In the land where the myths were born, people dance through the night. Takachiho in Miyazaki is held to be the place where the gods descended to earth. In winter, each village begins its night kagura, welcoming the local deity into a home or community hall and dancing thirty-three acts from evening until the next morning, all night long. Among the acts is the myth of the Heavenly Rock Cave, the story of Amaterasu hiding away and plunging the world into darkness, the gods dancing and clamoring before the cave to lure the goddess out. Onlookers ring the hearth, sharing shochu as they see the night through, the sacred and the relaxed coexisting. The tradition is old, danced in this land for at least several centuries. Myth is not a tale of the distant past here; tonight, too, it is being danced.