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 Life in the Luchu Islands 
 
 By Dr. William H. Fueness, 3d. 
 
 AVTn.OWS EBITlOy, extracted from BVLLETIN 
 
 No. 1, Volume II 
 Philadelphia, January, i8gg 
 
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 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 By Dr. William H. Furness, 3d. 
 
 Each year finds the Luchu Islands more and more import- 
 ant, commercially, to the Japanese government, although, as 
 yet, they are but little known to the busy world which sails 
 past them to and from the markets of China, Japan, and the 
 far East. A,fter careful search, I have been unable to find any 
 detailed account of these islands, or of the people, before the 
 visit paid to them by Captain Basil Hall, of H. M. S. "Al- 
 ceste,^^ in 1816. His accounts of the people agree in every 
 particular with what Dr. H. M. Hiller and myself observed in 
 1896 (eighty years after Captain HalPs visit), albeit during 
 these four-score years the independent rule of a king has been 
 abolished, and the islands are now entirely under the govern- 
 ment of Japan. In view of this fact, the conclusion seems 
 warranted that all changes in manners and customs in this small 
 country are slow, compared with the rapid advance which is 
 going on all around them. What was true in 1816 was most 
 probably true a hundred years before. 
 
 According to their own traditions, they never have been a 
 warlike people, and have mingled no further with their near 
 neighbors than the payment of a yearly tribute both to China 
 
 1 
 
2 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 and to Japan. Chinese influence, however, must have become 
 marked, and no doubt many Chinese words crept into the 
 language, and Chinese customs were introduced after the subju- 
 gation of the Luchuans by the Emperor Hongwou, the founder 
 of the Ming dynasty, about A. D. 1372. Many Luchuan youths 
 were, after this date, sent to China to be educated, and a castle 
 on an island in the harbor was reserved for the use of the Chi- 
 nese traders. The castle is still standing, but is now used as a 
 rather ultra-fashionable and exclusive " tea-house." 
 
 For over two hundred years the islands were, more or less, 
 under the exclusive rule of China, until in 1609 the Japanese 
 Prince of Satsuma subdued them, but, for pecuniary reasons, 
 did not forbid the payment of the yearly tribute to China. This 
 double allegiance, as it were, to two countries continued until 
 1874, when the Japanese suddenly forbade all intercourse with 
 China, and the King of Luchu was kept as a state prisoner in 
 Tokyo, 
 
 As I have just said, the people of the Luchus are a most 
 peaceable nation ; in fact, there is no native hostile weapon of 
 any kind or sort whatsoever to be found in the islands, and 
 how the natives could have sprung from either the pugnacious 
 little Japanese or the quarrelsome Chinese of those early days 
 or of any days is a problem. Professor Basil Hall Chamber- 
 lain, the eminent Japanese scholar and philologist, has made a 
 most careful study of the Luchu language (Supplement to 
 Trans, of the Asiatic Soc. of Japan, vol. xxiii), and, from a lin- 
 guistic point of view, he is led to believe that the archaic 
 Luchuan and the archaic Japanese (cir. 8th century A. D.) 
 were derived from a common source; therefore the Luchuans 
 are more closely allied, in point of origin, to the Japanese than 
 to the Chinese, although, at first glance, at the present day they 
 appear, both in language and customs, more like the latter. 
 One of the most striking indications to me that they are of 
 Japanese parentage rather than Chinese is the fact that they 
 cannot pronounce the letter " l,'^ and substitute therefor the 
 sound " rJ^ For instance, they do not call the archipelago on 
 which they live the ^^ Luchu'' Islands, but ^^ Riu Kiu/^ and in 
 their language there is no word wdth *' V in it ; hence the name 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 6 
 
 Luchu or Liu Kin (as it is sometimes called) can hardly have 
 been other than of a purely Chinese origin. In an article in 
 The Geographieal Journal (London, April, 1895), Professor 
 Chamberlain proposes, as a theory concerning the origin of the 
 Luchuans, that the common ancestors of the present people of 
 Luchu and Japan came across the Korean channel and landed 
 in Kyushu, the southernmost great island of Japan. This 
 theory is strengthened not only by the geography of the coun- 
 tries, but by the trend of legend, and by grammatical affinities 
 between Japanese and Luchuau with Korean and Mongol. 
 These common ancestors swept eastward and northward, driving 
 before them the savage races of which tlie Aino is at present 
 the remnant. Very early in this invasion a small branch 
 stream of invaders swept southward and spread out over the 
 islands lying — one almost in sight of the other — far away into 
 semi-tropical climates. Whether or not there were Aino prede- 
 cessors of the Japano-Luchuan race in Luchu, Professor Cham- 
 berlain thinks that it is now impossible to say. Two local 
 names in the Aino language have been adduced by a Japanese 
 scholar, Kada Teiichi San, in support of this theory, but these, 
 Professor Chamberlain thinks, are an inadequate support. He 
 regards Dr. Doederlein's observation in Ooshima (the largest of 
 the northern islands) of numerous hairy individuals among the 
 smooth-skinned general masses as far more valuable grounds 
 for argument. Both Dr. Hiller and myself, in the interior of 
 the northern part of this same island, noted, entirely inde- 
 pendently of Dr. Doederlein, a considerable number of men, who 
 certainly were as hairy on the legs, arms, and chest as the 
 average European, and far more hairy than any Japanese or 
 Chinese. There is no known instance of Europeans having 
 mixed with these people ; but still, it must be borne in mind 
 that for several centuries Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese ships 
 have been cruising in the neighborhood of these islands, and a 
 shipwrecked Caucasian crew very possibly might have dissemi- 
 nated their characteristics to the third and fourth generation 
 sufficiently to make their descendants hairy by contrast with 
 the smooth-skinned natives. We were rather inclined to this 
 solution of the problem, owing to the fact that in a cave in the 
 
4 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 northern portion of this island we found a large collection 
 of human bones, of which the natives could give no ex- 
 planation ; and we were, therefore, led to infer that they 
 were the remains of shipwrecked crews. The people living 
 thereabouts maintained that these bones had been there beyond 
 the memory of the " oldest inhabitant ;'^ and we were also told 
 that the legend ran that there was a dragon in the cave, and 
 that these bones were the " crumbs '^ from his table. Not fair 
 from this cave was what we also inferred w^ere the remains ot 
 foreign habitation ; it consisted of a well-cut tunnel running 
 directly through a small hill jutting downward to the sea, and 
 separating one deep bay from another. This passageway wa& 
 also a mystery to the natives, who knew of it, but were at a 
 loss to explain either who had dug it or its use. Our only con- 
 jecture was that it had served as a means of escape between the- 
 two bays, which possibly had been the headquarters for a band 
 of pirates in days long gone by, and of which all record is lost, 
 except, perhaps, that which Dr. Doederlein observed stamped on 
 the legs, arms, and chests of a few of the scions of the first 
 Luchuan families. 
 
