Japanese Volkskunde and Ryukyuan Studies

Abstract

The Japanese Volkskunde owes its advancement at many points to the achievements of Ryukyuan studies, since archaic language forms and customs of Japan have been found still surviving in the Ryukyus. This fact greatly encouraged comparative studies. Along with Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama, research has been done on such islands as Amami-Oshima, Kikai-ga-shima, Toku-no-shima, Yaku-shima, Tane-ga-shima and Jitto, which constitute a cultural bridge between Ryukyu and Japan. A pioneering work in Ryukyuan studies was the Ko Ryukyu by Fuyu Ifa. It contains many papers which contributed much to the study of Ryukyuan language and ethnography, e.g. "On the P Sound" which, comparing all dialects of Okinawa, has demonstrated the change of p sound into f and h, and thereby added a new proof to the theory that the Japanese sound h was pronounced as p in ancient times. In the field of ethnology and folklore, an epoch was marked by the works of Kunio Yanagita and Shinobu Orikuchi who made field researches early on the islands. The former has found primitive forms of Japanese Shintoism in the religious life of the Ryukyuans, with control by oiganizations of female shamans, and has stressed the significance of this in the understanding of the life of our ancestors. Orikuchi, too, has made extensive studies of female shamans in Okinawa and of the so-called mare-bito (stranger-god) belief. Based on his comparative study of Japanese and Ryukyuan, he dates the separation of both languages as occurring earlier than generally assumed. We can see in the Ryukyus many archaic cultures now extinct in Japan proper, as Ryukyuan society has remained relatively simple and little influenced by Buddhism and Taoism. But we find on the other hand distinct differences between Japan and Ryukyu deriving from the more complex development of the former. For instance, imi (taboo) concerning fire is not as conspicuous in Okinawa as in Japan, and fertility rites on paddy-field are carried out in Okinawa by female shamans invoking seji (mana), which contrasts male-conducted shinto ceremonials for the kami (gods) of paddy-fields. The study of Japanese Volkskunde has recently made great progress, and we should expect many new discoveries by a comparison of its data with Ryukyuan ethnography.