Dancing the ufudehku in Okinawa

LAST MONTH, we had a post about a women-only festival in Saga called the Dotchan Matsuri, in which the ladies show they can be just as rough and ready when it comes to carrying mikoshi as a hair-legged boy. But that isn’t the only traditional ceremony in Japan in which participation is limited to women.

Another is the Ufudehku, held in Yaesu-cho, Okinawa, last month. Ufudehku is the name of a dance offered in honor of a local, non-Shinto female divinity. This year about 50 women ranging in age from their 20s to 90s performed the slow and solemn dance at three religious sites and on the streets of the town in a procession between those sites.

The ceremony itself dates from more than 250 years ago and was designated an intangible cultural property of the municipality in 1994. The women congregate at a local religious site with hand-held drums, rhythm sticks, and fans. They form two rows to travel to the three sites to pray for local prosperity, offering the stately dance at each one. The dance itself is said to be the original form of an old Okinawan dance for women.

In the past, the ceremony was held once every seven years, but Momohara Sachie, the head of the local preservation society, says it became an annual event in 1988. Though Ms. Momohara is 90 years of age, she wasn’t the oldest of the women joining the performers this year. One of the dancers was 96, and she told reporters she began doing the ufudehku in the ceremony with her sisters at the age of seven. “I’m still young,” she exclaimed as she danced down the street. (That’s probably not wishful thinking, either—take a look at the post two stories down that touches on one of the reasons for Okinawan longevity.)

The reports mentioned religious sites and a homage to a female divinity that clearly weren’t Shinto, and the names of two of the sites the dancers visit are Okinawan and not standard Japanese. A friendly fellow in the Yaesu municipal offices confirmed they weren’t Shinto, though he said there was a similarity. He explained that the three sites are from a local tradition and are for ancestor worship.

Japan is a fascinating place, but it gets even more interesting in the corners that most people overlook.