¹ In 2005, the chairperson of the Shuri Castle Festival planning committee noted that “The Shuri Castle Festival is being fixed as the event that transmits (hasshin) the culture of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. [We would like] through colorful events, to deepen understanding towards Okinawan culture.” “Shurijō sai 10-gatsu 28-30 nichi ni kaisai kettei,” Ryūkyū shinpō, September 7, 2005.

² This is similar to the observation that Laura Hein and Mark Selden make regarding the use of Shurei Gate on the 2000-yen banknote. They suggest that “by appropriating Shuri Castle as a symbol of Japanese nationhood suitable to grace the currency, Tokyo is again asserting control over Okinawans and subordinating them to the nation.” Laura Hein and Mark Selden (eds.), Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003) 12. Gerald Figal has recently shown how constructions of the Ryūkyūan past are part of a complicated recasting of Okinawa as a tourist destination. See his “Between War and Tropics: Heritage Tourism in Postwar Okinawa,” The Public Historian 30 (May 2008), 83-107.

³ “Shin shitei tokubetsu hogo kenzōbutsu gaisetsu,” Kenchiku zasshi, May 1925, No. 39, Vol. 470, 31.

⁴ Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Tokukenkokuhō mokuroku (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1927).

⁵ Bunkachō, Sensai tō niyoru shōshitsu bunkazai: nijisseiki no bunkazai kakochō (Tokyo: Ebisukosho shuppan, 2003).

⁶ Nonomura Takao (ed.), Shashinshū Natsukashiki Okinawa: Yamazaki Masatada ra ga aruita Shōwa shoki no genfūkei (Naha: Ryūkyū shinpōsha, 2000), 14.

⁷ Taira Hiromu, “Ryūkyū kenchiku no fukkō to koshashin no yakuwari” in Nonomura Takao, Natsukashiki Okinawa: Yamazaki Masatada ra ga aruita Shōwa shōki no genfūkei (Naha: Ryūkyū shinpōsha, 2000), 44-47.

⁸ Hamashita Takeshi and Kawakatsu Heita (eds.), Ajia kōekiken to nihon kōgyōka, 15001900 (Tokyo: Riburo pōto, 1991) 9.

⁹ Gregory Smits has traced the way that Ryūkyūan court cultivated increasingly “Chinese” and Confucian representations and practice of kingship of the sage king, which included the decoupling of the Ryūkyūan king's power from its historical relationship with the powerful female priestesses in Ryūkyūan religion. Iyori Tsutomu has traced how the changes in the architecture of Shuri Castle's main hall (specifically looking at the changes to the bargeboard above the main hall's canopy) were part of this policy of suppression. Gregory Smits, “Ambiguous Bounderies: Redefining Royal Authority in the Kingdom of Ryukyu,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 60 (June 2000), 89-123; Iyori Tsutomu, “Ryūkyū ōken no basho: Shurijō seiden karahafu no tanjō to sono kaishu ni tsuite,” Kenchikushi gaku 31 (1998), 4-6

¹⁰ George Kerr suggests that the Ryūkyū Kingdom saw its income reduced by more than half, from 200,000 koku to 80,000. George H. Kerr, Okinawa: The History of an Island People: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1975), 179.

¹¹ Hideaki Uemura, “The Colonial Annexation of Okinawa and the Logic of International Law: The formation of an ‘indigenous people’ in East Asia,” Japanese Studies 23 (2003), 120.

¹² Okinawa ken (ed.), Okinawa hontō torishirabe sho meiji 26-nen, 1893.

¹³ F. H. H. Guillemard, The Cruise of the Marchesa to Kamschtka and New Guinea. With notices of Formosa, Liu-kiu, and various islands of the Malay Archipelago (London: John Murray, 1886), 58-59. Italics are mine.

¹⁴ This is perhaps not dissimilar form Orhan Pamuk's exploration of the the effect of Ottoman ruins as reminders of past greatness on Turks today and the melancholy (hūzūn) that results from it. Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul Memories of the City (New York: Knopf, 2006).

