Reading Okinawa

JAPANESE TEXT:
 

Matayoshi, Eiki. Jinkotsu tenjikan [Human Bone Museum]. Tokyo: Bungeishunjū, 2002. Print.

Click here to get Japanese-English flashcards for Jinkotsu tenjikan. Strongly recommended for anyone who wants to read the story in Japanese.

1. Introduction

 
Jinkotsu tenjikan was published in 2002 by Bungeishunjū. The novel tells the story of Meitetsu, a young man who helps excavate the bones of a woman who died in the twelfth century. Meitetsu gets involved with two women who argue about their theories concerning the discovered bones. At the end of the story, Meitetsu builds a museum for the bones with one of the women but ends up getting cheated out of his money. The novel is based on the actual discovery of a skeleton under a castle wall in Urasoe. The novel’s themes are love and deceit, the interpretation of history, and Okinawan traditions.  
 
 

2. Character List

Meitetsu Furugen  古堅 明哲

 
Meitetsu is the 28-year-old protagonist of the story. Formerly a cram school teacher, he gets a job at a reference room after calling about an article he read about an archeological discovery of some bones. For some time, he lived in Naha City with his mother. At that time, a colleague from mainland Japan cheated him out of a lot of money.

 
Kotono Kaifu  海部 琴乃

 
Kotono is a 28-year-old woman who works in the reference room. She is the one who excavated the human bones and is in charge of the site. She graduated from S High School and Okinawa International University, where she belonged to the archeology club. Her theory is that the bones are those of a daughter of a Japanese pirate.

Masanobu Miyagi  宮城 将信

 
Masanobu is Sayoko’s stubborn father. He owns the Miyagi Guest house and claims that the bones belong to his relatives.

 
Sayoko Miyagi  宮城 小夜子

 
Sayoko is Masanobu’s attractive daughter who graduated from S High School. She also claims that the bones belong to her relatives, an opinion that conflicts with Kotono’s theory. Sayoko convinces Meitetsu to build a museum with her. Her ex-husband is an actor.

 
Part-time workers　アルバイトの女たち

 
Two women work as part-time workers at the excavation site. One woman is skinny, and the other is fat. The two women often chat comically.

 
 
3. Plot Summary

Chapter 1: Human Bones in an Old Classroom (7-21)

 
Meitetsu Furugen is in his apartment in Naha and sees an article about bones discovered in G village. He calls the village office and then goes to G Elementary School, where he meets Kotono Kaifu, the woman in charge of the excavation. Meitetsu finds out about the bones and gets hired as a part-time worker. Back at home, he has a dream about the body of the woman whose bones were discovered.

Chapter 2: A Swindler (22-31)

 
This chapter is a flashback to several years earlier. Meitetsu and his mother, Kanako, wait for a man who cheated Meitetsu. The man never shows up and never answers Meitetsu’s phone calls. Meitetsu discovers that the man has submitted his resignation and has gone missing. In February 2000, Kanako passes away, and Meitetsu receives insurance money of about 30 million yen.
  

Chapter 3: The First Year of a Memorial Service (32-45)

 
On July 3, Meitetsu goes to G Village Elementary School to participate in the memorial service for the excavated body. After the ceremony, the group goes to the site and says some prayers. Masanobu brings lunch for everyone and invites Meitetsu to the guest house.
 

Chapter 4: Precincts of the Tomb (46-54)

 
Meitetsu sketches excavated earthenware with the two part-time female workers. After work, he reads articles about the bones. In the next room, Kotono is writing a journal. Meitetsu gets excited while talking with her and gives her a kiss, but Kotono turns him down. On the way home, Meitetsu comes across Kotono in her car, and they end up having sex in a nearby tomb.

 
Chapter 5: A Japanese Pirate’s Descendant (55-82)

 
The next day, Meitetsu chats with the two part-time workers. At noon, Sayoko brings them lunch, and Meitetsu chats with her. Later, Masanobu, Sayoko, and Meitetsu go out for a drink together and talk about the bones and their ancestors.