 We were told of this cave, with its bones, by our admirable 
 friend, the Abb6 Ferrier, the model French missionary living 
 in the town of Nas6 ; then, under the protection of a Japanese 
 police official, we walked to the northern end of the island, a 
 distance of about twenty-three miles, and were rewarded by 
 getting eight very well preserved skulls and many other bones. 
 There were, in the several divisions of the cave, what we 
 roughly estimated to be the remains of at least forty or fifty 
 people, young and old. For the most part the bones were piled 
 together without any arrangement, but in several places where 
 there were convenient ledges the skulls and long bones had 
 been gathered in groups of three and four. We would have 
 taken many more of these bones had we not been compelled to 
 carry them home ourselves; no native would so much as touch 
 even the outside of the bags w^hich we had furtively brought for 
 the purpose of bringing back our " finds." Our most careful 
 search for pottery or implements was unrewarded ; we failed to 
 find any link which could connect these scattered and neglected 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. O 
 
 i-emaias with the present inhabitants of the island, who are so 
 punctilious in their care of the tombs of their ancestors, and 
 raise their dead relatives almost to the rank of demigods. 
 
 The people of Ooshima, the largest of the islands comprising 
 the northern sub-group, are, at the present day, hardly to be 
 distinguished from the Japanese in the southern part of Japan. 
 Their language is quite comprehensible to a native of Kyushu, 
 and in only a few slight differences in the fashion of dress and in 
 the arrangement of the hair do they differ from the peasantry of 
 Japan. Not many years ago it was the custom for all women 
 in Ooshima to tattoo the backs of their hands, but the Japanese 
 government is doing all it can to stop this fashion, so that the 
 people of the two countries may tend to amalgamation. It is, 
 iiowever, not at all uncommon to see the beginnings or outlines 
 of the designs on the hands of small children whose mothers 
 are loath to give up the customs of their youth, and in the 
 more southerly islands of Okinawa or " Great Luchu," where 
 the modernizing influence of Japan has not yet made such 
 advance as to change the manners and customs of the people, 
 tatt )oing is still universal among the women. 
 
 Physically, the Luchuans are pretty much the same as the 
 Japanese ; short in stature, the average height being about 5 feet 
 6 inches; both men and women of the lower classes are stockily 
 built, and seem capable of carrying great weights on their head 
 and shoulder. The men of the upper class, living in the two 
 large neighboring towns of Shuri and Naha, seem to be thor- 
 oughly indolent, and with no object in life other than to amuse 
 themselves in drinking hot "Shoju'^ (a strong alcoholic drink, 
 made of millet), and in playing on the "Jamsiug" with 
 their friends. The women of quality are never seen by for- 
 eigners, be tliey Japanese, Cliinese, or Europeans ; indeed, so 
 seclusive are they that a Ljcjhuan gentleman considers it rude 
 and prying even to be asked about the health of his wife or 
 daughters. Iwai San, the chief collector of taxes in Okinawa, 
 a highly intelligent Japanese gentleman, told us that although 
 he had been three years in the island, and knew intimately 
 some of the best men in the cities of Shuri and Naha, he had 
 never seen a high-born Luchuan lady. These ladies have sep- 
 
6 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 arate apartments in the back part of the house, with gardens 
 surrounded by a high wall, wherein they take exercise ; when 
 paying visits from one house to another, a sedan chair, or 
 ^' Kago," is brought into the room, and my lady steps in closely 
 veiled, and not even her chair-porters see her face. 
 
 The lower and middle class women are the drudges of the 
 community, and do the work for all; they it is who work in the 
 fields, and tend the crops, and when the produce is ready for 
 market, carry it down to the town, and sit all day in the market 
 place, patiently guarding their stall, and busily gossipping with 
 their neighbors; the lazy husband meanwhile loafs about the 
 streets, shading his delicate skin with a green paper parasol, and 
 taking occasional drinks with convivial friends. After one 
 gets used to the Mongolian type, the women of Luchu have not 
 unpleasing faces; their eyes are dark brown, their noses flat, 
 but at the same time aquiline; their mouths are not large, and 
 from a slight downward curve at the corners, give the whole 
 face a somewhat sad expression. In comparison with their 
 sisters of Japan, however, they are slovenly in their habits ; 
 their garments are not neat, and always look about to fall off, 
 or blow away with the wiud. The arrangement of the hair is 
 not as elaborate as that adopted by either the Japanese or 
 Chinese women, because in Luchu utility is the dictator of 
 fashion, and owing to the universal custom of carrying on their 
 heads everything from fruits to goats and living pigs, the knot 
 of hair is tied far over on one side; but after two or three 
 burdens have been carried it is flopping over one eye in a most 
 tipsy manner. 
 
 This knot of hair is held together by two oddly shaped pins, 
 the most important part of the Luchuan costume, since the 
 material whereof the pins are made denotes the class to which 
 the wearer belongs. When the fashion of these pins was intro- 
 duced, about three hundred and eighty years ago, feudalism 
 was in vogue in the islands, and the several classes were com- 
 pelled to show their rank by the material which was used in 
 the making of these hair-pins ; thus, only those of noble birth 
 were allowed to wear pins of gold ; the feudal lords wore silver, 
 the merchants and farmers wore brass, and the very poorest 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 7 
 
 wore pins of pewter or of plain wood. At the present day this 
 distinction of classes has been abolished by the Japanese gov- 
 ernment, but still the people cling to the old custom. The wives 
 of the wealthy farmers, on state occasions, such as weddings, 
 funerals, and festivals, wear a very long pin made out of hexag- 
 onal pieces of tortoise shell, alternately black and yellow. The 
 metal pin worn by the women is about eight inches long, quite 
 slender in the shaft, and ending in a peculiar bowl-shaped head, 
 like the bowl of a mustard spoon ; frequent inquiry failed to 
 elicit any satisfactory reason for this shape. We were told in 
 Ooshima that pins were made thus spoon-shaped so that the 
 wearer, when boiling sugar — a universal industry in theLuchus 
 —might always have at hand a convenient instrument for test- 
 ing the consistency of the mass. This is, I am afraid, a little 
 far-fetched, and I am inclined to believe that the pins were 
 used thus on account of their shape, and not shaped on account 
 of their use ; a pin dripping with melted sugar can hardly be 
 deemed a desirable ornament even to a Luchuan woman. The 
 women of Cochin China wear a pin somewhat smaller, but 
 almost identically the same as that worn by the Luchuan 
 women. 
 
