Folktales of Okinawa

When Agaripatoruma opened his eyes, he found himself inside his castle. The woman on the horse was now a dead mosquito, He carefully put the mosquito in his hand and went to the room where his wife's body lay. He placed the mosquito under her nose and soon her cheeks were pink and she began to breathe like she was sleeping. He waited and finally Fumukaji opened here eyes and looked upon him.

About four years ago I became motivated to read more about Okinawa. I bought a collection of modern fiction, a history of written in English, and this collection of folktales. I finished the fiction three years ago. I never finished the history, and I mostly ignore it on my nightstand. The folktales, however, I've been picking up on and off whenever the mood strikes me. A couple days ago, I finially finished them off.

The collection is remarkable. Professor Shoji Endo, of the Okinawa International University, moved to Okinawa in the early 1970s and began conducting a field survey of these stories. At the time that the book was published in 1995, he had 55,000 collected. (This collection includes a mere twenty-eight.).

And then, apparently, the Bank of the Ryukyus International Foundation thought it'd be a good idea to publish the book, with alternating English and Japanese translations. I remembered seeing this book because my mother borrowed a copy from her friend and showed it to me when I was home from college, maybe fifteen years ago. I always wanted to read it, so I found a used copy online.

I'm glad I did. I'm not going to say the folktales here are better or worse than other folktales; I don't feel comfortable having an opinion in that regard. They were, however, fun to read. The greedy characters always got their comeuppance; the good characters always suffered some tragedy, but were ultimately rewarded for their steadfast reliance on whichever virtue the folktale happened to be extolling.

As an example, in Agaripatoruma and Fumukaji, excerpted above: Agaripatoruma and Fumukaji are happily married, but Agaripatoruma must go off to war; to comfort his worried wife, he leaves a dish of water, instructing her that as long as the water remains clear, he is safe and healthy. But then he gets injured and the water turns red; Fumukaji, fearing the worst and knowing that she can't live on without him, commits suicide.

This leads Agaripatoruma on a quest to bring his wife back from the dead. After consulting a shrine maiden, licking pus from a leper (this sounds gross, but it was cool, trust me), riding between two bulls, kidnapping a woman from the godly realm, transforming the kidnappee into a mosquito, and then, finally, using that mosquito to resuscitate his wife.

A fun read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a low-key way to learn about Okinawan culture.