Reading Okinawa

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
Sakiyama, Tami. “Island Confinement.” Trans. Kasumi Sminkey. Islands of Protest: Japanese Literature from Okinawa. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016. 113-60. (Excerpts below.)

KOHAMA SLIDESHOW (“KOHAMA BUSHI”): This is a beautiful slide show of pictures I took during my recent visits to Kohama Island in September and October 2010. The background music is Kohama-bushi, which is discussed in “Island Confinement.” The captions provide the lyrics, along with a translation into standard Japanese done by my dear wife, Yoko, who is from Yaeyama:

Click Here: Kohama Slideshow

1. Introduction

“Shimagomoru” [Island Confinement] was Sakiyami’s second story to be nominated for the Akutagawa Prize, after “Suijō ōkan,” which was nominated the previous year. Both stories reappeared in Kurikaeshigaeshi (1994), a collection of three stories, including the novella, “Kurikaeshigaeshi.” “Shimagomoru” tells the story of a thirty-one-year-old Okinawan woman named Takako, who returns to a remote island to visit Toki, the dying mother of the man to whom Takako had been briefly engaged eight years earlier. Through the portrayals of these two women and their attitudes towards the small, unnamed island, Sakiyama explores the significance of the island unit in shaping the identities of Okinawans and long-term residents of Okinawa.


2. Character List

Takako 高子

The narrator and protagonist of the story. Takako grew up on O. Island, the large island next to the unnamed island where the story takes place. Still unmarried at thirty-one, Takako feels isolated and alone on the Okinawa mainland. After quitting her job, she calls Toki, the mother of her former boyfriend, and asks if she can visit Toki on the remote island. Takako has not seen Toki since breaking off her engagement to Hideo and leaving the island eight years ago. Takako still feels remorse for having left Hideo and abandoned the island.

Ōmichi Toki 大道トキ

The older woman that Takako visits on the (unnamed) island. When she was thirteen, Toki was evacuated to Miyazaki, where she fell in love with Yūchiki Ōmichi. She lost her entire family in the bombing of Nagasaki. After the war, Yūkichi returned to his island in the south, but the two continued to write to each other. When correspondence from him suddenly and unaccountably cut off, Toki visited the island and discovered that Yūkichi had died of consumption. Since Toki had no family to return to, the Ōmichi family invited her to stay with them. She ended up marrying Hidekichi. She has been living on the island since then. Although an outsider, Toki teaches the important Kitsugan Festival dance to the other women from the island, many of whom only return for important festivals. Her death implies the loss of the ritual dance and a major decline in the fortunes of the island community.

Ōmichi Hideo 大道英男

Hideo is Takako’s former boyfriend. After Takako broke off their relationship, he married another woman and left the island.

Ōmichi Hidekichi 大道英吉

Toki’s taciturn husband, who died from a stroke about four and half years ago, six months after his mother’s death.

Ōmichi Yūkichi 大道勇吉

The boy who Toki met and fell in love with during the war and who later died of consumption. In a letter written just before his death, Yūkichi told Toki that he had a vision of her dancing to his singing of the Ininuri Bushi.

Morio モリオ

Toki’s unmarried, thirty-four-year-old nephew. Morio picks up Toki as she is walking from the pier at the beginning of the story. Later, he drives her to Mt. Ufudaki and tells her that Toki has been drinking. Near the end of the story, he reappears with his parents, who rush over to see Toki after (presumably) hearing from Hideo about Toki’s condition.

Morio’s mother モリオの母

Morio’s mother criticizes Takako for getting involved in the family’s affairs, even though she is an outsider.


3. Plot

In the first section (180-1), Takako is walking along the road heading into the interior of the island, after just having disembarked from the afternoon ferry. Readers are told that depopulation has been a major problem for the island.

The second section (181-3) is a flashback to a few days earlier: Feeling isolated in her community and alienated at work, Takako has quit her job at the city’s folk materials reference room, where she has been working for eight years. She decides to call Toki Ōmichi, whom she has not met since “an unceremonious farewell” eight years ago. Toki is unaccountably moved to tears upon hearing from Takako.

