand for Ahoge Peninsula became high because of its location for military uses. After Vladrouge Scarlet was assassinated and the Federal Kingdom of Gensokyo was established, one of Flandre Scarlet’s first things was she commandeered the peninsula but the Order only had possession of it for a short time. This angered the youkai-borns who were living in Kozankyo, so King Kourin and Queen Marisa, alongside the youkai-borns, attacked and pillaged the Crimsonite settlements on the peninsula by burning them to the ground.

Scarlet Devil War

Ahoge Peninsula played a key role in defending Kozankyo from the Gensokyo Socialite Order, being used as a pier to construct naval fleets for the Gensokyo Royal Defense Force. The peninsula created a barrier for the Order’s naval forces as they would have to travel all around the peninsula to get to the Kozankyo Bay, which is sandwiched between Kozankyo and Ahoge Peninsula, to reach them. During the winters of 1610 to 1616, many people who lived there suffered from smallpox and when they died, they were cremated and their ashes were stored in another shrine under the name of Hakaike Shrine (墓池神社), where these spirits can be prayed to.