Ushuku-oya

• Japanese: 宇宿大屋 (Ushuku ooya)

The Ushuku-ôya lineage were a series of 16th century Ryûkyû Kingdom officials based at, or coming from, the Ushuku area within Kasari district on the island of Amami Ôshima. Little is known about their lives and histories.

A man named Chiyagumori was considered the second-generation head of this lineage, and held a number of official positions as ôyako of various districts on Amami over the course of the 1520s-1560s.

His son, Inutarugane, is recorded as having been lost at sea while traveling to Shuri in 1579 to be granted an official post. Inutarugane's son in turn, Umitarugane, was a child studying at the royal Zen temple Engaku-ji in Shuri at the time; hearing of his father's death, he returned to Amami. When Shimazu clan forces invaded the island in 1609, Umitarugane is said to have surrendered quickly, receiving a five koku stipend from the Shimazu as a result.

References

• Gregory Smits, Maritime Ryukyu, University of Hawaii Press (2019), 181.