The third section (183-9) is a flashback to ten years ago when Takako first went to the island with Hideo, her boyfriend, and met Hideo’s parents, Toki and Hidekichi. Takako had met Hideo while she was studying at the University of the Ryukus. During the trip, Takako researched the place names of various geographical formations. Readers are told that Takako avoided researching O. Island, the island where she grew up. In another flashback within the section, Takako describes her unpleasant childhood experience of dealing with her crazy grandmother, who began yelling that “the gods haven’t come yet” during an island festival.

The Kitsugan Festival on Kohama

The fourth section (190-4) returns to the present: Takako has been walking for an hour and begins to regret not having boarded the bus. Just then, a blue van comes flying towards her, and the driver tells her that Toki has sent him to pick her up. During the drive to Toki’s house, the man asks Takako why she broke up with Hideo and left the island. From their conversation, Takako learns that Toki’s husband Hidekichi and Hikekichi’s mother have both died, and that Toki is living on her own. Takako also learns that Toki is lonely and has been wasting away. Shortly after expressing his displeasure at Takako for not knowing any of this, he drops her off at Toki’s house.

Traditional house on Kohama

The fifth section (194-7) remains in the present and describes Takako’s first meeting with Toki after leaving the island eight years ago. As Takako stands in the entranceway, Toki returns with groceries and expresses her joy at seeing Takako. Takako is shocked at how thin Toki has become. Toki explains that the man who picked her up is Morio, Hideo’s cousin. The two sit on the veranda, and Takako explains that she didn’t know about the deaths of Toki’s husband and mother-in-law. Toki suggests that the two of them have a drinking party together later.

The sixth section (197-201) is comprised of two flashbacks that describe Takako’s first meeting and final separation with Hideo. Takako first met Hideo during her junior year in college, when they were living in separate rooms of the same house. Takako felt drawn to Hideo after overhearing him playing his sanshin and singing. A year or so later, they became engaged and spent some time together on the island. One evening, Takako ran off when the family was rehearsing for an upcoming festival. When Hideo found her, Takako pushed him away and yelled, “I can’t do it! It’s impossible! I can never get married here!” She left the island that very day.

The memorial on the top of Mt. Ufudaki

The seventh section (201-8) returns to the present, where it stays until the end of the story. Takako watches Toki as she moves around in the kitchen and wonders why Toki has deteriorated so rapidly. Toki calls Morio and asks him to show Takako the new island resort. Takako, however, asks him to take her to Mr. Ufudaki. They climb the ninety-nine meter high mountain, which has a “one-hundred meter memorial at the summit. As they gaze at the panoramic view, they discuss Toki’s decline. Morio explains that Toki has been drinking since finding out that Hideo will not return to the island. Takako feels uncomfortable and decides to hurry home to Toki’s home. This annoys Morio.

Looking down at the village from Mt. Ufudaki

The eighth section (208-13) provides information about Toki’s past, some through the women’s conversation, some through Takako’s memory of their previous discussions. Takako recalls that when Toki was thirteen, she was evacuated to Miyazaki from her hometown in Nagasaki, where she met Yūkichi, a boy from a southern island. The two fell in love and made a promise to live together when they are older. Toki lost her family when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. After the war, the two continued to correspond, but suddenly Yūkichi stopped writing. Toki went to the island to find out why, and discovered that Yūkichi had died of consumption, which he contracted during the war. Knowing that she had no family, the Ōmichi family asked Toki to stay. She ended up marrying Hidekichi, Yūkichi’s older brother. In their current conversation, Toki tells Takako about the letter she received from Yūkichi just before he died. In the letter, Yūkichi wrote that he had had a vision of Toki dancing as he sang the Ininuri Bushi. Takako is shocked to notice that Toki is obviously still in love with him.