 The head-dress of the men also is quite different from the 
 old-fashioned head-dress either of China or of Japan ; the men 
 and boys of all classes shave a space on the top of the head 
 about two and a half inches wide, extending from an inch and 
 a half back of the margin of the hair, in front, to the crown of 
 the head. In arranging the hair, the side, back, and front locks 
 are combed together up to the crown of the head, and there 
 tied, tight and close, to the scalp ; the wisp of hair thus made 
 is about sixteen inches long, and is stiffened with oil until it will 
 almost stand alone; the oil used is exceedingly thick, and has 
 not an altogether unpleasant odor of oranges, infinitely better 
 than the rancid, noisome cocoanut oil used by the Malays. 
 When this spike of hair has been sufficiently slicked, smoothed, 
 and pulled — a stage in the proceedings proclaimed by the ex- 
 pression of abject agony on the face of the victim (often and 
 often in the street entirely devoted to their trade we used to 
 watch the barbers at their work) — it is divided into two parts. 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 whereof the larger is beat into a loop about three and a half 
 inches high, and the smaller is wrapped around the base of the 
 loop, making a stump at least an inch high, with the loop on 
 the top. This loop is bent backward and down upon itself, until 
 what was its upper curve encircles the base of the stump. To 
 hold all this in place a silver, nickel, or brass pin, with a head 
 forming a five-petaled flower (I think it is a somewhat conven- 
 tionalized blossom of the wild strawberry) is shoved from in 
 front through the base of the stump and holds down the curve 
 of the loop at the back, while a second smaller pin, slightly 
 scoop-shaped, holds the loop down at the sides. This is the 
 universal head-dress in Okinawa, and it is adopted by small 
 
 children even of four 
 or five years of age. 
 
 The faces of the 
 men are so mild and 
 gentle in expression 
 and the costumes of 
 both sexes so much 
 alike that for the first 
 few days of our visit 
 we relied upon this 
 form of head-dress as 
 the sole distinction 
 between young men and women ; as a general rule, the men are 
 far better looking than the women. Perhaps this is due to the 
 fact that the cares and worries of life have not so wrinkled and 
 knotted the faces of the men as the faces of the toiling and 
 moiling women. 
 
 It is the custom throughout the archipelago for the women 
 to tattoo the backs of their hands. The patterns are shown in 
 the accompanying illustrations which give the designs in the 
 three sub-groups of islands. In Ooshima the central design on 
 the back of the hand is not of a constant pattern, but is gov- 
 erned somewhat by individual taste; in Okinawa, however, the 
 designs are constant and unvarying, and, as well as we could 
 ascertain, universal even among the women of the highest class. 
 The meanings of these marks are vague in the minds of the 
 
 Fig. 1. Head-dress of the Men of Okinawa. 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. \) 
 
 people, and of only a few could we get any explanation. In 
 Okinawa the origin of the custom is traced to the earliest time 
 in the following legend : The first woman who wove cloth on 
 the island was exceedingly beautiful, and when commerce began 
 to spring up between Luchu and Japau, the Japanese were so 
 much pleased with the peculiar beauty of the cloth made in 
 Okinawa, that they insisted that the weaver should be sent to 
 Japan to instruct the people in the art. The Luchuan Council, 
 fearing that the beautiful weaver would be claimed as a bride 
 by some of the wealthy Samurai of " Dai Nippon,'^ and the art 
 be thereby lost, determined to make her less attractive, and to 
 put on her a mark whereby she would be always recognized and 
 reclaimed from the Japanese, in case of treachery. Her hands 
 were accordingly freely tattooed, and she was allowed to go. 
 The scheme proved a success ; the black tattooing so cheapened 
 her that she returned to Okinawa unmarried, and lived to a 
 good and weaving old age. After her death she was elevated to 
 the skies, made a goddess, and is still worshipped to this day in 
 the city of Naha. 
 
 This legend we were told by Iwai San, to whom it was told 
 by one of his intelligent Luchuan assistants ; I am unable to 
 say to what extent this story is current throughout the islands. 
 It seems, however, that tattooing the hands has some connection 
 originally with weaving; in the southernmost group of isles 
 known as Myako-Jima, the assessment of the women depends on 
 the tattoo marks on tlie backs of their hands. The assessment 
 for the men is fixed according to the amount of millet or rice 
 that each man can produce from his land, and a like taxation is 
 levied on the women in accordance with the quality of fine linen 
 cloth which they are able to make. There are about twenty 
 grades or more of this cloth, determined by the difficulty of the 
 pattern, and when a woman becomes proficient in weaving any 
 one of the patterns, that pattern is tattooed on the back of 
 her hand, and it is regarded as a great distinction and mark 
 of honor to have difficult designs there tattooed as an en- 
 during proof of skill. There may be, perhaps, only two 
 or three women in a whole village with hands completely 
 covered by these marks, but the thorn to the rose is that 
 
10 
 
 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 with these proofs of her skill comes the increased rate of tax- 
 ation. ^ ^^•.^^ ^^ 
 
 V 
 A 
 
 In Ooshima there is, in addition 
 to the marks on the backs of the 
 
 hands, a peculiar design on the ^^^ 2^Design on the Front of the 
 
 inner surface of both wrists ; this ^"'t'' ^^ Ooshima. 
 
 mark, according to the old woman who executes most of the 
 tattooing in the town of Naze, is a combination of several 
 features, apparently totally at random, namely : the beak of a 
 bird, the handle of a teapot, the tail of a fish, and the head of 
 a turtle. These component parts, I think, can be easily seen 
 
 in the accompanying cut, which 
 
 . 3. Tatooing on Hands 
 Myako-Jima ; ~ '" ' 
 
 is reduced one-half from a 
 tracing of the design made 
 by this old woman. 
 
 The beak of the bird is on 
 the end toward the left, the 
 handle of the tea-pot curves 
 outward below it, the tail of 
 the fish is on the right-hand 
 end, and the head of the 
 turtle is the little flat-topped 
 projection on top. The 
 square-shaped design be- 
 yond the tail of the fish is 
 always over the styloid pro- 
 cess of the ulna, on the right 
 hand, while in the same 
 place on the left hand is 
 either a round dot or a 
 many-pointed star. The 
 square is said to represent 
 a bobbin whereon to wind 
 thread. This same mark 
 appears also in Okinawa on 
 the back of the wrist, much 
 larger and with more point- 
 ed corners, but the mark on 
 the front of the wrist is 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 11 
 
 omitted. The lines on the fingers represent bamboo leaves ; 
 for the design in the centre no explanation was forthcoming ; 
 it varied too much to have any fixed meaning (that is, in 
 Ooshima; in Okinawa it is always a round spot, larger on the 
 left hand than on the right). 
 