 
Chapter 6: The Yellow Guest House (83-95)

 
While drinking, Masanobu falls asleep. Sayoko claims that the bones are those of a goddess, and Meitetsu thinks she is creepy but imaginative. She mentions that her ex-husband was an actor and that they had a child together.
 
Chapter 7: A Noro’s Descendant (96-101)
 
Masanobu, supposed to be sleeping upstairs, suddenly appears with a sanshin and starts singing a song. Meitetsu wants to be alone with Sayoko, so when Masanobu goes to the bathroom, he asks Sayoko to step outside. After some conversation, they go back inside.

 
Chapter 8: Cape Goddess (102-12)

 
Meitetsu decides to spend the night. Late at night, he tries to embrace Sayoko, but she turns him down. Shocked, Meitetsu leaves and ends up getting lost. Sayoko runs up to him, and they have sex outside. Sayoko complains about Kotono and asks Meitetsu to help her with her plan to build a museum for the bones at the guest house.

 
Chapter 9-10: The Posterity of a Noro (a high priestess in Okinawa) (113-28)

 
Meitetsu tells Kotono that he wants to quit even though it’s only his third day. Later, he promises Sayoko to provide his mother’s life insurance money to renovate the guest house. Meitetsu goes to the excavation site to resign, but Kotono has left work early, which is unusual for her.
 

Chapter 11: A Ceremony for Two People Going into Battle (139-52)

 
Even though the museum isn’t completed, Meitetsu and Sayoko have a private ceremony. They put up a notice that the museum will open on August 17. They go to G Village Elementary School and Junior High School to advertise the museum, but their plan doesn’t go well. Some villagers bring folk materials, and a man tries to sell some excavated dishes. Kotono warns Meitetsu, but he doesn’t listen.

 
Chapter 12: The Actor Appears (153-166)
 
The actor, Sayoko’s former husband, comes to their house and meets with Meitetsu. They go to the beach and talk about Sayoko, the actor’s past, and the play he wants to show at the Human Bone Museum.
 
Chapter 13: A Strange Visitor (167-188)

 
On August 17, the Human Bone Museum finally opens. The next day, an older woman comes and asks to worship the Kannon Buddha, and a representative of the Association of Peace comes and suggests that they change the museum’s atmosphere. Another woman from the Association argues that the bones belong to an American woman.

 
Chapter 14: A Green Stone Axe (189-198)

 
Masanobu receives a threatening letter about restoring a statue, and his condition gets worse from the stress. Kotono summons Meitetsu, argues about the human bones, and gives him a stone axe with a hug. Kotono sees Meitetsu having sex with Sayoko and gets jealous.

 
Chapter 15: On the Stage of Being Resuscitated from Death (199-215)

 
Masanobu gets hospitalized. Sayoko and Meitetsu start fundraising, but their efforts fail. They decide to lend money to the actor to get the business back on track. They go to the bank, withdraw money, and head home. Unexpectedly, Sayoko runs off with Meitetsu’s money, saying she is going to the hospital to visit her father.
 

Chapter 16: A Transparent Restored Statue (216-229)

Meitetsu gets a call from Masanobu, who is in the hospital. Meitetsu asks him when Sayoko will return and then goes to see Kotono even though she has already said goodbye to him. Later, Meitetsu gets a call from Sayoko, telling him that she will never return. 

 
Commentary

 
At first, the story’s central conflict focuses on explaining the identity of the excavated bones. However, this triggers a conflict between Kotono, the woman in charge of the excavation team, and Sayoko, one of the villagers. Based on science, Kotono argues that the bones belong to Japanese pirates. Sayoko, on the other hand, uses Okinawan rumors and folk beliefs to claim that the bones belong to her ancestors. Although this conflict is never resolved, Sayoko is revealed to be a swindler who uses the excavation to make a profit.
        