In the ninth section (213-5), Takako wakes up in the middle of the night to a terrifying “black presence” weighing down on her. She peeks through the fusuma sliding doors and sees Toki gulping down large quantities of awamori, a strong Okinawan liquor.

In the tenth section (215-9), Takako wakes up in the late morning and finds Toki sweeping in the front yard. Disoriented, Toki jumps down from the veranda and sprains her ankle. As Takako rests, Toki prepares for the upcoming Kitsugan Festival by airing out the colorful dance costumes.

Kitsugan Festival on Kohama Island

The eleventh section (219-34), the longest section of the story, describes the ritual dance that Toki teaches to Takako, whose ankle now feels much better. As Toki is folding up the costumes, she has an attack of pain and asks Takako to get her the bottle of liquor. Takako now realizes that Toki is using alcohol to cope with the pain of her illness. While Toki is recovering in the next room, Takako admires the costumes and tries one on. Just then, Toki appears and compliments her. Toki then convinces Takako to make a deal: Takako will learn the Kitsugan Festival dance, and Toki will receive medical treatment for her illness. Toki brings out a tape, and they practice the dance again and again. After a grueling session, Takako finally learns to perform the dance on her own. After the practice, Takako has a strange vision in which she senses “a subtle force shuttling back and forth” between her and Toki. Completed exhausted, Toki collapses in Takako’s arms.

Kitsugan Festival on Kohama Island

In the twelfth section (234-8), the two women discuss Toki’s illness and life on the island. Takako says that they should contact Hideo, and Toki explains that she is going to die within half a year, but that she will do as Takako asks. Toki mentions that even though she participates in the rituals every year, she still feels like an outsider.

In the thirteenth section (238-42), Takako calls Hideo late at night and explains the situation. Hideo is surprised that Takako is there but asks her to look after his mother until he arrives. Takako happily agrees. Towards that end of the conversation, Hideo says that Takako is a lot like his mother.

In the fourteenth section (242-5), Takako receives a phone call from Hideo. He tells her that he will be arriving with a doctor that evening. Takako gives Toki a bath and notices how her body has deteriorated. As Takako is leaving the house to do some shopping, Morio’s parents confront her and ask about Toki’s condition. When Takako asks them not to disturb Toki until Hideo arrives, Morio’s mother scolds Takako for butting into the family’s business. Morio stays with Takako when his parents go into Toki’s house, but she turns her back on him and walks off.

The heliport on Kohama

In the fifteen section (245-8), Takako goes to the eastern cape and stares at O. Island. As she reflects on the past, she realizes that she cannot sever her strong ties to O. Island. Just then, a helicopter appears overhead, and Takako realizes that her assumption that Hideo would arrive by boat was mistaken. Flustered, she hurries back to the house.

In the final section (248-50), Takako arrives at the house, where a group of villagers have gathered. Hideo carries Toki to a large car in front of the house. Before they head off, Toki calls Takako over and gets her to promise to take her place in the Kitsugan Festival. Apparently, Toki has also gotten the other villagers to agree to this. After the helicopter flies off and everyone leaves, Takako heads back to the house. As she passes through the gate, she sees the dance costumes swinging “like a row of dancers in the wings waiting to go on stage.”

The sudina and kakan

4. Setting

The setting of the story, though never stated explicitly, is obviously Kohama Island, a small, depopulated island located about three kilometers to the west of Iriomote Island, the largest island in the Yaeyama archipelago. Sakiyama indicates the connection to Kohama Island through references to Mt. Ufudaki, the Kitsugan Festival, and the island’s geography. Ironically, Kohama is also one of the settings for NHK’s immensely popular television drama “Chura-san,” a sentimental portrayal of an island girl that contradicts Sakiyama’s darker message about the island and its people.

The sunset seen from Kohama

5. Point of View

Takako, the protagonist, tells the story in first person. At the beginning of the story, however, the point of view is not clear. The first two paragraphs are ostensibly a succinct description of the island’s main road and scenery from an objective point of view. Readers will soon realize that the perspective is that of Takako, who is walking along the road after disembarking from the ferry. However, since Takako has not yet been mentioned, the point of view remains undisclosed, as if to remind the reader that the island supersedes any human perspective.