 In Myako-Jima the marks are said to be the patterns woven 
 into cloth ; on the backs of the fingers is the leaf of the bamboo, 
 below this on the knuckles is the numeral ten ; on the back of 
 the wrist again appears the bobbin ; on the back of the right 
 hand are several footprints of a bird superimposed ; over the 
 knuckle of the thumb a pair of scissors, and below these, two 
 parallel lines, representing Fashi, or chopsticks. In the centre 
 of the left hand are five dots representing five balls of rice; 
 below this a Luchuan tea-table, and to the leftof the five central 
 marks is a trident, whereby evil spirits are kept aloof; to the 
 six dots on the base of the thumb no significance was given. 
 
 Tattooing is not common on any other part of the body, but 
 it is not uncommon to see cris-cross marks on the legs, arms or 
 shoulders of both men and women, which, they say, act as a 
 counter-irritant to rheumatism. We noticed, however, several 
 men and boys in the small fishing village of Itoman, on the 
 island of Okinawa, who had the trident design tattooed on 
 their right upper arms; in some, the trident was replaced by a 
 slanting line, with three short, straight projections on one side 
 of it, directed downward, like the teeth of a saw ; this, we were 
 told, had the same effect on evil spirits as did the trident, which 
 was undoubtedly true. 
 
 The tattooing is always done by women, who make a regular 
 business of it during the months of July and August, when the 
 hard manual work in the fields is over for a time ; the operation 
 makes the hands so sore that hard work is impossible. The ink 
 used is ordinary Chinese ink, moistened with shoju. The 
 design is pricked in with a small sheaf of needles stuck into a 
 piece of soft wood or stiff" paper, and then wrapped with cotton 
 thread untjl a handle of convenient size is obtained. The ink 
 is put on thickly, and the needles jabbed through it into the 
 skin until all of the design has been marked out ; the ink is then 
 washed off, and the lighter spots and patches touched up a second 
 
12 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 time. The whole of the pattern is not worked in at one sitting, 
 but a part of the liand is tattooed in successive years, beginning 
 when the child is four or five years old, and continued until the 
 whole is finished. The courtesans and the women who used 
 formerly to act in the theatres were not allowed to be tattooed ; 
 they were not supposed to work, hence they must be distin- 
 guished from the workers, and they were allowed to put only 
 two large dots on the first phalanx of the middle fingers of both 
 hands. 
 
 Theatre-going in Luchu is the great diversion of the people, 
 and, just as in Japan, the pleasure-seekers take their lunch 
 with them and spend the whole day at the play-house, eating, 
 drinking, gossipping with their friends, and apparently paying 
 little attention to the acting, while children romp with one 
 another, and not infrequently climb on the forbidden precincts 
 of the stage. The arrangement of the stage and the plays is a 
 curious mixture of the Japanese and Chinese; there is the same 
 scene set for all plays, and herein it is like the Chinese, but in 
 the careful costume and in the good idea of effective acting the 
 Lucliuans approach the Japanese school ; furthermore, their 
 plays are short and concise, describing some incident of Luchu 
 history. All the lines are spoken, or rather sung, in a monot- 
 onous, chanting tone, letting the voice drop at the end of eac!) 
 line, but there is not the stilted, squeaky tones of the Japanese 
 actors nor the obtrusive din of gongs and drums, which accom- 
 pany all Chinese histrionic efforts; the voices are all mild und 
 gentle, and the orchestra consists of a low-toned string instru- 
 ment (the Jamsing, much the same as the Samisen of the Ja- 
 panese), a flute, and a drum, which strike up a rhythmical 
 march at the entrance or exit of the principal actors. Nowa- 
 days all parts are taken by men and boys ; not more than three 
 or four years ago, women also took [)art in the plays, but with 
 the spread of Japanese power this was prohibited and women 
 were barred from the " boards.'' We were told that the actors 
 were a much despised class, on account of their dissolute 
 habits. 
 
 The stage is T-shaped, like what is technically known as a 
 Tau cross, in which the transverse bar is about the same length 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 13 
 
 and width as the leg, which is directed toward the audience. 
 The two arms of the transverse are used chiefly for the exit or 
 entrance of artnies or bands of retainers accompanying the 
 feudal lords. On the right the arm is divided in the centre by 
 a rustic bridge, which is supposed to pass over a rushing river ; 
 on the left there are a few genuine gnarled trees, which repre- 
 sent a grove. At the back hangs a broad curtain, beneath 
 which corpses roll themselves when they have lain long enough 
 on the stage to give the audience a realizing sense of their dead- 
 ness, and from under this same curtain ghostly arms clad in 
 black sleeves appear and remove fallen hats, or broken spears, 
 after an affray. On each side of this curtain are doorways 
 also closed with curtains. Through these, the majority of 
 the players have their exits and their entrances, and they serve 
 as the doorway to a hut or to a castle, without so much as the 
 suggestion of a difference in the shade of color of the harlgings. 
 At the end of each play a boy hangs on one of the front pillars 
 of the stage a wooden placard whereon is painted the name of 
 the next play; this is the only play-bill furnished. 
 
 The theatre buildings are very ramshackle aifairs, enclosed 
 only as high as the eye-line of the passers-by in the street, and 
 poorly roofed in overhead. The rafters and supporting pillars 
 are, however, elaborately decorated with dingy, painted dragons, 
 snakes, phoenixes, and pink peonies, in accord with things 
 Japanese and Chinese. On the bare floor, or on thin mats 
 here and there spread, the audience squat and indulge in tea and 
 cakes, or sip hot shoju from little pewter cups no bigger than a 
 thimble, all the while talking in a steady stream, apparently 
 paying no attention whatever to the play. 
 
 The costumes are evidently the remnants of a very early day ; 
 they are neither modern nor old-style Japanese, and do not re- 
 semble any costume of China that I have ever seen; indeed, 
 they look more like the costumes of Persia or Burmah ; elab- 
 orate turbans and head-cloths are often a marked feature. 
 
 High dignitaries are always followed by a chair-bearei", or 
 rather stool-bearer, who is invariably at hand to place a stool 
 beneath his lord, before he addresses the rabble. In sitting 
 down the lordly being assumes a position like the Chinese — that 
 
14 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 is, with knees wide apart, hands resting on the knees, and toes 
 turned out ; the common people take the usual Luchuan sitting 
 posture, which would be cross-legged were it not that one knee 
 is elevated, as if they were about to rise. Taken as a whole the 
 theatrical performances are far more comprehensible than the 
 Chinese, but inferior to the Japanese in scenic effect and dramatic 
 power, although the gentle modulation of the voices make them 
 decidedly more agreeable to the ear. 
 