Another conflict in the novel is the battle between Sayoko and Kotono. Both of them like Meitetsu, and they both have sex with him. The three went to the same high school, where Kotono had a crush on Meitetsu but Meitetsu liked Sayoko. Meitetsu has sex with Kotono first, but he has sex with Sayoko the next day and eventually chooses her instead of Kotono.   
 
 

4. Setting

 
The main story takes place in G Village. The actual name of G Village is never stated directly, but the village is 60 kilometers north of Naha, which suggests that the location is Ginoza Village. However, Urasoe, where the bones were discovered at Urasoe Castle, is directly north of Naha. For this reason, the G might refer to “gusuku” (castle), and the setting might be Urasoe. During the Battle of Okinawa, Urasoe Castle was an important location because of its topography.
       

Ginoza Village Office

The story takes place in 1999. Early in the story, the narrator clearly states that the date is “the first Sunday of December, during the eleventh year of the Heisei era” (22), which means 1999. The excavation of the bones found in Urasoe, however, took place in 1983.
 
The reference room for the excavation is in the elementary school. Matayoshi might have used an elementary school as a setting to suggest that they are only beginning to understand the bones.


5. Point of View
 
The story is narrated in third person from Meitetsu’s point of view. In other words, the narration describes what Meitetsu is doing, thinking, and experiencing, but doesn’t describe what the other characters think. For this reason, readers don’t know which of the two women, Sayoko and Kotono, to trust.
        
 
6. Symbolism and Imagery
 
Human Bones
 


The most obvious symbol is the human bones. The title refers to bones, and the novel often discusses them. For example, when Meitetsu sees the bones for the first time early in the novel, they are described this way: “At night Meitetsu had a dream. The woman was dressed as a goddess, and boarded a ship heading to Tokyo…” (21). In the story, Meitetsu overlays Sayoko with the human bones. For example, after Meitetsu and Sayoko have sex, Meitetsu says: “Suddenly, for a moment, I felt a strange sensation like I had sex with the human bones, not Sayoko” (113).
 
G Village Elementary School

 
Ginoza Village Elementary School

The reference room for the excavation is located at G Village Elementary School. An elementary school is a place to learn, so this suggests that Matayoshi has a lot to learn, too.

Japanese Pirates

An 18th-century Chinese painting depicting a naval battle between wokou pirates and the Chinese. Public Domain photo.

A pirate is a person who commits illegal violence at sea or on the shores near the sea. Like a pirate, Sayoko tricks and robs Meitetsu and runs off with his money.        
 
 

7. Historical Background
 

Gusuku in Okinawa

 
Urasoe Castle ruins

According to Horidasareta RyūkyūOukoku no Gusuku oyobi Kanrenisangun Inishie no Nemurikaramezameta Sekai no Takara, gusuku, sometimes called suku, are castle ruins located at relatively high points in the Ryukyu Archipelago. Some have walls and stone wall enclosures, and some do not. Gusuku originated around the first half of the 13th century, with larger ones appearing around the 15th century. Some of these, such as Shuri Castle and Nakagusuku Castle, have been listed as World Heritage sites. Gusuku have many different histories and stories, and much remains to be uncovered. Excavations have been carried out for maintenance and development, and we have learned about the structure of the gusuku, its historical evolution, and the life inside. Single or multiple settlements near the gusuku were for vassals and ordinary residents supporting the daily life inside the gusuku.
 
 
The Actual Excavation
 
From 1982, the Urasoe City Board of Education conducted a full-scale excavation and research of the Urasoe Castle site, and various remains and artifacts were collected. Some ancient human bones were discovered behind a castle wall during the process. They were buried in a hole barely large enough to accommodate a person and covered with clay. The bones turned out to be those of a woman of about 20 years of age, 150 centimeters tall, with both arms and legs strongly bent until they were close to her torso. The seemingly unusual burial method drew attention to the possibility that they were hitobashira for the construction of the walls. Hitobashira is a type of human sacrifice. The custom was to bury the designated person underground or submerged in water while keeping him or her alive while praying to the gods that the large structure will not be destroyed by a disaster or enemy attack.

