Retaining a Photographic Report of Amami’s Identity

Lost Amami Culture

I used to be born in 1953, the 12 months the Amami Islands, my birthplace, reverted to Japanese rule after postwar administration by the United States. At that point, Japan’s principal islands have been going full-tilt into restoration, ushering within the period of fast financial progress.

During that point, a veritable outflow was starting within the farming communities and outlying islands of Amami, as younger individuals left to hunt jobs in business within the Kantō and Kansai areas. Festivals, ceremonies, and different sides of native tradition turned considered as outmoded and quickly pale away. In faculty, kids have been instructed to desert the native tongue in favor of normal Japanese as an alternative, to allow them to make their means in city society. Raised in a village on Amami Ōshima, I used to be additionally uncovered to that educating. When I lapsed into our tongue at elementary faculty, a “he used dialect” placard was hung round my neck, a humiliation that even at this time I can’t neglect.

After graduating from highschool, I moved to Tokyo to construct a profession as a photographer. I returned to Amami in 1979, however though I started photographing day by day life, festivals, and nature on the islands, I struggled to discover a appropriate theme and easily took images haphazardly. After six years of doing that, I made a decision that I might make my life’s work documenting the Amami no kurousagi, the Amami rabbit, a species designated by the Japanese authorities as a pure monument.

The middle of Naze, now a district within the metropolis of Amami, quickly after reversion to Japanese rule. Horses and rugged bus-type automobiles have been a typical sight on the unpaved roads. (© Haga Hideo)

Top: The Naze district at this time. The shallow waters of the bay have been crammed in, and a port for giant ships was constructed. Bottom: the Amami Hondōri buying avenue retains a distinctly retro taste. (© Hamada Futoshi)

Helping Preserve Local Culture

As I continued trekking to the forests to {photograph} the rabbit, I started to think about how nature had advanced on Amami. Today’s primeval forests, the place a lot of Amami’s endemic species reside, developed about 6,000 years in the past. By using their senses to the complete, our forebears doubtless realized by means of sensible expertise which forest creatures have been edible and find out how to shield themselves from venomous snakes, typhoons, and different pure hazards. The islands’ conventional tradition is little doubt rooted in profound respect for nature from time immemorial.

I started to determine extra strongly with my birthplace in 1987. My pictures had been chosen for inclusion within the pure sciences part of the soon-to-open Amami Museum. It was there that I encountered the photograph collections of folklore photographer Haga Hideo, who had photographed the islands within the Nineteen Fifties. Haga was a towering presence on the planet of pictures; I had seen his work in pictures magazines and collections since my pupil days. I additionally realized that this grasp of folklore pictures had begun his profession taking images in Amami.

Haga’s images introduced again my earliest recollections, scenes of thatched-roof dwellings and fields stretching away into the space, delivered to life by Haga. But because of agricultural coverage adjustments after the islands’ reversion to Japanese rule, the islands’ rice paddies have been transformed into fields, and all our native customs related to rice farming have been forgotten. Haga was in Amami at the moment, documenting each facet of life within the islands from the ethnographic perspective and leaving a document of sights which have since disappeared.

I met Haga in individual in 1992, once I was granted membership within the Japan Professional Photographers Society and took part within the society’s normal assembly for the primary time. Haga, a founding member of the society, was attending, and once I launched myself and talked about that I used to be from Amami, his face broke right into a broad smile. “Ah, Amami, where I got my start as a photographer.” He continued, “As long as humans walk the earth, folk culture will continue to exist, but it’s important to distinguish between what needs to be preserved and what will be no great loss if it fades away.” Hearing these phrases renewed my ambition to proceed photographing Amami.

The Shikyoma ritual linked to rice rising, previously practiced in Uken, Amami Ōshima. The harvest’s first ears of rice have been supplied to the deities at dwelling, and members of the family every ate a number of grains of the rice. (© Haga Hideo)

The Akina district within the city of Tatsugō is without doubt one of the few areas of Amami Ōshima nonetheless rising rice. Shochogama, the place the lads of the district trample a straw-roofed shed, is a spotlight of a neighborhood ritual to wish for a very good harvest. This is the Akina Arasetsu, which takes place within the eighth month in line with the lunisolar calendar. (© Hamada Futoshi)

In the Hirase Mankai spiritual ritual, carried out at nightfall, white-clad noro priestesses collect on the shore to summon the deity from over the horizon. (© Hamada Futoshi)

The Akina Arasetsu combines parts of veneration of tanokami, the deity of the rice paddies, from the Japanese mainland, with native Okinawan niraikanai worship. The ritual is claimed to have began previous to the seventeenth century, when Amami was administered by the Satsuma clan. (© Haga Hideo)

Reestablishing Amami’s Identity

Folklore pictures started attracting consideration within the Nineteen Nineties. The bursting of the bubble financial system marked the tip of gung-ho progress, creating self-doubt among the many Japanese. “Identity” started to be reinterpreted because the traits of a bunch or area, which offered a chance for them to reevaluate their roots.