 The Jamsing, which plays such an important part in Lu- 
 chuan life — it is played only by men — is in shape similar to 
 the Samisen of the Japanese, and is tuned in the same man- 
 ner, only at least an octave lower. The great difference between 
 these instruments in Luchu and in Japan is that in Luchu the 
 drum or body is covered with snake skin (that of the python 
 retlcalatus — probably imported from China), while in Japan 
 cat skin is invariably used. The tunes which I heard were 
 melodious, and played in perfect time to the dancing which was 
 going on. The dancing is in the same style as the Japanese ; 
 slow, graceful movements, which represent in some inexplicable 
 manner the seasons of the year, sunshine and clouds, ripening 
 fields of grain, etc, etc. It is next to impossible for our 
 Western minds to follow all the veiled significance of the East- 
 ern dances ; every wave of the hand, every movement of the 
 fan means to them an emotion of the heart or a cry of nature. 
 In former times there were no Geisha, or Dancing Girls in 
 Luchu; the theatres with their actresses took the place of 
 private dances; now, however, with the Japanisation of every- 
 thing else in the island, this important class must not be over- 
 looked, and several Luchu girls with talent have been educated 
 in Japan as Geishas, and nowadays perform, for a " consider- 
 able consideration," the old-fashioned Luchu dances, which 
 hei*e*:ofore have been relegated exclusively to the playhouse. 
 
 TL'j theatres, however, are not the only diversion of the 
 people; each little village has its own amusements in the shape 
 of horse-races, ^' tugs-of-war,'' and, where there is opportunity, 
 boat-races. The horse^^races are, perhaps, the favorite pastime, 
 and every small village is provided with a public square or 
 race-ground, whereon the people meet and gossip of an evening 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 15 
 
 and where the races are held. Luchu races are problems even 
 to the Japanese governor, Narabara San, who has lived many 
 years in the islands, but acknowledged to me that, although he 
 had witnessed these races many and many a time, he has never 
 yet been able to fathom what exactly constitutes a victory. The 
 riders, possibly twenty or thirty in number, arrayed in fan- 
 tastic and gayly-colored costumes, assemble in the public square 
 or race-(!Ourse (which is a level spot of ground, usually about a 
 hundred yards square, hedged in with pine trees, which serve both 
 as a boundary and also as a shelter for spectators) where they 
 ride hither and thither, zig-zagging from one side to the other. 
 When two or three riders come abreast, seemingly by chance, 
 they start off at a gallop, but the one who apparently outstrips 
 the others in the race may or may not receive the prize. Even 
 the Luehuans whom we asked seemed to be somewhat doubtful 
 in their minds as to what constitutes a victory ; it rests prob- 
 ably on a number of fine technical points in the equipments of 
 the horse and rider ; possibly on the same delicate lines which 
 dominate the negro "cake-walk.'^ 
 
 Boat-races were another form of public amusement in the old 
 feudal days, but of late years are gone out of fashion. The 
 best races were held in the harbor and canals of the city of 
 Naha, where all the citizens of that city and of neighboring 
 villages, divided their interests in three clubs, named the Tomari, 
 Kmnimura, and the Idzumizaki. The boats were manned by 
 thirty-six men each, eighteen on a side, while down the middle, 
 between the rows of paddlers, was a passage wherein were sta- 
 tioned three men, whose duty it was to walk back and forward, 
 encouraging and exhorting the crew to put forth their best 
 efforts. The bows of the boats were decorated with large 
 carved wooden heads of dragons, and from the stern issued the 
 dragon's tail ; from three masts floated the colors of the club to 
 which the boat belonged. The captain of each crew sat upon 
 the nose of the dragon figurehead, and kept up a constant beat- 
 ing on a gtong. The prize was awarded to the winning boat by 
 the government, and local history reveals that these races always 
 end in a free fight. 
 
 ■' Tug-of-war '' contests are also popular sports with the 
 
16 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 Luchuans of the rural districts, and we were told that the men 
 from different villages, and also men of different factions in the 
 same village, entered into these contests with the greatest 
 ardor. For each of the two opposing parties enormous grass 
 ropes are twisted at least eighteen inches in diameter, with 
 a large loop at one end and with side ropes which can be 
 grasped. The opposing parties, fifty or more in number, 
 camp opposite each other all day, stirring up rivalry and ex- 
 citement by gibes and sneers. At midnight, the loops on the 
 ends of the two ropes are brought together and interlocked 
 with a stout pole. At a given signal the tug begins. The 
 point, marked by a flag, beyond which the pole must be dragged 
 to constitute a victory, is only a few feet from the start, but 
 those few feet are fought for with the zeal of desperation. The 
 laggards and the lazy ones are kept up to their work by a force 
 of exhorters, who, in addition to their sharp tongues, wield 
 flaming torches, wherewith they singe the legs of those whose 
 sinews are not suflicieotly strained. Women do not join in, but 
 stand by and ^^ rain influence" with smiles and cheers, although 
 from appearances I should think that the women could pull 
 harder than the men. When the pole has passed the line, the 
 victors, with a wild rush, invade tlie territory of the van- 
 quished, and the night ends in revelry at the expense of the 
 defeated. 
 
 Of children's games there seemed to be but few. Kite-flying 
 is said to be very popular at certain seasons, just as it is in Japan ; 
 it has been, no doubt, imported from Kagoshima, the nearest 
 Japanese port. Whip -tops also have their seasons of popu- 
 larity in the youthful Luchuan life, and in the same unaccount- 
 able manner as in our streets, they suddenly become the fashion, 
 and every small boy knows instinctively just when the season 
 for spinning should begin. The tops are all home-made, whit- 
 tled out of hard wood, or, better still, carved out of coarse white 
 coral ; this latter material is quite an innovation in tops, but then it 
 is always ready to hand in these islands, so largely composed of 
 coral, and when soaked can be cut like clay, and then hardened 
 by drying until it is like a stone, and very light withal. The 
 whips are just what any boy might devise — nothing more than 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 17 
 
 a stick of wood or bamboo, with two or three strips of cloth 
 bound on for lashes. We saw no peg-tops, such as are so popu- 
 lar in Japan ; but then, perhaps, we were not there in the right 
 season. 
 