6. Themes

The Island and Identity

Takako, the narrator and heroine of the story, represents an Okinawan who attempts to return to an island she has abandoned. As a thirty-one-year-old woman who grew up on a remote Okinawan island (cryptically referred to only as “O. Island” in the story, but which textual evidence suggests refers to Iriomote Island), Takako feels alienated from her neighbors and co-workers on the Okinawan mainland. However, she is unable to return to the island on which she was raised because her family has left the island due to its deteriorating economic situation. After quitting her job at a folk material reference room, Takako impulsively calls Toki, the mother of Ōmichi Hideo, to whom she had been engaged briefly eight years earlier. Takako had spent some time living with Hideo and his family on the remote island (never mentioned by name in the story, but evidently referring to Kohama Island), but broke off her engagement after feeling overwhelmed by a “sense of repudiation” for the island. “Shimagomoru” opens with Takako’s arrival on this island that she had earlier rejected.

Takako’s ambivalent attitude towards the islands seems to be based on her spatial—as opposed to temporal—orientation towards them. She feels attracted to the meaning, security, and elation that living on a remote island provides, yet she fears becoming physically trapped on (or confined to) them. As her name (written with the kanji for “high” and “child”) suggests, Takako responds to the islands on a physical level. She majored in geography in college, and for her graduation thesis, she researched the names of various geographic formations, such as reefs and precipices. Similarly, she enjoyed exploring the terrain of the island, and seems to turn to the island for refuge when she is upset. Shortly after she arrives on the island, she climbs the highest mountain, and whenever she wants to think or reflect on life, she heads out into the wilderness. Several times in the story, she imagines being lifted high up into the air by the islands, only to return to earth feeling disillusioned and confused. In this way, Takako’s name also suggests the image of a “child being lifted high” and implies that she has not yet come to terms with the elation that the islands engender in her. Another interesting meaning is suggested by Eliade’s argument that the “symbolic Center,” which plays an important role in ritual, has often been identified with sacred mountains or other high places.

Toki, on the other hand, represents an outsider who has struggled to become part of the island community she has joined. After losing her family in the bombing of Nagasaki at the end of World War II, Toki came to the island to meet Ōmichi Yûkichi, with whom she had had an innocent adolescent love affair in Miyazaki, a prefecture to which children had been evacuated during the war. Upon arriving on the island, Toki discovered that Yûkichi was dead, but since she had no home to return to, the Ōmichi family invited her to stay with them. Later, Toki married Hidekichi, Yûkichi’s older brother. For the next forty years, Toki conscientiously followed the customs of the island and fulfilled her duties as the wife in the household of the village’s niiya (or highest-ranking family). In spite of those efforts, however, Toki still does not feel that she has become a part of the island. Late in the story, she confides to Takako: “Even after living here for forty years, I just can’t feel that I’m part of the island. Deep down, I haven’t been able to believe in the island’s rituals and festivals” (238). As these words suggest, Toki blames her own lack of faith for not having become one with the island. Her willful persistence in speaking standard Japanese and refusal to confide in and rely on others also seem to be barriers to her being accepted by the islanders.

In contrast to Takako, whose relationship to the island seems focused on the spatial plane, Toki seems to interact with the island on the temporal plane. Significantly, Toki’s name, though written in katakana, means “time,” and indeed, she seems symbolic of a “foreign” view of time (or to use Eliade’s terminology, an “archaic” view of time), which is to say, she has a cyclical rather than a linear view of time. Her relationship with the island seems based on this view of time. She waits for people to visit, conscientiously repeats the island’s rituals, punctually prepares for festivals, calmly accepts the deaths of her husband and mother-in-law, acquiesces to her own impeding death, and confines herself to her home. Indeed, over the past forty years on the island, Toki’s life has been one of endless repetition and ritual. Perhaps most significantly, Toki’s strongest emotional tie to the island has been her unconsummated love of Yûkichi, who wrote to Toki just before his death that he had a vision of her dancing to his song. After hearing Toki’s story of her childhood love, Takako recognizes that that timeless love has a powerful hold on her: “Could it be that her obsession with this vision of herself, seen by Yûkichi before his death, was what had tied her to the island all these years?” (211) In a sense, Toki has been reenacting and recreating her love for Yûkichi through her performance of the ritual dance.

