Jofuku’s Gift to the Immortals of Okinawa
This story fascinates me. It is told by Dr. Masaaki Kimura in one of his books (Okinawa Kaitei Iseki no Nazo, from Daisan Bunmeisha, 2000, in Japanese).
Jofuku is an envoy sent from China to find the secret of immortality, believed to be practiced by an island nation. He sets out with many ships and several hundred passengers, eventually arriving at an island very much like Okinawa. There he is received by the Goddess who rules the land. He gives her the presents he has prepared and asks about immortality.
She assures him that they do, indeed, imbibe a plant that encourages longevity. However, she refuses to give it to him. Why? Because the gifts he has brought are grand, but in no way equal to the prize of immortality. Nothing is more precious than life. If Jofuku gives her people something on the same scale of value, then she will gladly share their secret of immortality.
So, Jofuku goes back to China to find a suitable gift. Something on the same scale of value as life itself, something without which life might very well be impossible… What could it be?
Think about it. In the West, bread is the staff of life. But in the East, people live on rice. Thus Jofuku of China is credited with introducing rice plants and rice culture to Okinawa.
His gift was rice, but what did the Goddess give him? That is a very good question. I thought it might be a kind of citrus fruit such as tankan or shiquasa, but Dr. Kimura has a better suggestion. China already had fruit. What is special about his favorite Okinawan island, Yonaguni, is a wild plant called yomogi.
Yomogi is usually translated as mugwort, but I think it’s a little different from English mugwort. The herb that was traditionally used to flavor mugs of ale in Ye Olde England stands tall and stiff, but the mugwort that grows on Yonaguni is a tender green plant that tends to hug the ground. It is used to flavor food and is a popular additive to tea. Even today, tea containing Yonaguni yomogi is called Long Life Tea.
2007年10月31日水曜日
2007年9月28日金曜日
The Real Yonaguni
A few scenes from my novel, Katsuren, are set on the island of Yonaguni. Yonaguni is part of Okinawa Prefecture, an island in the Ryukyu island chain, and the westernmost point in Japan. It has several other claims to fame.
For starters, there are the wild horses indigenous to Yonaguni. They are tiny. One theory is that their small size is ecology in action. There isn’t a lot for them to eat, and there’s no reason why they have to be big in order to survive.
Next, Yonaguni does not have poisonous snakes, as do the rest of the Okinawa islands. The lack of deadly habu is, as far as I am concerned, a charm point for Yonaguni. The other thing Yonaguni does not have is pretty lagoons such as the one I called Sanzan Beach in my Katsuren novel.
These are three reasons to believe that Yonaguni’s geological history is also different from the rest of Okinawa’s. The differences raise many questions. Did Yonaguni become an island during a different time period, when sea temperature did not favor the formation of coral reefs? Was it originally attached to another part of the world where poisonous snakes were not part of the environmental package? Did it once have habu and then drown them by submerging when the sea level changed?
For interesting speculations about Yonaguni’s past, be sure to check out the article on Yonaguni’s submerged ruins in National Geographic online. (link in previous entry)
For starters, there are the wild horses indigenous to Yonaguni. They are tiny. One theory is that their small size is ecology in action. There isn’t a lot for them to eat, and there’s no reason why they have to be big in order to survive.
Next, Yonaguni does not have poisonous snakes, as do the rest of the Okinawa islands. The lack of deadly habu is, as far as I am concerned, a charm point for Yonaguni. The other thing Yonaguni does not have is pretty lagoons such as the one I called Sanzan Beach in my Katsuren novel.
These are three reasons to believe that Yonaguni’s geological history is also different from the rest of Okinawa’s. The differences raise many questions. Did Yonaguni become an island during a different time period, when sea temperature did not favor the formation of coral reefs? Was it originally attached to another part of the world where poisonous snakes were not part of the environmental package? Did it once have habu and then drown them by submerging when the sea level changed?
For interesting speculations about Yonaguni’s past, be sure to check out the article on Yonaguni’s submerged ruins in National Geographic online. (link in previous entry)
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