 The game which seemed to be in season, at the time 
 of the year that we were in the Luchus was what is known 
 here as Tip-cat; the boys of Ooshima call it Teng and in 
 Okinawa it is called Gicho ; it is played, however, somewhat 
 differently from the way in which we play it here. The short 
 piece of wood, known here as the cat, or pussy, is cut off obliquely 
 at one end instead of pointed at both ends as the American boy 
 makes it, but nevertheless the principle remains the same. In 
 starting the play the cat is laid upon the ground with the oblique 
 surface downward and then with a quick rap of the bat it is 
 tilted up and caught in the left hand ; this requires more knack 
 than appears at first sight, and failure to make this catch loses 
 the turn for the batsman. The bat is now laid down and the 
 cat passed over to the right hand and thrown into the air about 
 three feet ; while it is in the air the bat is snatched up and the 
 cat struck before it falls. The fielder tries to catch the cat on 
 the fly, whereby the batsman forfeits his turn ; failing to catch 
 it, the fielder picks it up and throws it toward the batsman, who 
 again strikes it and then measures off the distance to where it 
 has fallen, in so many lengths of the bat ; this constitutes the 
 score. The fielder has the right to confuse the batsman by 
 throwing in to him two pieces of wood like the cat, and the 
 batsman must distinguish between the right and the wrong 
 piece; if he strikes the wrong he loses his turn. 
 
 The game is not played in Japan, as far as I can ascertain, 
 except in the town of Kumamoto in the island of Kyusiu, 
 where, according to Mr. Culin's paper read before The Antiqua- 
 rian Society of Philadelphia, the game is called In ten (very 
 similar to the name "teng'' by which it goes in the northerly 
 group of the Luchus). Mr, Culin's informant, Motochika 
 Tsuda Sau, inclined to the belief that the game was introduced 
 from Korea by the followers of General Kato who took an im- 
 portant part in the campaigns against Korea about eight hun- 
 dred years ago. It seems more probable, however, that the 
 * 2 
 
18 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 game is of Chinese origin ; it is not known at the present day 
 in Korea, and Mr. Calin also is authority for saying that it is 
 played in Hoshan, in the province of Kwantung, China. 
 
 In the island of Ooshiraa, we watched, unobserved, a group 
 of three or four small girls playing a game with little flat 
 discs of baked clay and from what we could see of the game 
 (we were unable to talk to the little players) it looked like a 
 modification of the game of marbles. We found out afterward 
 that the game is called Hajiki (which means in Japanese 
 to snap with the fingers) and that it is played in Japan also 
 under that same name. The game was started by each player 
 hrowing down three or four of these small checkers upon ^he 
 ground, and the one to begin was selected by the ^' counting- 
 out'^ game which they call Mushi-hen, or the ^'insect game," in 
 which the forefinger represents a snake, the thumb a frog, and 
 the little finger a snail. If one player holds up a thumb and 
 the other player a little finger, the little finger loses because the 
 frog can eat the snail, and the loser drops out of the contest ; 
 likewise the snake beats the frog, but the snake is beaten by the 
 snail, because the snail can crawl into a hole where the snake' 
 cannot get at him. The winner in '^counting-out" starts the 
 play with the checkers by drawing a line with her thumb nail 
 in the ground between two of the checkers; this is only to in- 
 dicate which two are in play. With her thumb she snaps one 
 checker at the other; if she hits, she takes up the one that was 
 hit, and again draws a line between her checker and another of 
 the opponents, and keeps on snapping until she loses her turn by 
 a miss. The distance was never more than four or five inches, 
 but unevenness in the ground often makes the shots difficult. 
 
 We stood over tlie little group for some time, as I say, un- 
 observed, so intent were they in their play ; but one of the 
 group suddenly caught sight of us and with panic-stricken 
 faces they gathered up their checkers and ran. A few coppers, 
 however, induced them to resume their places, and at the end of 
 the game they gave us a handful of the checkers. 
 
 The game of Hama-nage, which is played by the boys in 
 Korea, Japan, and Luchu, is nothing more nor less than the 
 game of ^' hockey," familiar to all boys of Europe or America. 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 19 
 
 The game which is no doubt responsible for many a scolding 
 of the small bov for unpunctuality at school is Chang Icoro, 
 and worse yet, it is a gambling gaaie. . It seemed to consist 
 solely in trying to turn over the counters, made of small bivalve 
 shells, by flinging down another shell so as just to hit the op- 
 ponent's shell on the edge. The shell which is thrown must, 
 after accomplishing its object, land on the ground with the con- 
 cave side down ; if it fail to do this, it must be left until for- 
 feited by the other player or redeemed by its owner. The shells 
 represent so many copper cash or Japanese sen. 
 
 We were told that the young men occasionally engage in 
 boxing bouts, with bare knuckles; all blows are struck with 
 the right hand, while the left is used solely as a guard. Clinch- 
 ing and wrestling for a fall are considered legitimate features of 
 the sport. Roksliaku is another manly sport of the order of 
 single-stick, with a staff about six feet long. Non-shahu is 
 played with a stick about three feet long to which is attached 
 a rope. The object of this game is to disarm the opponent by 
 whipping the stick out of his hands. 
 
 With these games and sports the youth of the islands pass 
 their time, and, from all that we heard, they seem to spend 
 never a moment in social intercourse with the gentler sex ; 
 wooing and love-making do not enter into their lives ; there 
 are no love matches in Luchu. Courtship and marriage are 
 things entirely beyond their ken and are managed by their 
 parents. When a son has reached the age of six or seven, the 
 parents look around them, and from the children of their towns- 
 folk select a future bride suited to their son's station in life and 
 w^orthy to become their daughter. Through some middleman 
 the boy is offered to the parents of the girl as a suitor ; if he 
 prove acceptable, a day of good omen is selected, known as the 
 Jclchi-niGhi (lucky day), and on this day the contract is made and 
 the boy's parents send a present to the parents of the girl, but 
 neither of the principals knows anything of all these arrange- 
 ments for their future happiness. When the boy has reached 
 the age of eighteen and the girl is about fourteen or fifteen, a 
 present is again sent to the parents of the bride; this present 
 among the wealthy classes is usually a large sack of rice and 
 
20 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 one " yen " (a Japanese dollar) in money, but among the poorer 
 people, who can ill afford to lose the services of their daughter, 
 the present must be much larger, and ten or twenty " yen '^ is 
 the usual price paid to the parents of the bride. 
 