¹⁵ “Kyū Shurijōseki nami kenbutsu haraisage seigan no gi nitsuki ikensho” in Maehira Bōkei, “Kindai no Shurijō,” in Yomigaeru Shurijō: rekishi to fukugen Shurijō fukugen kinenshi (Naha: Shurijō fukugen kiseikai, 1993), 276-277.

¹⁶ “We would like to use this land as a park, turn the buildings into a museum, establish an entertainment area displaying hundreds of things beginning with tropical plants that are different from that of other prefectures, and historical treasures that are different from places whose development is different. This is in planning for public leisure, but at the same time, to encourage economic development through foreigners who visit, to start the development of [our] civilization.” “Kyu Shurijōseki nami kenbutsu haraisage seigan no gi nitsuki ikensho.”

¹⁷ “Kanyūchi kariuke oyobi kenbutsu kaishū no ken” in Ryūkyū shinpō, January 29, 1903. Also in Maehira, “Kindai no Shurijō,”277. See also “Shurijō jisho taifu nami kenbutsu haraisage no ken,” Rikugun sho dainikki meiji 38-nen, National Archives of Japan.

¹⁸ The land was sold for 1514 yen 15 sen. Maehira, “Kindai no Shurijō,” 278.

¹⁹ The information in this paragraph summarizes parts of Torigoe Kenzaburō's Ryūkyū shūkyōshi no kenkyū (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1965), esp. 655-660.

²⁰ “Kensha sonsha kensetsu riyūsho” in Torigoe Kenzaburō, Ryūkyū shukyoshi no kenkyū, 655. For the Minamoto's relationship to the Ryūkyū islands, see George H. Kerr, Okinawa: The History of an Island People: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1975).

²¹ Jinja kyōkai zasshi, 22:5 (1923), 34. Okinawa ken jinja meisai chō, Okinawa Prefectural Library collection, publication date unknown.

²² Figures are given in Torigoe, Ryūkyū shūkyōshi no kenkyū, 659. He set the costs for the construction of the buildings at 5000 yen.

²³ Torigoe notes that the prefecture's attempt to raise funds from among Okinawans for the shrine in 1914 failed. He took this as an indicator of the shallowness of Okinawans’ civilization and cultural development (mindō), as well as a lack of interest in establishing the prefectural shrine. Torigoe, Ryūkyū shūkyōshi no kenkyū, 659.

²⁴ Kamakura Yoshitarō, Okinawa bunka no ihō (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1982), 61. Kamakura does not note the title of the article he saw, but it was likely “Okinawa ōchō no Shurijō wo torikowashi okinawa jinja konryū,” Kagoshima mainichi shimbun, 25 March 1924. See also Itō Chūta, “Ryūkyū kikō,” in Kengaku kikō (Tokyo: Ryūgin sha, 1936), 31.

²⁵ Kamakura's account can be found in his Okinawa bunka no ihō (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1982).

²⁶ Itō Chūta, “Ryūkyū kikō,” Kagaku chishiki 5 (1925), 31.

²⁷ He achieved this with an emergency provisional designation under the 1919 Historic Sites, Places of Scenic Beauty, and Natural Monuments Preservation Law.

²⁸ Itō, “Ryūkyū kikō,” 30.

²⁹ Itō, “Ryūkyū kiko,” 31.

³⁰ Itō, “Ryūkyū kikō,” 31.

³¹ Itō, “Ryūkyū kikō,” 31.

³² “Kensha no nintei wo etaru ato shajihozonhō ni yotte seiden wo okinawa jinja no haiden tonashi naimushō no iji ni yoru no ga tokusaku Itō hakushi no iken,” Ryūkyū Shinpō, 9 August 1924. The text of this article is reproduced in Yoshiike Fumie, “‘Firudo noto dai 22 kan ryukyi’ wo moto ni,” Masters thesis, Kyoto Institute of Technology, 2006, 177.

³³ Ernesto Laclau's observation that “[t]he ideological would not consist of the misrecognition of a positive essence, but exactly the opposite: it would consist of the nonrecognition of the precarious nature of any positivity, of the impossibility of any ultimate suture” is theoretically instructive here. Ernesto Laclau, “The Impossibility of Society” in his New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Times (London: Verso, 1997), 92.