Ritual and Mircea Eliade’s The Myth of the Eternal Return

Before considering the role of ritual in “Shimagomoru,” let me briefly summarize some of the arguments of Mircea Eliade, a Romanian scholar who wrote extensively about archaic and primitive religions. An understanding of Eliade will provide invaluable insights into “Shimagomoru” and Sakiyama’s other early work, especially “Kurikaeshigaeshi,” a story in which Eliade’s work becomes an overt element of the story. Clearly, Sakiyama’s understanding of ritual has been shaped by Eliade’s concepts of “sacred” and “profane” time, and his arguments concerning the role of ritual in the lives of archaic human beings.

In The Myth of the Eternal Return, which was first published in English in 1954, Eliade argues that archaic man viewed reality as a function of the repetition of archetypes, so that any actions that failed to participate in such “sacred” repetitions were considered devoid of meaning, or in Eliade’s terminology, “profane.” In other words, only ritual and other actions that imitated—and therefore recreated—mythic models were considered real, while all discrete or original actions were considered meaningless. Eliade points out that viewed from the modernist perspective, which emphasizes individuality and freedom of expression, the archaic perspective appears paradoxical, in that “the man of a traditional culture sees himself as real only to the extent that he ceases to be himself (for a modern observer) and is satisfied with imitating and repeating the gestures of another” (34). Viewed from the archaic perspective, however, the modern historical perspective appears threatening and intolerable, in that it drives human beings to despair in the face of what Eliade refers to as the “terror of history.”

Three concepts introduced by Eliade that play an especially important role in Sakiyama’s work are the “symbolism of the Center,” the “repetition of the cosmogony,” and the “divine models of rituals.” The first of these refers to archaic man’s belief in the prestige of the Center, which is seen as the place where all creation takes place. Since most rituals were viewed as reenactments of the original Creation, archaic man imbued mountains, cities, and various sacred locations with the symbolism of the Center (12-7). The “repetition of the cosmogony” refers to the belief that all creation is a repetition of the Creation of the world, and that these new creations must therefore also take place at the Center (17-21). The final concept, the “divine models of rituals,” posits that all rituals are viewed as repetitions of actions that were originally performed by gods, heroes, or ancestors. Through ritual, the original archetypes are both commemorated and reactualized (21-7).

Eliade points out that ritual is always preceded by the consecration of a location (whereby a specific space is turned into a symbolic Center) and of time (whereby linear, concrete time is turned into mythical time). The three concepts discussed above, then, all come into play through this consecration of space and time:

Thus the reality and the enduringness of a construction are assured not only by the transformation of profane space into a transcendent space (the center) but also by the transformation of concrete time into mythical time. Any ritual whatever, as we shall see later, unfolds not only in a consecrated space (i.e., one different in essence from profane space) but also in a “sacred time,” “once upon a time” (in illo tempore, ab origine), that is, when the ritual was performed for the first time by a god, an ancestor, or a hero. (20-1).

