Okinawan Art and Culture

Author: Edutraveller
Date written: 04/18/2003 09:44:50 PM
Last edited: 2003/05/04 12:44:13
Keywords: Okinawa, Okinawan art and culture, Culture of Okinawa, Art and Culture, Lacquerware

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Okinawan Art and Culture

Culture reflects importance of the sea, as the provider of food, and the influences of trade with China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. Music and dance are of central importance, particularly the sanshin lute (see below). Some Okinawans often like to emphasise the peaceful symbolism of having a musical instrument as the mainstay of their culture, rather than a weapon as in the rest of Japan.

Cloth and clothing: Traditional Okinawan clothes resemble the Yukata, and Okinawa is well known for handwoven and dyed fabric using natural colours including native indigo, and colours from tree barks and local earths. Designs tended to be geometric, and varied from island to island. In particular, Naha is famous for bingata, formed by stencilling a resistant paste onto cloth and then dying the material, and the island Kumejima for Kasuri, a handspun silk patterned brown and yellow. The Miyako Islands have their own style involving an indigo dyed cloth called jofu where a large design is made up from an intricate pattern of smaller Kasuri-style crosses.

Bingata style dying was often used for making women's clothing for dances, particularly for the brightly-coloured kimono of the zo-odori. Designs incorporated images of flowers, birds and other animals, waves and clouds and so on. The variety of designs and ways of producing them attest to the many different influences on Okinawan culture.

Dance: Originally dance was the pastime of the nobility, and different forms of dance existed for all age groups and for men and women. Interest in dances may have developed as a requirement for entertaining Chinese missions that would come to confirm the investiture of a new Ryukuan King. With the arrival of the Satsuma from Kagoshima came new Japanese influences. However, the Meiji Restoration and incorporation of the Ryukyu Kingdom into Japan as Okinawa Prefecture robbed the nobility of their security and they began to earn a living in the theatre. Rarified court dances were not suitable for the common crowd, it seems, and the lively and popular "zo odori" was born with its brilliant red and yellow costumes and lively themes.

Eisa Dance: Performed at Obon, the summer festival of the dead (from July 13-15 in Okinawa), Eisa is a traditional folk dance. Similar to such dances in other parts of Japan, the dancers move in a circle around a raised stage on which stand the musicians, playing the shamisen, taiko, and smaller hand drums called paranku. Eisa usually takes place on the last night of the Obon festivities to give rest to the departed spirits of the dead, and the dancers make the rounds of all the houses in the village after an initial dance in the central square dedicated to the gods.

Accessories: A few of the more common traditional accessories used in the dances of Okinawa include the hanagasa, a large hat that resembles a large flower. Coloured a bright vermilion with blue and silver patterns symbolising waves, the hat is quite different to the hanagasa of Yamagata and other parts of Japan. The hanazumi tisaji is a long length of fabric that young women would make and dye themselves, to present to a man she liked as a token of her esteem. The hanazumi tisaji was thought to have talismanic powers.

Music: Okinawan dance is accompanied by a group of musicians, called a jikata. They would sing and play the sanshin (a type of three-stringed lute that is plucked and originated in southern China). This combination of song (uta) and lute (sanshin) is called utasanshin. It was highly important in the period of the Ryukuan Kingdom for male nobility to be able to play the sanshin, and the instrument was as important for the Ryukuan culture as the katana (samurai sword) was for Japanese culture. Dancers would also often use yosutake castanets: they would slick these together while dancing, not dissimilar to castanets in Spanish dance.

Karate: Okinawa is the home of karate, a mixture of a local martial art "Ti" and Chinese Kung Fu. Okinawa remains a highly important centre for Karate, and many schools have dojo in Okinawa and international competitions are held regularly.

Lacquerware: Perhaps the most famous craft in Okinawa is lacquerware. Lacquerware is made by applying the resin of the Urushi tree to a base. At a temperature of over 20 degrees centigrade and humidity of over 80% in strong ultraviolet light the lacquer will harden to a strong, clear varnish. These conditions exist in Okinawa, making it ideal for production of this work. Mixing the resin with cinnabar makes the familiar bright red lacquer of Japanese work.

