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*''Japanese/Okinawan'': 聞得大君 ''(kikoe oogimi / chifijin)''
*''Japanese/Okinawan'': 聞得大君 ''(kikoe oogimi / chifijin)''
''Kikoe-ôgimi'' was a title held by the top high priestess in the [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû Kingdom]]. The position was created in [[1478]] by King [[Sho Shin|Shô Shin]], who reorganized much of the royal court, aristocratic, and spiritual/religious official hierarchies at that time. From that time until the [[Ryukyu Shobun|abolition of the kingdom]] in [[1879]], fifteen women held the position, beginning with Shô Shin's younger sister [[Utuchitunumuigani|Gessei]].
''Kikoe-ôgimi'' was a title held by the top high priestess in the [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû Kingdom]]. The position was created in [[1478]] by King [[Sho Shin|Shô Shin]], who reorganized much of the royal court, aristocratic, and spiritual/religious official hierarchies at that time. From that time until the [[Ryukyu Shobun|abolition of the kingdom]] in [[1879]], fifteen women held the position, beginning with Shô Shin's younger sister [[Utuchitunumuigani|Gessei]]. The last woman to hold the position died in 1944.<ref>Ronald Nakasone, “An Impossible Possibility,” in Nakasone (ed.), ''Okinawan Diaspora'', U Hawaii Press (2002), 6, citing William Lebra, ''Okinawan religion, belief, ritual, and social structure''. Honolulu: University
of Hawai‘i Press (1966), 21.</ref>
The newly-created position intentionally eclipsed and replaced the priestess of [[Baten utaki]], who had been among the most prominent and influential spiritual figures in the kingdom under the First Shô Dynasty (c. 1400-1469); whenever a new priestess became ''kikôe-ôgimi'', she made a pilgrimage to a site near Baten and took on the deity name Tedashiro (太陽代, proxy of the sun), appropriating that which had been the domain of the Baten priestess.<ref>Gregory Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu'', University of Hawaii Press (2019), 130.</ref> The ''kikôe-ôgimi'' also came to be associated with the [[kami]] [[Benzaiten]], a goddess associated with the sea and with the number three; Benzaiten, enshrined in a hall in the [[Ryutan|Ryûtan]] pond below [[Shuri castle|the castle]], also came to be a guardian deity of the kingdom.<ref>Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu'', 164-165.</ref>
The newly-created position intentionally eclipsed and replaced the priestess of [[Baten utaki]], who had been among the most prominent and influential spiritual figures in the kingdom under the First Shô Dynasty (c. 1400-1469); whenever a new priestess became ''kikôe-ôgimi'', she made a pilgrimage to a site near Baten and took on the deity name Tedashiro (太陽代, proxy of the sun), appropriating that which had been the domain of the Baten priestess.<ref>Gregory Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu'', University of Hawaii Press (2019), 130.</ref> The ''kikôe-ôgimi'' also came to be associated with the [[kami]] [[Benzaiten]], a goddess associated with the sea and with the number three; Benzaiten, enshrined in a hall in the [[Ryutan|Ryûtan]] pond below [[Shuri castle|the castle]], also came to be a guardian deity of the kingdom.<ref>Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu'', 164-165.</ref>