Himiko

Yamatai is this ancient, highly enigmatic country recorded in the earliest Chinese historical chronicles, specifically the Book of Wei, which detailed the Japanese archipelago around the 3rd century.

It was supposedly ruled by a shaman queen named Himiko.

The thing is, historians have fiercely debated the actual geographic location of Yamatai for centuries.

Most think it was on the main Japanese islands of Kyushu or Honshu.

We have been longing for more intersectional magic, for more layers and complicated stories, so we are endlessly turning with reverence to stories of women and queer people beyond our white settler colonizer culture, and we know we'll inevitably be clunky and biased, and we're coming anyway, [laughs] arms full of awe and love, just trying to not fuck it up too much.

I call in Himiko.

[gentle music] The shaman queen Himiko was a third-century ruler of a powerful federation in ancient Japan called Yamatai.

Kids in Japan today learn about Himiko.

She's part of the origin story of the nation.

She helped make it a place.

Some scholars place it in Northern Kyushu.

Another influential tradition places it in the Yamato region in what is now Nara Prefecture.