The kami 'master of the august centre of heaven', the first of the heavenly deities mentioned in the Kojiki, together with the two musubi kami. His name does not recur in the Kojiki and he is not mentioned in the Nihongi. He is enshrined as the sole kami in some shrines. A large number of myoken shrines originally dedicated to the pole-star were 'Shinto-ised' in the Meiji period and identified instead as Ame-no-minaka-nushi shrines. Ame-no-minaka-nushi-no-kami was regarded by Hirata, Atsutane as the supreme deity of Shinto and he is often presented in modern Shinto theology as the creator kami, particularly since the creative process described in the Nihongi relies instead on the Chinese concepts of yin and yang.
A Popular Dictionary of Shinto. Brian Bocking.