³⁴ Wilbur Fridell, “The establishment of Shrine Shinto in Meiji Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 2 (1975), 143. Helen Hardacre gives a slightly different translation of this phrase: “shrines as offering the rites of nation.” Hardacre, Shinto and the State 1868-1988, 97.

³⁵ See for instance Hiroike Chikuro, Ise jingu to waga kokutai (Tokyo: Nichigetsusha, 1915).

³⁶ These included the rebuilding of the Grand Shrine of Ise (1899 and 1909), Yahiko Shrine (Niigata, 1916), Meiji Shrine (1920), the expansion of Atami Shrine (1922), various parts of Yasukuni Shrine including the Yūshūkan, and the expansion of the Grand Shrine of Izumo. Of these, Ise, Meiji, and Yasukuni shrines stand out as especially privileged sites as the nexus of sacral, imperial, and state power that State Shinto enabled. In addition, Ito was also responsible for the design and construction of Shinto shrines in the Japanese empire's colonial possessions, beginning with the Grand Shrine of Taiwan in 1901, but also Karafuto Shrine (1912), and the Grand Shrine of Chosen (1925).

³⁷ Maruyama Shigeru, Nihon no kenchiku to shisō: Itō Chūta shoron (Tokyo: Dobun shoin, 1996), 121.

³⁸ Ito, “Sekai kenchiku ni okeru nihon no shaji,”316-317

³⁹ Ito Chūta, “Jinja kenchiku ni taisuru kōsatsu.”

⁴⁰ Ito, “Jinja kenchiku ni taisuru kōsatsu,”17.

⁴¹ Ito, “Jinja kenchiku ni taisuru kōsatsu,”18-20.

⁴² These regulations start in the 1870s as the then Ministry of Doctrine (Kyobushō) issued regulations on the size the format of national and government shrines. See also Yamauchi Yasuaki, Jinja kenchiku (Tokyo: Jinja shinpōsha, 1972), 194-202 for some of these regulations.

⁴³ Optional structures were also recommended. See Kodama Kuichi, Jinja gyōsei (Tokyo: Tokiwa shobo, 1934), 48.

⁴⁴ Kodama, 54.

⁴⁵ Torigoe, Ryūkyū shūkyōshi no kenkyū, 656. Also see note 37 above. George Kerr asks: “What better man to serve as a link between Okinawa and Japan than the legendary Minamoto Tametomo?” Kerr, Okinawa, 50.

⁴⁶ Higashionna Kanjun, Ryūkyū no rekishi (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1957), Textbooks on Okinawan history today trace the beginnings of political history to the 13th century, and treat the period of Shunten's reign as myth. See for instance Okinawaken kyoiku iinkai, Gaisetsu okinawa no rekishi to bunka (Naha: Okinawaken kyoiku iinkai, 2000).

⁴⁷ Shō Shōken was a pro-Japan, Ryūkyūan statesman who is credited with being the earliest proponent of the theory of common Ryūkyūan and Japanese ancestry (nichi-ryū dōsō ron) who was writing from within a Ryūkyū Kingdom subdued by Satsuma.

⁴⁸ Kikuchi Yūhō, Ryūkyū to Tametomo (Tokyo: Bunrokudō shoten, 1908); Bungakusha, ed., Shōgaku sakubun zensho (Tokyo: Bungakusha, 1883); Shimabukuro Genichiro, Okinawa rekishi: densetsu hoi (Mawashison okinawaken: Shimabukuro genichiro, 1932).

⁴⁹ Kerr, Okinawa, 102.

⁵⁰ Gregory Smits, Visions of Ryūkyū: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999).

⁵¹ “Shuri shi kinen shi” in Naha shishi, Vol. 2, No. 2, 374. Kaji Yorihito has also found newspaper reports on Okinawa Shrine's vibrant and busy shrine days. Kaji, 100-101.

⁵² Torigoe, 660

⁵³ Okinawa Prefectural Library collection. All the figures that follow come from this material.

