Nakama Mitsukeima Eigyoku

• Japanese: 仲間満慶山英極 (Nakama Mitsukeima Eigyoku)

Nakama Mitsukeima Eigyoku was a local chief or power-holder in the Yaeyama Islands in the 15th century, during the period known as the "Era of Rival Chiefs."

According to some legends, he was a descendant of Taira clan remnants, individuals who fled mainland Japan in the late 1180s or early 1190s after the Genpei War. According to others, it was his father who came to Ishigaki Island from Japan, i.e. in a much later generation. In these versions of the story, his father was a warrior who, as a result of war, ended up fleeing or being forced south, into the Ryûkyû Islands; there, he married a local woman, and had several sons, including Mitsukeima Eigyoku. His father and older brother then returned to Japan.

According to some legends, Nakama was based at Kabira on Ishigaki Island and was asked in 1500 by Oyake Akahachi to join him in an alliance against Nakasone Tuyumya of Miyako Island; after Nakama refused, Akahachi had Nakama killed, as he did to Miusuku Shishikadun as well.

Some scholars suggest that Nakama did not in fact participate in the region-wide conflict in & around the year 1500, but rather that he died some decades earlier, and that his story simply became conflated with those of Akahachi and these other figures because of the prominence of the latter stories.

References

• Gregory Smits, Maritime Ryukyu, University of Hawaii Press (2019), 57-58.