All dances were originally sacred; in other words, they had an extrahuman model. . . whose motions were reproduced to conjure up its concrete presence through magic. . . . In other cases the model may have been revealed by a divinity. . . or by a hero. The dance may be executed to acquire food, to honor the dead, or to assure good order in the cosmos. . . . A dance always imitates an archetypal gesture or commemorates a mythical moment. In a word, it is a repetition, and consequently a reactualization, of illud tempus, “those days.” (28-29)

7. Criticism

Okamoto Keitoku, in the appendix to Kurikaeshigaeshi, points out that the word “island” (written in katakana, the syllabary most often used for transcribing foreign words) signifies for Okinawans not only the island itself but also the island community, forged through family and communal ties, and possessing a unique culture, including legends, rituals, and distinct dialects. Understood in this broader sense, the “island” has played a significant role in shaping the identities of most Okinawan people. But as more and more people have abandoned the remote islands and villages to move to cities (both on the Japanese and the Okinawan main islands), the influence of the “island” in shaping identity has waned—especially for the younger generation (Okamoto 2-5). However, Sakiyama’s story, “Shimagomoru,” focuses on a middle-aged woman whose generation is caught between the older generation that fervently believes in the old rituals and the younger generation that looks upon those rituals with cynicism.


8. Symbolism / Imagery

Disorienting descriptions

Sakiyama often uses the technique of disorienting readers with bewildering descriptions—which only later acquire symbolic or thematic meanings. For instance, one scene describes how Takako wakes up in terror to a “black presence” and “four enormous eyeballs” (213), which later turn out to be the eyes of “the memorial photographs of Hidekichi and his mother” (214). In another scene, readers are given a description of Toki “floating on the floor and spinning around in circles” (232), only to discover that Takako has imagined the incident (233). Similarly, descriptions of Takako being lifted up into the air, merging with Toki, and falling into time warps are all likely to confuse readers initially. The technique seems to have two primary functions: to draw readers into Takako’s experience and to mimic the disorienting, euphoric experience of ritual.

The Dance

In Eliade’s terms, the dance is a symbolic reenactment of the island’s creation. As described in the story, the dance is divided into three sections: the presentation of the island, a depiction of the rice crop viewed from the top of Mt. Ufudaki, and the celebration of the harvest, which is “likened to a young woman who has come of age” (230). For Toki, however, the dance seems to have become a reenactment of her love for Yūkichi. Toki’s strongest emotional tie to the island has been her unconsummated love of Yūkichi, who wrote to Toki just before his death that he had a vision of her dancing to his song. After hearing Toki’s story of her childhood love, Takako recognizes that that timeless love has a powerful hold on her: “Could it be that her obsession with this vision of herself, seen by Yūkichi before his death, was what had tied her to the island all these years?” (211) The dance also seems symbolic of Toki’s desperate attempt to transfer the spirit of the island to the next generation before she dies.


9. Excerpts from “Shimagomoru” [Island Confinement]

1

島の人口はひところより増えているのか、減っているのか。あのころからすでに過疎の状態はひどく、生活の不安が重く人々を支配していた。(180)

Had the island’s population increased or decreased from before? Back then, depopulation was already a serious problem, casting a cloud of uncertainty over people’s lives.

2

周りと自分との間にうっすらと膜が張り巡らされ、浮き上がりだした職場の位置に耐える気力はもうぎりぎりだったのだ。(181)

A thin veil seemed to separate me from others, and I barely had the energy to endure my alienated position at work.

3

そのころから村を離れ島を出る家は後を絶たず、残された家は行き場がないか、村の由来にまつわる血筋のためそこに執着せざるを得ない家々であった。(187)

At the time, there seemed to be no end to the number of families leaving the island, and the only ones that remained either had no place to go, or were inextricably bound there by a lineage tracing back to the island’s beginnings.

4

波打際でヒャヒヤャヤャヤッと飛び跳ねる祖母に向かって、 「阿ッ婆、やめて、もう舟漕ぎは終ったよ。あっぱ、やめて……」 　そう呼びかけたが、私にも気付かぬふうに祖母の乱舞は止まなかった。私は祖母の周りをおろおろと歩き廻った。海のあらぬ方に向けられる祖母の、洞の入口のような目の色に自分が染まってしまうことを怖れながら、阿ッ婆、阿ッ婆、と呼びつづけた。 (188-9)

I stood in front of her as she chanted, “Hya hya hya hya,” and hopped up and down at the water’s edge.

