Taketomi Island

• Japanese: 竹富島 (Taketomi jima)

Taketomi is a small island just to the southwest of Ishigaki Island, in the southern Ryukyu Islands. The island is known for its traditional architecture, festivals, and traditional culture otherwise.

The island is about 5.4 square kilometers in land area. Three villages, known as Ainotta village (Jp: Higashi shûraku), Innotta village (Jp: Nishi shûraku), and Naaji village (Jp: Nakasuji shûraku), are clustered in the center of the island. A resort hotel run by the Hoshino corporation occupies a space in the southeast portion of the island, while ferries from Ishigaki and Iriomote Islands operate out of a pier on the northeastern coast.

The villages collectively were designated in 1986 as an Important Traditional Architectural Protection Area. Some of the key features of the traditional architecture include coral limestone walls running along white sand roads, and traditional Ryukyuan-style wood-frame houses with red terracotta tiled roofs.

History

Archaeological excavations have uncovered Chinese ceramics from the 12th-14th centuries in an area in the northern portion of the island identified as the ancient Shinzato village. Beginning in the 15th century, maransen trading ships connected Taketomi and other parts of the Yaeyama Islands with Okinawa Island and the Miyako Islands.

It is said that the six chiefs who first led the development of Taketomi Island came there from other islands, including Okinawa, Kumejima, Yakushima, and Tokunoshima.

Islanders suffered under the heavy tax burden of the nintôzei head tax imposed by the Ryukyu Kingdom. Many came to maintain rice fields on either Ishigaki or Iriomote Island, traveling in dugout canoes or small sailboats from the island's western pier (nishi sanbashi) to reach their fields on those other islands.

Modern History

The island is today home to just over 300 people; as in many other rural and peripheral areas in Japan, Taketomi is struggling with problems of depopulation as many of the island's young people go elsewhere for school and/or for work and then stay there, leaving largely only older generations remaining on the island. Along with the rest of the Yaeyama and Miyako Islands, Taketomi also struggles with processes of assimilation into a larger "Okinawan" culture and identity.

Immediately following World War II, Taketomi suffered from a different problem, however: overpopulation. While there are about 300-350 residents of the island today, in late 1945 Taketomi found itself struggling to support over 2200 people, many of whom had moved (or returned) to Taketomi from Taiwan, Nan'yô (the South Pacific), Southeast Asia, and elsewhere following the fall of the Japanese Empire.

Culture

Taketomi is home to the annual Tanadui festival, one of the most highly promote traditional folk festivals in Okinawa prefecture (i.e. for tourists).

The song Asadoya yunta also originates from Taketomi. Though more widely-known today by Japanese-language lyrics invented and promoted in the 20th century, the traditional Yaeyama language lyrics tell the story of a young woman who resists being given to (married to) a Shuri official; in this respect, the song was originally associated with local pride and resistance to Shuri's control.

The island is home to at least 27 on (traditional Ryukyuan sacred spaces, known as utaki in the Okinawan language).

A folk culture / tourist site known as the Taketomi Mingeikan was established at one time to serve as a center for traditional weaving, supporting both tourism and a revival of local craft traditions. However, as a result of economic incentives driving the great majority of people to pursue other work, the Mingeikan sits largely empty today, with only one or two people typically present working on one or two of the several tens of looms in the hall.

References

• Plaques on-island.[4]

External Links

• Taketomi Island on Google Maps