36 Min families

• Japanese: 久米三十六姓 (Kume sanjuuroku sei)

The Ryukyuan community of Kumemura, and the scholar-bureaucrat aristocracy that was historically based there, trace their origins to a supposed group of 36 families of the southern Chinese Min (閩) ethnic group who traveled to Okinawa from Fujian province and settled there in 1392, establishing the community of Kumemura. Some scholars, however, identify the 35 Min families as a myth, arguing that instead the influx of Chinese immigrants into Ryûkyû in the 14th century was a more complex and gradual process, involving some greater number of immigrants coming to the islands across a wider span of time.

The 36 families are said to have been commoners, and mostly shipbuilders and navigators, but an aristocracy grounded in the Confucian classics and based on the model of the Chinese system of scholar-bureaucrats grew out of their community. They are believed to have also introduced to Okinawa the sanxian, a musical instrument out of which the Okinawan sanshin would later develop.

Though the 36 families intermarried and culturally assimilated to a considerable degree, their Min blood surely becoming considerably diluted down through the generations, the members of the Kumemura aristocracy continued throughout the early modern period (1609-1879) to be considered at least partially Chinese - that is, at least partially ethnically/racially/culturally different from other Ryukyuans.

References

• Uezato Takashi. "The Formation of the Port City of Naha in Ryukyu and the World of Maritime Asia: From the Perspective of a Japanese Network." Acta Asiatica 95 (2008). pp57-77.