Okinawan work was highly prized and during the period of the Satsuma occupation, lacquerwork and cloth were both exported to Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Today, Ryukuan Lacquerware is recognised as an important cultural property by the government. During the 16th century the work was produced under royal supervision and sent as tribute to both China and Japan. Early work was largely red, with native mother-of-pearl and gold inlays. Black lacquerware was also produced under Satsuma control to suit the tastes of Japanese rulers and also the Chinese court. By the early 1800s, production was also common in private workshops, and new methods enabling mass production were developed.

Religion and Festivals

Okinawan religion, instead of being organised around temples, Okinawan religion had sacred groves and natural places called Utaki instead. These are generally marked with stones and incense burners. Women also played a central role as priestesses and shamen. Festivals occupy an important part in Okinawan culture. As in the rest of Japan, Okinawans enjoy Hana-mi in early spring, and the warm climate ensures that they are always the first to do so. In early June, the Haari or Dragon boat festival in Naha is a race between teams on brightly coloured rowing boats to pray to the god of the sea for good fishing.

Okinawan tombs are also much larger than Japanese ones, as whole families would be interred there. Consequently, there are also several events each year when the whole family gather at the tomb to remember the dead and traditionally to entertain the souls of the departed with dances, food and drink and songs. Such times include Shimi (festival for the deceased), Jurokunichi (the 16th of February), and the Tanabata Star Festival.

PHOTO GALLERY

Click photos for larger pictures.

The symbol of Okinawa Prefecture. The circles represent the ocean, peace and development (from outermost to innermost)

OKINAWAN HISTORY

The Okinawan people resemble the Japanese closely, and the local dialect is clearly similar to Japanese (but they are not mutually intelligible). They are probably the descendants of southeast asian and Japanese who migrated to the islands in prehistoric times. Pottery and human remains indicate that the islands may have been inhabited from up to one million years ago.

From the early seventh century, the people of the "Southern Islands" paid tribute to the Japanese Imperial Court. This seems to have continued, but by the early fourteenth century, the three kingdoms (Hokuzan, Chuzan, and Nanzan) are recorded as paying tribute also to the Ming Court in China. A century later, Sho Hashi conquered his neighbours to the north and south and united the islands for the first time. The kingdom traded with Southeast Asia, Korea, China and Japan, absorbing cultural influences from all these sources. However, the islands seem to have maintained a measure of independence by virtue of distance, and when Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered the kingdom to support his ill-fated campaign in Korea in 1592 the kingdom ignored him.

This independence ended in 1609 with the arrival of the Satsuma family from mainland Japan. Ichisa Shimazu of Satsuma sent 3,000 troops to the Ryukyu Kingdom and began strict control of all trade in accordance with the Tokugawa Shogunate's control of interaction between Japan and the outside world. With the ending of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration in Japan in 1868, the Meiji Government formally abolished the Kingdom of the Ryukyus and set up a feudal system (the Ryukyu Han) which they then replaced with the Prefectural system that exists today.

There was still many who were not keen on the idea of being part of Japan, and the Chinese Empire which also had close historic ties with Okinawa protested the incorporation of Okinawa into Japan. The issue was resolved through the mediation of the American President, and the pro-CHina lobby lost much of its influence with the Japanese victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894.

In the Second World War, Okinawa was a highly strategic location which the Allies regarded as essential for an invasion of the Japanese mainland. In October 1944, much of Naha was destroyed by American bombers, and the islands were invaded in early 1945 in one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war. Over 260,000 people (many of them civilians) died over a period of three months. With the Allied victory, General MacArthur, US General in command of the occupying US forces, separated the Ryukyus and Japan into separate administrations. Okinawa thus remained under separate US control, which was confirmed with the 1951 San Francisco peace treaty. On May 15th 1972 the islands reverted to Japanese administration, but US forces continue to maintain many bases and training areas, and significant forces, on the Okinawan islands. Today, the continued American military presence in Okinawa and other parts of Japan still causes problems at times but is balanced with a general awareness of the importance of the bases for the Okinawan economy.