Nature, ritual, and society in Japan's Ryukyu Islands / Arne Røkkum.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Røkkum, Arne.

Series:

Japan anthropology workshop series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Japan--Ryukyu Islands.

Ethnology.

Ryukyu Islands--Social life and customs.

Ryukyu Islands.

Japan--Ryukyu Islands.

Physical Description:

xiii, 265 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.

Summary:

Despite their small area, the southern islands of Japan can be seen as stepping stones towards a more nuanced view of cultural osmosis between Japan and the outside world. Integral to this viewpoint is a comprehensive understanding of the inhabitants of these islands, including their culture, beliefs, and mores.

Nature, Ritual, and Society in Japan's Ryukyu Islands contains original ethnography which explores the mind of the islanders, their relationship with the natural world, their social relationships, and the rituals which represent and give expression to these relationships. This book is based on extensive original research, and includes participant observation. Village priestesses in the southern Islands verbalize a sense of connectedness with the landscape through their prayers. Rather than interpreting this oratory as an example of symbolic or metaphoric construction, however, the author guides the reader toward a more concrete experience of the effect induced by the ornate words. This approach allows the authentic, voices of the Ryukyu Island worlds to speak for themselves, and also sets the work in the wider context of anthropology, Japanese studies, and pacific island studies. This book strings together: issues of mind, society and nature and captures the exact moments when impressionistic views of nature are composed into stylized utterances. This study will be of great interest to the general anthropological readership interested, in theoretical advances through fieldwork, as well as to Asian studies scholars.

Contents:

Linguistic note xiv

1 Commuted landscapes and species 18

Primordial truths 27

Domesticated reigns 29

Sources of sentiment 32

Lasting images 43

Cultivated identities 46

Cultivated kinship 52

Fertilizing soils 60

A semantic ecology 64

Garlic and crabs 67

Parallel thought 75

Reproductive partnerships 83

2 Person and island 96

Fragments of desire 96

Acts of engagement 105

An animated ambience 106

An adulation of watery flowers 109

3 Cyclical lapses 123

Gendered events 123

An interstice of the year 129

4 Fateful exchanges 148

Acts of disengagement 148

Uncanny partnerships 152

Recipes for sharing and not sharing 160

Lingering debts 163

An evil spirit of the sea 168

An evil spirit of the soil 177

An encounter with a root force 186

Preparing for a stately journey 194

The final moment: body for body 209

Elegies for a departed priestess 213.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [250]-260) and index.

ISBN:

041535563X

OCLC:

57730823

Publisher Number:

9780415355636