“Grandma, stop it!” I yelled. “The dragon boat races are over! Stop it!”

In spite of my plea, she continued her wild dancing as if she hadn’t even noticed me. I scampered around her in a dither. Terrified that I’d be infected by her eyes, which, staring beyond the ocean, looked like the entrances to a cave, I kept calling, “Grandma! Grandma!”

5

人々は晴れの日に向かってお互いをけし掛け合い、せわしがり、昂揚してゆく。やがて、村が日常に戻る日、広場が一瞬のうちにしらじらとした時間に支配された。両手を何度まさぐっても何の手触りも起きない、底なしの空洞へ引きこまれた。そのしらじらしさを掻き消すように、海に向かって手を振りつづけた祖母の目を怖れた。人を切り刻む冷やかな時の残忍さを、私は憎んだ。(197-8)

Moving towards the auspicious day, the villagers spurred each other on, became frantic with excitement, and whipped themselves into a frenzy. When the village finally returned to its ordinary routine, a sense of emptiness descended over the entire community. No matter how much I groped the air with my hands, I could find nothing to latch on to, and ended up being sucked into a bottomless pit. I dreaded the look of my grandmother, who—in an attempt to scratch out the emptiness—continued to wave her hands at the sea. I detested the cold cruelty of time, which chopped people to pieces.

6

「捜したぞ」 　言いながら泡盛と汗の臭いの染みついた体を押しつけてきた。消えたはずの三味の響きがわーんと耳を襲う。そう感じた瞬間、激しいものが噴き上がった。英男に対するというものでもない、島のにおいそのものに対する堪えようのない拒絶感であった。 「止めて」 (200)

“I’ve been looking for you.”

His body, stinking of sweat and awamori, pressed towards me. The wailing sound of the sanshin, which I had thought was gone, assaulted my ears again. At the same moment, a powerfully intense feeling welled up inside me. It was an overwhelming sense of repudiation, directed not towards Hideo but towards the very smell of the island.

“Stop.”

7

「. . . そしてね、そのとき、勇吉さんの歌に合わせてイニノゥリ節を舞う私の幻を視た、というのよ」 　ふふと笑ったトキの頬がほのかに染まったのを、私は不思議なものを見るように見つめた。勇吉が死ぬ前に視たという自分の幻に縛られて、トキはこの島に住みつづけたというのか。(211)

“… And you know what else? He said he saw a vision of me dancing to his song.”

I was quite astonished to see her titter and a slight blush form on her cheek.

Could it be that her obsession with this vision of herself, seen by Yūkichi before his death, was what had tied her to the island all these years?

8

また三味や太鼓の音が毎晩鳴りはじめるのだ。この時期に島を訪れたのは偶然であったはずなのだが、皮肉な巡り合わせというものに立会わされている気がする。後めたさにトキの気ぜわしさが正視できなくなった。(218)

So once again, the sanshin and drums would be ringing out every night. My visiting at this time of year was a mere coincidence, but I felt I had been made to face all this again through some ironic twist of fate. My sense of guilt at having repudiated the island made it difficult for me to face Toki’s restless excitement.

9

敷き詰められた砂に反射する光が、庭を白く膨張させ、家ごと浮き上がらせるようだ。(219)

The light reflecting from the scattered sand caused the garden to expand into a white mass, so that the entire house seemed to float up to the surface.

10

トキの体は私が抱き上げて移動することができるほどに小さく軽い。従順な子どものようになすがままになる。昼間のトキとの関係が逆さになり、思いがけない役廻りに戸惑うほかはないが、それでもこの場はその役をこなすことに努めねばならなかった。(222)

Toki was so small and light that I could lift her up and carry her in my arms. She gave herself over like a submissive child. Our roles were now completely reversed from earlier in the day, and though I couldn’t help but be disconcerted at the unexpected change, I had to carry out my new duties.