 On the marriage day the bridegroom, dressed out in his best 
 clothes and accompanied by a crowd of his friends, sets out on 
 foot for the bride's house. At the same time, from her house, 
 a crowd of her friends walk out to meet the groom half-way, 
 and as they walk they ring bells and make all kinds of din and 
 bring with them the figure of a horse's head made out of bamboo; 
 this they fasten in front of the groom, and for the rest of the 
 way he must pretend to ride to the bride's house. The only 
 explanation of this horse-play, that we could get, was that it was 
 to give the marriage more publicity and thereby prevent bigamy. 
 There is, however, a legend that, once upon a time, an Anju, or 
 chief, committed polygamy to such an extent that at last the 
 boys of the village waylaid him as he was going to the house of 
 an additional bride and fastened on him a hobby-horse, and 
 made him walk with a broken umbrella over his head. This 
 made his offence so public, and so humiliated him, that he re- 
 mained faithful to his last bride and sinned no more. There is 
 just a shadow of possibility that this custom is related to an 
 old Korean legend which Mr. Culin mentions in his valuable 
 book on Korean Games (p. 32), wherein he states that the 
 " Wa Kan San sai dsu e relates that T'au Hien, of the later Han 
 Dynasty (a. d. 25-221), when fourteen years old, made himself 
 a flag, rode on a ' bamboo horse,' and played. Kan Kung ob- 
 served his appearance, and admired it, and granted him his 
 daughter as a wife. His wife indignantly said : ' The boy of 
 the T'an family plays too much. How can we give him our 
 daughter?' Kan Kung replied : ^ He has a noble aspect, which 
 certainly presages great success,' and he gave him his daugh- 
 ter." The same book states that boys of seven years of age 
 take pleasure in the bamboo horse. 
 
 When the groom reaches the house of his bride, a great feast 
 is prepared and he pledges his mother-in-law in a cup of shoju ; 
 after the feast he returns to his home, but again visits the bride 
 shortly after dark, accompanied by all his family and servants. 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 21 
 
 Again a feast is held and they all make merry until the small 
 hours when every one in the town is asleep ; both families then 
 visit the groom's house, and here the marriage ceremony is 
 completed by the exchange of cups of shoju between the bride 
 and groom, and the bride also drinks with her mother-in-law. 
 The ceremonies are concluded by the bride and groom reclining 
 together on a couch for a few minutes ; this is known as misu- 
 moin. That same night, or rather morning, the bride returns 
 to her father's house, and the husband and his friends go 
 to a certain quarter of the town set apart for the hetairse, 
 and remain there for three days and nights. Among the 
 higher classes, however, it is customary for the bridegroom 
 to go to some secluded house in the country and there drink 
 and make merry for the prescribed three days. This custom is 
 said to dispel all feelings of jealousy on the part of the wife and 
 inure her in advance to her husband's possible future failings. 
 When the three days are over the bride goes to her husband's 
 house and begins housekeeping, or rather assisting her mother- 
 in-law, for the whole family live together until the death of the 
 father. 
 
 These marriages, thus strangely contracted, are not, as might 
 be readily supposed, always happy unions, and divorce in the 
 first few months of married life is by no means uncommon, the 
 most frequent pretext for it is ugliness of the bride, and I must 
 acknowledge this did not surprise me ; but this is not a legal 
 ground, and if the couple manage to endure each other for a 
 year or more only the gravest misdemeanors of either husband 
 or wife will induce them to separate. 
 
 First cousins may marry, provided they are the children of 
 brothers, but the children of sisters may not marry ; being in- 
 sular people, among whom a certain amount of intermarriage is 
 inevitable, this rule concerning the marriage of cousins is par- 
 ticularly interesting anthropologically ; undoubtedly experience 
 taught them that the marriage of the children of brothers 
 does not ^ produce a deformed or weakened progeny. In the 
 island of Ooshima (where I am not sure that this rule is 
 enforced) we observed, it is true, a great many children afflicted 
 with hare-lip, but in Okinawa, where this rule obtains, the 
 
22 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 inhabitants one and all seemed to be particularly strong and 
 healthy. 
 
 In the burial customs and the observances cf mourning there 
 is no doubt a great proportion that is borrowed from the 
 Chinese and the Koreans; but since all things are changing 
 under Japanese influence, it is, perhaps, worth while to record 
 here what we heard and saw of these customs during our stay 
 in Great Luchu. 
 
 When a husband dies, the widow continues to live in the 
 house of her father-in-law, but she retains the property that her 
 husband left, and, unless she is very young, or of the very 
 poorest class, does not marry again. For fifty days after the 
 death of her husband, the widow discards her metal hair-pins 
 and v/ears pins made of bamboo, and adopts a mourning cos- 
 tume of white cloth. When the body has beeu laid in the 
 family tomb, the door of the vault is sealed up, and in the 
 small enclosure just outside, a thatched hut is built wherein 
 the widow or widower lives secluded for seven days, eating 
 barely enough to sustain life, and mourning incessantly in the 
 most extravagant manner. We were told that it was not an 
 infrequent occurrence for widows to die of grief while mourning 
 in these little huts outside the tomb. For fifty days after 
 leaving the hut at the tomb, the mourner, either widow or 
 widower, remains at home in absolute seclusion, never leaving 
 the house except early in the morning and after dark in the 
 evening, when a visit is paid to the tomb. On these occasions 
 the mourner is draped from head to foot in a grayish-white 
 cloth, and must be attended by some near relative as a guide. 
 At the expiration of these fifty days the bamboo pin is changed 
 for a wooden one, and the daily visits to the tomb are discon- 
 tinued ; it is customary at the end of this period for the widower 
 to mingle with his friends once more ; but a widow remains 
 in seclusion for the rest of her life. For three years no pin 
 but a wooden one can be worn by man or woman, and the 
 clothing must be of white cloth until the ceremony of washing 
 the bones in shoju has been performed. On the third anniver- 
 sary of the death, the tomb is opened, and the assembled family 
 clean and wash the bones in shoju, and place them in a separate 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 23 
 
 urn on a shelf at the back of the inner room of the vault. The 
 hair-pins which were buried with the corpse are at this time 
 removed and made over again for the younger members of the 
 family, but a father's pin is the direct inheritance of his son, 
 and is not re-made. 
 
 Burial takes place from twelve to twenty-four hours after death, 
 and during the time that the corpse is in the house, and while it is 
 being taken to the grave, the relatives and dear friends indulge 
 in paroxysms of grief, which are conducted in the most theatrical 
 and extraordinary manner. As soon as it is evident that death 
 is near at hand, the eyes of the sufferer are closed, aud so held 
 until life departs; then the family at once put on clothes made 
 of banana fibre, of a yellowish color, and the lamentations 
 begin. In the burial of the better classes thirteen kimonos 
 of silk (a material worn in the Luchu islands only at mar- 
 riage and after death) similar in shape to those worn by the 
 Japanese, except that they are a little shorter in the skirt, are put 
 on the corpse, one over the other, varying in color from white, 
 which is always the outermost, to red, blue, green, yellow, and 
 purple. The peasantry put on only seven. On top of the 
 coffin are placed the sandals last used ; a small and prettily- 
 made bag, containing all the teeth which have dropped out 
 during life, and have been carefully preserved ; also the 
 parings of the nails just before death ; in addition to these the 
 body is provided with a pipe and tobacco-pouch, a teapot and 
 some cakes, and a towel. On the day of the funeral the friends 
 and relatives assemble in the house, and, sitting round the 
 coffin, they utter loud lamentations, and seem to vie with each 
 other in giving vent to the most abandoned grief. 
 
