Tradition, Transmission, and Transformation in Yaeyama: Symbol of
Island Identity
by
Amanda Mayer Stinchecum
Yaeyama, the southernmost island-group of Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost prefecture, lies on the farthest periphery of Ryukuan cultural influence. Yaeyama has remained distinct from the political center of Okinawa.
According to local legend, for 300 years the women of Yaeyama have woven minsa-sashes to give to their prospective husbands, incorporating a combination of ikat motifs read as a rebus, meaning “Yours forever more.” Today, in ritual and secular performances of dance and drama, as well as in congregant participation in religious ceremonial, the sash has become a marker of the “simple, island people of Yaeyama.” Local textile cooperatives, district governments, and island officials promote this legend. Islanders also use the legend to clarify and enrich their self-identities as “simple island people.” Primary documents and object-derived data raise doubts about the historical basis for the legend and for production predating the introduction of machine-spun cotton yarn in the later 19th century. These sources also establish the intimate association of the sash with the gentry.
I explore the transformation of the sash from a utilitarian object associated with the gentry class to a symbolic identity marker of the islands’ people of formerly commoner status, and from an object made entirely for personal consumption to a product for outside markets; and the transference to the sash of meaning as a protective token gifted by women. Since World War II, the people of Yaeyama have reinvented this simple sash, with its array of identities and rich histories, to embody the multiplicity of changing traditions.
Amanda Mayer Stinchecum is a historian specializing in the textiles and clothing of Ryukyu/Okinawa, with occasional digressions into those of mainland Japan. Areas of special interest include the history of ikat in East and Southeast Asia, clothing and cloth as identity markers, political roles of textiles and clothing, and the technology and identification of plant fibers used in Ryukyuan and Japanese textiles. An independent scholar based in New York, Dr. Stinchecum’s publications on textiles include Kosode: Sixteenth–Nineteenth Century Textiles from the Nomura Collecton (1984); “A Common Thread: Japanese Ikat Textiles,” Asian Art 3:1 (1990); “Textiles of Okinawa,” in William Jay Rathbun, ed., Beyond the Tanabata Bridge: Traditional Japanese Textiles (1993); Mingei: Japanese Folk Art (with Robert Moes), Art Services International (1995); “Minsa-obi/kagan nu bu: Yaeyama tategasuri momen hoso-obi no zenshi josetsu, joge” (Minsa-obi and kagan nu bu: introduction to a total history of the warp-ikat narrow cotton sashes of Yaeyama, parts I and II), Yaeyama Hakubutsukan kiyo 10 (March 2001) and 19 (March 2002).