- Other Names: 知念森 (Chinen mori), 知念森城 (Chinenmori gusuku)
- Japanese: 知念 城 (Chinen gusuku)
Chinen gusuku was a gusuku fortress in the southern portion of Okinawa Island, in what is today Nanjô City.
According to some legends, the site of Chinen gusuku, or else the Chinen peninsula more broadly (including the areas around Sefa utaki and Tamagusuku gusuku), were the location where Amamikyo, the creation goddess of Ryukyuan mythology, first came down to earth, or else that she crossed over to there from Kudaka Island. Such legends also relate that the Chinen area was where Amamikyo initiated the first rice cultivation in the Ryukyu Islands.[1]
Located atop a roughly 80-meter hill, the fortress is comprised of two enclosures, known as the "old gusuku" (kuugusuku) and the "new gusuku" (miigusuku). While the walls of the kuugusuku are made in the nozura-zumi style, comprised of rough piled stones, the walls of the miigusuku are in the aikata-zumi style, using nicely carved and fitted stones. The utaki within the grounds may have played a role in the Agariumai ceremony in which the king of Ryûkyû Kingdom processed around certain sacred sites within the kingdom.
References
- Gallery labels, Okinawa Prefectural Museum.[1]
- ↑ Yamazato Eikichi, "Shinwa to densetsu ni miru Okinawa no rekishi," Tabi 旅 46 (1972/6), 108.