⁵⁴ Ujiko refers to the group of people reside in an area around a shrine and who are registered with it. They are somewhat analogous to the notion of “parishioners” in terms of their relationship to the site of worship. Kokugakuin University's online Shinto glossary defines ujiko this way: “Generally, a group from the land surrounding the areas dedicated to the belief in and worship of one shrine; or, the constituents of that group.”

⁵⁵ Sūkeisha also refers to a shrine's worshippers and is often used interchangeably with ujiko. However, strictly speaking, where ujiko refers to worshippers who live within the shrine's defined district, sūkeisha refers to worshippers from outside that area. Yomochi Shrine's numbers are those for “Okinawa prefecture as a whole” (Okinawa ken ka ichien). Yomochi Shrine was nevertheless a popular shrine and seems to have enjoyed support from the local population, in part because its resident deities were Ryūkyūan heroes, rather than deities from the Shinto pantheon. For more on Yomochi Shrine, see Kaji Yorihito, Okinawa no jinja (Naha: Okinawa bunko, 2000), 106-111. See also Kadena City’swebsite on the shrine,

⁵⁶ See for example Mitsuko Nitta, Dairen jinjashi: aru kaigai jinja no shakaishi (Tokyo: Ofu, 1997), Koji Suga, Nihon tochika no kaigai jinja: chōsen jingu taiwan jinja to saijin (Tokyo: Kobundo, 2004), and Akihito Aoi, Shokuminchi jinja to teikoku nihon (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2005). See also Minoru Tsushi's Shinraku jinja:yasukuni shisō wo kangaeru tameni (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2003). For compulsory visitations, see Takeshi Komagome, “Shokuminchi ni okeru jinja sanpai,” in Seikatsu no naka shokuminchi shugi (Kyoto: Jinbunshoin, 2004), 105-129, Takeshi Komagome, Shokuminchi teikoku nihon no bunka togo (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1996).

⁵⁷ Hildi Kang, Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), esp. 114. See also pages 111-116.

⁵⁸ The efforts of the Okinawa Prefecture Committee for the Promotion of Culture (Okinawaken bunka shinkōkai) and the Okinawa Prefectural Board of Education (Okinawaken kyōiku iinkai) to compile historical materials are exemplary. The latter's Okinawaken shiryō (Okinawa Prefecture Historical Materials) series is an important collection of primary source material from the prewar. This is reflected in the mission of the Okinawa Prefectural Archives. In remarks commemorating the opening of the archives on August 1, 1995, the then director Miyagi Etsujirō commented that “because almost all [of Okinawa's] prewar records were lost in this past war, it was a situation where we had to put postwar documents at the center [of our efforts].” Okinawa Prefectural Archives, ARCHIVES, vol. 1 (1996), 3. Photographs seem to receive special attention: Ryūkyū shinpō sha, ed., Mukashi okinawa: shashinshu (Naha: Ryūkyū shinpôsha, 1978), Shuritsu hawaidaigaku horeisokan henshu iinkai, Bōkyō Okinawa shashinshū (Tokyo: Honpō shoseki, 1981), Okinawa terebi hoso kabushiki gaisha, ed., Yomigaeru senzen no okinawa: shashinshu (Urasoe: Okinawa shuppan, 1995), Okinawa terebi hoso kabushiki gaisha, ed., Yomigaeru senzen no Okinawa: shashinshū(Urasoe: Okinawa shuppan, 1995).

⁵⁹ Shurijō fukugen kisei kai kaihō 1, 1982, 3.

⁶⁰ Okinawa kaihatsu chō, Okinawa shinkō kaihatsu keikaku. dai ni ji (Naha: Okinawa kaihatsu chō, 1982).

⁶¹ Kiyoshi Fukushima, “Shurijō fukugen sekkei ni tsuite no zakkan,” Okinawa bunka kenkyū 21 (1995), 40.

⁶² 「1712年に再建され、1925年に国宝指定された正殿の復元を原則とする」, Fukushima, “Shurijō fukugen sekkei ni tsuite no zakkan,” 46.

⁶³ Shuri Castle was rebuilt three times before after fires destroyed it in 1453, 1660, and 1709.