 One day, while strolling through the dwelling portion of the 
 town of Naha, our attention was arrested by seeing a crowd of 
 men all clad in the yellow banana-fibre clothes of mourners, 
 and, hearing prolonged wailing in a house near by, we stopped 
 to see what we rightly conjectured to be a funeral proces- 
 sion. We stood a little to one side, and soon the procession 
 appeared ; first came two men with flat drums and large brass 
 cymbals, which they beat lustily, and following them were two 
 children weeping and wailing in such an agony of grief that they 
 
24 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 had to be supported by an attendant on either side. These 
 children were the heirs of the deceased, and for children so 
 young they were really adepts in the art — for it is an art in 
 Luchu — of mourning. Behind them came the hearse, or Gan, 
 carried on poles on the shoulders of four men. The Gan is 
 about four feet long by three feet wide, and has latticed sides and 
 a roof like a temple or a Chinese pagoda, with bells at the four 
 corners ; it is the property of the town, and is loaned as occasion 
 requires. The dimensions may seem small, but then it must be 
 remembered that, except in the upper classes, the usual position 
 in which bodies are buried is with the knees drawn up to the 
 chin ; this position is also frequently adopted in burials in Japan. 
 
 Behind the Gan staggered four chief mourners, clad in the 
 yellow of mourning and wearing on their heads flat straw hats 
 about two feet in diameter. Each of these mourners, bent with 
 woe, had two men to support and almost drag him along ; gen- 
 uine tears accompanied the woe-begone facial contortions, and 
 not only coursed down the cheeks, but also flowed freely 
 through the nasal ducts, producing a flow of mucus many inches 
 in length, which, although a sight to us most repulsively intol- 
 erable, to the Luchuan mind is the very efflorescence of abys- 
 mal woe. Professor Chamberlain states that these men, thus 
 proficient in the art of "crying through the nose,'' are profes- 
 sional mourners, and are only hired to attend funerals. Al- 
 though this was indignantly denied by two Luchuans whom I 
 interrogated, I am inclined to take Professor Chamberlain's ver- 
 sion of the matter. It must have taken years of practice to 
 produce the astounding results obtained by these four mourners 
 in this one instance. 
 
 Behind the professional mourners (let us call them) staggered 
 five or six women, the members of the immediate household of 
 the deceased, completely hidden beneath veils of banana-fibre 
 cloth, so that their faces and the method of their crying could 
 not be seen. They, too, had to be supported by attendants, and 
 what was presumably lost in the way of nasal tears was made 
 up in loud and prolonged wails issuing frem beneath the dra- 
 peries. A crowd of friends clad in mourning robes solemnly 
 and decorously brouglit up the rear. 
 
26 
 
 LIFI-: IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 Family Tombs, near the City of Naha. 
 
 r 
 
 ^ggpi|K 
 
 y^^-'fe^*.; 
 
 
 OpHp^if^^^^- 
 
 '■-^V . X ^^^^S 
 
 
 iglgfp??!gsiijpSt^j^ "^J 
 
 
 1^ '^ '^'"^ ^. . £Je ^j^sl^H^^^^I^^Hi 
 
 P*^,*?T^^ft*" 
 
 '^^M 
 
 
 » j^^H^^^^H 
 
 The Gateway of Propriety. 
 Plate 1. 
 
LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 27 
 
 At the tomb a priest of the Zenshu sect of Buddhism (the 
 religion of Okinawa) says a short prayer and rehearses the many 
 good qualities which the corpse is sure to have had during life, 
 and the body is laid to rest iu the family vault, with the head 
 pointing toward the north. 
 
 I would not be for a minute understood as dealing lightly 
 with any ceremonials wherewith our common humanity accom- 
 panies grief; I therefore add that it is quite possible that por- 
 tions of our own solemn funeral ceremonies might, in turn, 
 strike the Luchuan mind as savoring of insincerity, or even of 
 absurdity. For instance, as this funeral procession passed, we 
 took off our hats to show our respect ; but the action was 
 greeted by a group of small Luchuan boys nearby with laughter 
 and derisive jeers. 
 
 The whitewashed tombs form one of the most characteristic 
 features of the Luchuan landscape, dotted as they are, here and 
 there, in every direction, through the fields wherever sloping 
 ground furnishes a favorable locality for excavation. Archi 
 tecturally, tliey are no doubt derived from the Chinese, but they 
 are perhaps made with a little more care care than is generally 
 seen in China, except in the cemeteries near large cities. The 
 roof the vault, which is dug out of the side of a hill, is horse- 
 shoe shaped in outline, and is higher in the middle and in 
 front than it is at the sides ; in front of the door is a sunken 
 yard, walled in on all sides, and in the centre of this is a slab 
 of masonry or of solid stone about four feet high, six feet long, 
 and one foot thick, forming a sort of screen in front of the open 
 ing in the tomb proper. Inside the vault there are two rooms 
 with low stone shelves on all three sides, whereon the jars con- 
 taining the bones of the deceased are placed. The opening into 
 the vault has no door, but is loosely walled up. On the out- 
 skirts of the city of Naha there is an extensive collection of 
 these tombs, but otherwise there seems to be no regular ceme- 
 tery, and every man builds his tomb wherever he happens to 
 have ground, and the fields are cultivated to the very edge of 
 the vaults wherein '' the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. ^' 
 There is nothing wliich a Luchuan holds in greater reverence 
 than the family tomb, and the usurious money-lenders take 
 
28 LIFE IN THE LUCHU ISLANDS. 
 
 advantage of this sentiment, and never refuse a loan where the 
 family vault is oflFered for security. 
 
 This is but a very brief outline of what might be written of 
 this gentle, little, secluded community who live and die in peace, 
 while the rest of the old Eastern World, which we seem just at 
 present to think is new, is squabbling and fighting both at home 
 and abroad. On account of the exquisitely peaceable nature of 
 the people one of the Chinese emperors christened the country 
 '^ The Land of Propriety,^' and, duly proud of this title, the 
 king caused to be built outside of the royal city of Shuri a 
 great gateway, which to this day is called the " Gate of Pro- 
 priety.^' 
 
 With the advent of Japanese civilization and the contentions 
 which inevitably follow reforms may the name still remain ap- 
 propriate, and no improprieties of " trade's unfeeling train " 
 ever pass beneath that gateway ! 
 
liiaiii. 
 
 029 974 343 3