11

時が渦になって巡りだす。引き戻された時間の中に私は立竦まざるをえなくなった。なぜかどんな感慨も起こってはこない。また同じ所に立っているのだ、という思いに縛られるだけだ。(228)

I felt caught in a time warp. As time circled back upon me, I could only stand transfixed. For some reason, I could feel no emotion. I was simply obsessed by the idea that I was standing where I had stood before.

12

「ほんとうに信じることはできないのに、私が毎年神事に携ってきたのは、それが島に住む人間の生活のかたちだからよ。ただ、それだけなのよ、高子さん」 (238)

“Even though I can’t bring myself to believe, I participate in the rituals every year because that’s what people living on the island do. I’m just keeping up appearances, Takako.”

13

これまで私が0島に渡る決心がつかなかったのは、どこかで0島を自分自身だと信じていたからではないのか。島言葉の靴り。波のうねり。潮の香。三味やドラや笛の音。灼けつく陽差し。果てなしの空。それらのせつなさとうっとうしさに自分の正体を嗅ぎとり、島の背後に祖母の暗い目を感じていたのだ。(247)

Perhaps my reluctance to head over to O. Island had been due to my unconscious belief that the island and I were one. The island dialect. The undulating waves. The salty smell of the ocean. The sounds of the sanshin, gong, and flute. The scorching sunlight. The limitless sky. I could sense my true identity lurking behind the oppressive gloom, and I could feel my grandmother’s hard gaze at the island’s back.

14

ゆっくり門を入った。家の戸が開け放たれたままだ。がらんどうの座敷と座敷の間に衣装が下っている。風に揺れる衣装は、本番を待って楽屋裏で列をつくる何人もの踊り子のようだ。(250)

I strolled through the front gate. The door of the house was wide open, and I could see the costumes hanging between the two empty rooms. Swinging in the wind, they looked like a row of dancers waiting in the wings before appearing on stage.


10. Works Cited

“Churasan.” NHK Renzoku Terebi Shōsetsu. Writ. Okada Yoshikazu. Perf. Kuninaka Ryōko, Taira Tomi, Gori, Sakai Masaaki, Tanaka Yoshiko. NHK. NHK Sōgō, Tokyo. 2 April 2001- 29 Sept. 2001.

Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971.

Hasegawa, Ikumi. “Yami no naka ni ukabu shima” [Island Floating in the Darkness]. Josetsu. Fukuoka: Hanashoin, 1997. 129-34.

Okamoto, Keitoku. “Shudai to shite no ‘shima’—Sakiyama Tami no sekai” [“Island” as a main theme: the world of Sakiyama Tami]. Appendix. Kurikaeshigaeshi [Repeated Repetition]. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1994.

Sakiyama, Tami. “Akōkurō Genshikō.” Subaru. Sept. 2006: 240-52.

---. “Kotōmu Duchuimuni.” Subaru. Sept. 2006: 84-96.

---. “Mienai Machi kara Shonkanē ga.” Subaru. May 2006: 130-44.

---. Muiani Yuraiki [The History of Muiani]. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1999.

---. “Shimagomoru” [Island Confinement]. Kurikaeshigaeshi [Over and Over]. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1994. 180-250.

---. “Shima o kaku to iu koto” [On Writing Islands]. Nantou Shoukei. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1996. 106-108.

---. Yuratiku Yuritiku. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 2003.

Sakiyama, Tami, Kurosawa Ariko, Kina Ikue, and Okamoto Yukiko. Round-table Discussion. “Okinawa—Disutopia no Bungaku” [Okinawa: Dystopian Literature]. Subaru. Feb. 2007: 172-191.

Sminkey, Paul. “Sakiyama Tami’s Dance with the Reader in ‘Shimagomoru’: The Fusion of Space and Time through Ritual.” Okinawa International University Journal of Foreign Languages 11.1 (2008): 55-73.

Taira, Koji. “Troubled national identity: the Ryukyuans/Okinawans.” Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity. Ed. Michael Weiner. New York: Routledge, 1997. 140-177.

Report by Kasumi Sminkey. All photos taken by Kasumi Sminkey.