Organizer: Amanda Mayer Stinchecum, Independent Scholar
Chair: Koji Taira, University of Illinois
Discussants: Josef Kreiner, Bonn University; Laurel Kendall, American Museum
of Natural History
The study of objects has long been related to art historians and archaeologists. Recently, however, a transdisciplinary interest in what has come to be called material culture studies has sparked new efforts to relate artifacts to their broader contexts. Scholars are now working to recontextualize objects manufactured by the people of the Ryukyu archipelago. Examining and measuring the physical qualities of Ryukyuan artifacts, we seek to re-embed them in their matrices of culture, history, social structure and economics, thereby illuminating not only the objects themselves but their contexts as well.
Using archaeological evidence, Asato Susumu presents a new theory of the formation of the Ryukyu kingdom; historian Tomiyama Kazuyuki examines posthumous royal portraits to interpret changes in state structure and the royal cult; and art historian Amanda Mayer Stinchecum raises questions about ethnic identity and the transmission of cultural forms. Both discussants are anthropologists; Josef Kreiner has conducted a survey of Ryukyuan artifacts in Europe, and Laurel Kendall deals with problems of objects and contexts in a museum setting.
On the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa, Ryukyu/Okinawa has been the focus of media attention this year, but there has been virtually no mention of the islands' rich heritage. The University of Hawai'i's major collection of Ryukyuan documents (an opportunity for scholars coming from Japan), as well as students and faculty actively engaged in the study of Ryukyu/Okinawa, make the AAS meeting in Honolulu a particularly appropriate venue for this panel.
The System of East Asian Trade and the Formation of the Ryukyuan Kingdom
Asato Susumu, Urasoe Board of Education, Okinawa
Until the end of the 12th century the Ryukyu archipelago was divided into two spheres of primitive culture: the Okinawa shell-mound culture of Okinawa and Amami, and the Sakishima pre-historic culture of Miyako and Yaeyama. There was little communication between them. Heretofore, Okinawan archaeologists have accepted the hypothesis that around the end of the 12th century these primitive cultures underwent a sudden transformation, resulting in the formation of the gusuku (fortified palace) culture and the establishment of a Ryukyuan cultural sphere.
In fact, however, the gusuku culture began to evolve during the 11th century, when the circulation of both stone cooking pots produced in Nagasaki and kamuyaki jars made on Tokunoshima provide indications of the beginning of the gusuku culture. The manufacture of iron implements, major changes in pottery style and the spread of agriculture during this period are also evident. This economic development extended to the Outer Islands as well, resulting in the evolution of a Ryukyuan economic sphere. At the same time, products such as shell for mother-of-pearl and sulfur were transported to Kyushu. These were raw materials for inlaid lacquer ware and medicines, important goods for trade between Japan and Song China. My report will discuss the material evidence for the evolution of a Ryukyuan economic sphere under the impact of the trading system prevalent in East Asia; the subsequent formation at the end of the 12th century of a Ryukyuan cultural region; and, along with the development of trade with China, the establishment of the Ryukyuan monarchy.
Ryukyuan Dress as Icon: Yukata of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Robes of the Shuri Nobility,
and the Transmission of Cultural Forms
Amanda Mayer Stinchecum, Independent Scholar
Dress is held to be one of the distinguishing characteristics of ethnic and national identity, and the culture of Ryukyu is embodied in the clothing worn by the people of the islands. Since World War II, the forms of Ryukyuan dress (Ryuso) particularly the formal, over-robe worn at court, have come to symbolize-for both Okinawans and other Japanese-an ethnic identity distinct from that of Japan. Features of form, proportion and construction (in addition to the cloth of which it is made), define it as Ryukyuan, and have always been considered indigenous.
Careful examination of unlined robes that had belonged to Tokugawa Ieyasu and close observation of a group of garments preserved by the former royal family of Ryukyu (Sho-ke), reveal that they are nearly identical in significant points of proportion, form and construction. These conjunctions are too consistent to be accidental. The formal clothing worn by the shogun at the end of the 16th century and that worn by the Ryukyuan aristocracy in the 19th century (no earlier Ryukyuan garments are extant) suggests that the forms of Ryukyuan clothing are not "indigenous" but evolved through contact with Japan-before the Satsuma invasion of 1609. The unyielding purity of ethnic identity, liminal character of the boundaries between cultures and states, and the problematic nature of "indigenous cultural forms" are underscored by this discovery.