 
 
8. Criticism

 
Suzuki, Tomoyuki. “Hone o sagashite” Matayoshi Eiki ‘Jinkotsu tenjikan’ no monogatarikōzō to genjitsukankaku. Hōsei daigaku Tamaronshū henshū. Tokyo: Hōsei daigaku Tamaronshū henshū iinkai, 2019. 1-21.
 
According to Suzuki Tomoyuki, the work does not mention Urasoe, and the setting is moved to G Village, which is 60 kilometers north of Naha. However, the source of Matayoshi’s imagination lies in Urasoe Castle. The discovery of human bones and the desire to explain their origins parallels Meitetsu’s search for his identity. Significantly, the search for the meaning of the bones motivates the characters, including Meitetsu, to ac (6).
 
Suzuki points out that Matayoshi’s works often feature a character in a pathetic state of mind and lacking clarity of intent. However, the lack of independence reflects the character’s personality and the lack of critical awareness about the current state of affairs in Okinawa and among Okinawans. Suzuki thinks Okinawans should be more proactive but explains that Okinawa’s painful history has made Okinawans passive. Metaphorically speaking, Meitetsu is a bone-dry entity. He was cheated by a mainland cram school colleague and lost his apartment. This story’s motif is how an Okinawan man, rendered helpless by mainland deprivation, escapes from this situation. Jinkotsu tenjikan is the story of a boneless man’s search for his bones. In the novel, Meitetsu believes that by making the human bone museum a success, he can redeem his honor for his deception (10-1).
 
Comparing Jinkotsu tenjikan to Buta no mukui, Suzuki argues that the two stories have different sensibilities but share the motif of a boneless, deprived, and atrophied main character attempting to restore his vitality. In Buta no Mukui, Seikichi returns to his roots surrounded by supportive women and succeeds in finding and reconfiguring himself. In Jinkotsu tenjikan, on the other hand, the protagonist is betrayed by Sayako and cannot find the “cultural soil” powerful enough to recreate a meaningful identity. In this way, the somewhat kitschy description of the village suggests that the village does not have the power to support the story of Meitetsu’s rebirth. (15)
 
Suzuki claims that Sayako and Kotono had their own complex challenges, which made it difficult for them to move forward. The process of moving forward involved their encounters with Meitetsu, leading to their fight over a man and human bones. Suzuki argues that they both desire Meitetsu because he appears as a malleable blank slate, so to speak, with no position in the village order. From the women’s point of view, the human bones have the same malleable blankness as Meitetsu. At the end of the story, Meitetsu, left behind by Sayoko, sits in front of the statue in the human bone museum, which looks like a scene in which the man finally becomes one with the bones themselves after losing them. The statue is a fake, and the identity of the man and the bones remain clouded in mystery. However, there is no other way for Meitetsu to live than to continue to be haunted by the ghosts of the past.
 
 
9. Themes

Cheating and Defrauding People     
 
In Jikotsu tenjikan, Meitetsu, the story’s protagonist, gets cheated twice, first by a colleague and then by Sayoko, who uses the excavation to cheat Meitetsu out of money for a museum. Through these incidents, Matayoshi shows how history can be used to deceive people. In the first case, Meitetsu became a co-signer on a loan, but the colleague fell into arrears and disappeared. After that, he made an appointment to meet up with him at Meitetsu’s house, but of course he did not appear. The novel also shows how sex can be used to manipulate others, especially a lonely man. For example, Sayoko begs Meitetsu to open a human bone museum with her, and Meitetsu carelessly consents to use his mother’s insurance money to pursue the unrealistic project.

Interpretations of History
 
In the story, there are two different perspectives on the identity of the human bones, depending on how history is interpreted. Kotono, who works at the excavation site, says the human bones are of Yayoi descent from mainland Japan. Sayoko and her father Masanobu, on the other hand, claim that the bones belong to their ancestors based on their personal desires and beliefs. In other words, Kotono’s scientific interpretation clashes with Sayoko and Masanobu’s folkloric, imaginative interpretation.
 
