Changes

[[File:Noro.jpg|right|thumb|400px|A museum display recreating a traditional ''[[noro]]'' ritual. Okinawa Prefectural Museum]]

[[File:Noro.jpg|right|thumb|400px|A museum display recreating a traditional ''[[noro]]'' ritual. Okinawa Prefectural Museum]]

[[File:Miruku.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The deity [[Miruku]] coming ashore from ''[[nirai kanai]]'' during a festival, bringing ''[[yugafu]]'' (good fortune), as represented in a museum display at the [[National Museum of Japanese History]]. Also seen here are a ''[[shisa]]'' (lion) and ''[[hari]]'' (dragon boat), welcoming the deity.]]

[[File:Miruku.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The deity [[Miruku]] coming ashore from ''[[nirai kanai]]'' during a festival, bringing ''[[yugafu]]'' (good fortune), as represented in a museum display at the [[National Museum of Japanese History]]. Also seen here are a ''[[shisa]]'' (lion) and ''[[hari]]'' (dragon boat), welcoming the deity.]]

[[Buddhism]], [[Shinto]], [[Confucianism]], and Chinese folk religion (e.g. [[Tenpi]] worship) were all introduced into the [[Ryukyu Islands|Ryûkyû Islands]] in the premodern period, and had considerable impacts upon local religious beliefs and practices, particularly among the [[scholar-aristocracy of Ryukyu|elites]], and particularly in the central region of [[Okinawa Island]]. However, Ryûkyû is also home to its own native/indigenous religion, a set of animist beliefs and practices which many suggest likely grew out of similar or shared origins with Japanese Shinto, though others argue strongly that such ideas have colonialist and Orientalist origins and work to deny or erase Ryukyuan distinctiveness.<ref>Aike Rots, "Strangers in the Sacred Grove: The Changing Meanings of Okinawan Utaki," ''Religions'' 10:298 (2019), 8.</ref>

[[Buddhism]], [[Shinto]], [[Confucianism]], and Chinese folk religion (e.g. [[Tenpi]] worship) were all introduced into the [[Ryukyu Islands|Ryûkyû Islands]] in the premodern period, and had considerable impacts upon local religious beliefs and practices, particularly among the [[scholar-aristocracy of Ryukyu|elites]], and particularly in the central region of [[Okinawa Island]]. However, Ryûkyû is also home to its own native/indigenous religion, a set of animist beliefs and practices which many suggest likely grew out of similar or shared origins with Japanese Shinto, though others argue strongly that such ideas have colonialist and Orientalist origins and work to deny or erase Ryukyuan distinctiveness.<ref>Aike Rots, "Strangers in the Sacred Grove: The Changing Meanings of Okinawan Utaki," ''Religions'' 10:298 (2019), 8.</ref>