In the Shinto tradition, a river has a kami, a forest has a kami, even a single tree, when it is old enough, may have a kami. The kami guards the relationships around it — a river, a village, a lineage. But the kami does not report to some overarching God. There are said to be eight million kami, all interacting with each other like a society. Even Amaterasu, the sun kami, is simply the kami of the sun — not a supreme deity commanding all others.