Kotono sees the human bones as belonging to a woman who survived around the 12th century. She describes the person as being a “lanky, sportsman-type” who “bears no resemblance to a stocky Okinawan” (13). She hypothesizes that the bones belonged to a “Yayoi woman from the mainland” and that the first owner of the gusuku was of Yamato descent, perhaps the descendant of Japanese pirates. Kotono tries to avoid superstition and various assumptions and tries to determine the identity of the bones from an archaeological and scientific perspective.
 
Sayoko and Masanobu, on the other hand, claim that the bones are those of their ancestors. Sayoko tells Meitetsu a fantastical story about a goddess: “These are the bones of representatives of the Nigami, who lived in areas that came out of the ruins of the gusuku. This goddess fought against an enemy goddess in a war for a certain gusuku. She tried to discourage the enemy from fighting by shouting curses, but the battle was lost because she couldn’t overcome the power of the goddess. The gusuku was safe, but she was buried alive because her husband made her take responsibility. In exchange for burying her, her husband made the enemy guarantee the existence of the gusuku. That’s how it looks to me” (86).
 
Similarly, Masanobu claims he is a descendant of the gusuku: “My ancestors were so devoted to helping the king’s faction that they escaped to G village to regain its strength and return to Shuri after defeating the rebels. For this feat, my ancestors were entrusted with control of the region” (96). Significantly, Meitetsu asks him to show a chart of his family tree, but Masanobu doesn’t have any evidence, suggesting that his belief has no factual basis.
         
 

10. Discussion Questions
 
1. What do the human bones symbolize in the story?
 
2. What is Sayoko’s motivation for building a museum?
 
3. Why does Kotono dislike Okinawan people?
 
4. What is the conflict between Kotono and Sayoko?
 
5. Why did Meitetsu initially go to the reference room? Why did he want to get involved in
the project?
 
6. Why did Meitetsu quit the job at the excavation site?
 
7. Do you think the bones belong to Sayoko and Masanobu’s relative?
 
8. Which theory, Sayoko’s or Kotono’s, is more convincing?
 
9. Why did Kotono lie to Meitetsu and say she would marry her boss?

 
10. What does Matayoshi’s story teach us about the interpretation of history and the relevance of that interpretation to the current situation?
 
 
11. Works Cited
 
Bunkazai sābisu. “Horidasareta RyūkyūOukoku no Gusuku oyobi Kanrenisangun Inishie no Nemurikaramezameta Sekai no Takara” [Gusuku and Related Properties of the Ryukyu Kingdom: Treasures of the World Awakened from Ancient Slumber]. Okinawa: Bunkazai sābisu, 2010. Print.
 
Matayoshi, Eiki. “Budda no Koishi” [Buddha’s Pebble]. Tokyo: Kōrusakkusha, 2019. Print.
 
---. Buta no mukui [The Pig’s Retribution]. Tokyo: Bungeishunjū, 1996. Print.
 
---. Ginnemu yashiki [Ginnemu Mansion]. Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1981. Print.
 
---. Jinkotsu tenjikan [Human Bone Museum]. Tokyo: Bungeishunjū, 2002. Print.
 
---. Nami no ue no Maria [Maria in Naminoue]. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shinbungei, 1998. Print.
 
---. Parashūtohei no purezento [The Paratrooper’s Present]. Ōsaka: Kaifūsha, 1988. Print.
 
“Matayoshi Eiki.” Wikipedia. N.p., Web.5 May. 2020.  
 
Tomoyuki, Suzuki. “Hone o sagashite” [Looking for Bones]. Hōsei daigaku tamaron shū [Hōsei University Tamaron Collection]. Okinawa: Hōsei daigaku Tamaronshū henshū iinkai, 2019. 1-21. Print.
 

Hina Tomiyama at the excavation site in Urasoe.


Original report by Hina Tomihama. Edited and revised by Kasumi Sminkey.