ABSTRACT
The two earliest histories of Japan, the Nihon shoki (Aston) and the Kojiki (Phillippi), which were compiled in the early eighth century, record the myths and legends of the creation of Japan by the gods, the histories of the first rulers of Japan, and, most importantly, the genealogies of politically important families and clans and their relation to specific deities. It is recorded in these histories that much of the material included was obtained from people who were trained to memorize and pass down orally the traditions, history, and legends from earlier times. These histories, especially the Nihon shoki, are unusual because they give different variants of the same story from other written records or other narrators of the ancient stories.