In 1995 I started publishing Horizon, a e-newsletter that includes Amami tradition, nature, and folks to acquaint readers with the islands’ identification, along with my spouse as editor. Haga was absolutely on board with our endeavor and agreed to jot down in regards to the images he had taken within the Nineteen Fifties; he continued to contribute materials till 2009. His vivid recollections of the circumstances beneath which he had taken images half a century earlier resonated with readers, who by no means failed to reply positively.

In 2021, Amami Ōshima and Tokunoshima, together with northern Okinawa and Iriomote, have been registered as a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site. Amami’s biodiversity websites attracted broad consideration and strengthened the significance amongst Amami islanders of coexisting with our pure atmosphere. It was round that point that Haga’s son Hinata, additionally a photographer, donated a digitalized assortment of 20,000 of his father’s pictures to the Amami Museum and native communities. We should protect the landscapes, customs, and folks that Haga so vividly captured. Passing on the legacy of this invaluable assortment will little doubt function a information to the longer term for the islands’ descendants.

Shodonshibaya, a neighborhood type of kyōgen comedian drama on Kakeromajima. (© Haga Hideo)

Shodonshibaya, folks leisure stated to have began some 800 years in the past, is carried out on the Ōchon Shrine competition on the ninth day of the ninth month in line with the previous lunisolar calendar. (© Hamada Futoshi)

Seventy years in the past, there have been no vehicles on Kikaijima, and residents bought round on horses. (© Haga Hideo)

Kikaijima at this time; a paved highway cuts by means of sugarcane fields. White sesame cultivation was promoted after the battle, and the island now accounts for 40% of home manufacturing. (© Hamada Futoshi)

The hamaori competition at Inokawa on Tokunoshima is a ritual to thank ancestors for the harvest. In the seventh month in line with the lunisolar calendar, individuals partake of food and drinks on the shore earlier than going across the district performing the Natsume Odori dance all night time lengthy. (© Haga Hideo)

While rice farming has virtually died out on Tokunoshima, hamaori and the Natsume Odori proceed to strengthen group bonds. (© Hamada Futoshi)

Left: Farm ladies weaving tsumugi silk pongee on looms at dwelling in Kasari, Amami. Ōshima tsumugi silk material has been produced for 1,300 years. As it grew in recognition within the Seventies, it started to be produced abroad, however these days, manufacturing has fallen to one-seventieth of former ranges. Right: a farmwoman spins banana fibers into thread for bashōfu conventional handicrafts in Wadomari. (© Haga Hideo)

Bashōfu artisan Hasegawa Chiyoko (1939–) realized manufacturing strategies, which had died out on Okinoerabujima, from Okinawa resident Taira Toshiko (1921–2022), a dwelling nationwide treasure. (© Hamada Futoshi)

On Okinoerabujima, an island composed of limestone, pure springs are an important water useful resource. (© Haga Hideo)

Jokkyonuhō within the city of China is a communal recreation spot the place water nonetheless bubbles up. (© Hamada Futoshi)

Scenes from Yoron, which earlier than Amami’s reversion to Japanese authority was the southernmost island within the nation. (© Haga Hideo)

Chabana Kaigan on Yoron. The coral reef shore has been developed as a ship harbor. (© Hamada Futoshi)

Yoron Folk Village, a privately operated museum, opened in 1966, when mass-produced items have been overwhelming Amami and threatening on a regular basis tradition on the islands. The facility goals to speak the previous methods of life to future generations by means of reveals and the sale of people gadgets and hands-on workshops for making articles utilized in day by day life. (© Hamada Futoshi)

The black-and-white images on this article have been taken by Haga Hideo between 1955 and 1957.

(Originally written in Japanese. Text and images by Hamada Futoshi. Banner photograph: At left, a gathering on the shore on Okinoerabujima in 1955, captured by Haga Hideo, who lamented the passing of this custom [© Haga Hideo]; at proper: Tokunoshima’s hamaori, which preserves some parts of the gathering [© Hamada Futoshi].)