Suimui utaki
- Okinawan: 首里杜御嶽 (suimui utaki)
Suimui utaki was the chief sacred space (utaki) at the center of Shuri castle, the royal palace of the Ryûkyû Kingdom. "Suimui" was also a frequent metonym for the castle or the royal capital as a whole in texts such as the Omoro sôshi.
Suimui was one of ten sacred spaces within the palace grounds known collectively as totaki ("ten [u]taki).
Contained within a small set of stone walls in the shicha-nu-unaa, or second plaza, near the central areas of the castle, the utaki contained banyan (gajumaru) and Formosa palm (kurotsugu) trees. The king of Ryûkyû regularly performed prayers here for a safe journey whenever leaving the castle, and noro associated with the court performed a number of other rituals at Suimui as well.
Following the restoration of the castle in 1992, Suimui utaki was restored in December 1997.
References
- Plaques on-site.[1]