Japan. The "Birth of the Eight Islands" section phonetically transcribes Yamato as , pronounced in Middle Chinese as and used to represent the Old Japanese morae ya ma to2 (see also Man'yōgana#chartable). The Kojiki records the Shintoist creation myth that the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami gave birth to the Ōyashima (, "Eight Great Islands") of Japan, the last of which was Yamato:Next they gave birth to Great-Yamato-the-Luxuriant-Island-of-the-Dragon-Fly, another name for which is Heavenly-August-Sky-Luxuriant-Dragon-Fly-Lord-Youth. The name of "Land-of-the-Eight-Great-Islands" therefore originated in these eight islands having been born first. (tr. Chamberlain 1919:23) Chamberlain (1919:27) notes this poetic name "Island of the Dragon-fly" is associated with legendary Emperor Jimmu, whose honorific name includes "Yamato", as Kamu-yamato Iware-biko. The 720 Nihon Shoki (, "Chronicles of Japan") transcribes Yamato with the Chinese characters , pronounced in Middle Chinese as and in Old Japanese as ya ma to2 or ya ma do2. In this version of the Eight Great Islands myth, Yamato is born second instead of eighth:Now when the time of birth arrived, first of all the island of Ahaji was reckoned as the placenta, and their minds took no pleasure in it. Therefore it received the name of Ahaji no Shima. Next there was produced the island of Oho-yamato no Toyo-aki-tsu-shima. (tr. Aston 1924 1:13) The translator Aston notes a literal meaning for the epithet of Toyo-aki-tsu-shima of "rich harvest's" (or "rich autumn's") "island" (i.e. "Island of Bountiful Harvests" or "Island of Bountiful Autumn"). The c. 600-759 Man'yōshū (, "Myriad Leaves Collection") transcribes various pieces of text using not the phonetic man'yōgana spellings, but rather a logographic style of spelling, based on the pronunciation of the kanji using the native Japanese vocabulary of the same meaning. For instance, the name Yamato is sometimes spelled as (yama, "mountain") + (ato, "footprint; track; trace"). Old Japanese pronunciation rules caused the sound yama ato to contract to just yamato. Government According to the Chinese record Twenty-Four Histories, Yamatai was originally ruled by the shamaness Queen Himiko. The other officials of the country were also ranked under the queen, with the highest position called ikima, followed by mimasho, then mimagushi, and the lowest-ranking position of nakato. According to the legends, Himiko lived in a palace with 1,000 female handmaidens and one male servant who would feed her. This palace was most likely located at the site of Makimuku in Nara prefecture. She ruled for most of