Okinawa is no stranger to natural disasters.
The island sits on two major tectonic plates — the Eurasian and the Philippine plates — that cause earthquakes and volcanoes to form. Okinawa is also prone to tsunamis and typhoons.
About 300 years have passed since anyone has known about Okinawa’s past climate and geological history.
But researchers at the University of Hawai‘i have recently uncovered those answers through Indigenous knowledge and song in a study.
“I knew that we sang songs about nature,” said Justin Higa, co-author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at UH Manoa’s Department of Earth Sciences.
“Place-based science from Okinawa: 18th-century climate and geology recorded in Ryukyuan classical music”
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Geoscience Communication
The Ryukyu Islands and southern Kyushu. The map shows the Kuroshio, the Ryukyu Trench, the approximate route of Ryukyuan envoys, and subaerial Quaternary volcanoes. The inset provides a detailed map of Okinawa Island.
The study, published in Geoscience Communication, looked at the repertoire of Indigenous Ryukyuan classical music from the 18th century. These were documented among sailors who embarked from Ryukyu Island to Kyushu Island in Japan.
Okinawa was formally known as the Ryukyu Kingdom before it was annexed by Japan in 1879.
The songs UH researchers looked at were Nubui Kuduchi and Kudai Kuduchi. Higa said “nubui” means going up, while “kudai” means going down.
“Kuduchi is a chronological story,” Higa said. “It’s the story of the envoys from Okinawa going up to mainland Japan and coming back because they had to pay tribute to the Japanese shogunate during this time — the 17th to 18th-ish century after the Ryukyu Kingdom was taken over by the Japanese government.”
The songs described what the sailors saw, such as rough seas and seeing a volcano that marked the end of their voyage.
“Like the direction of winds that were able to take ships from Okinawa island to Kyushu island in Japan and then how those wind directions shifted the opposite direction in the winters to allow the voyage to come back from Japan to Okinawa based on seasons,” Higa said.
The songs pinpointed changes following the East Asian monsoon season and even volcanic eruptions.
“We have one point of information of activity today, one point of activity 300 years ago, recorded in the song, and then the earliest recorded activity was from a Japanese story, hundreds of years before this Okinawan song was ever written,” Higa said.
Boontigan Kuhasubpasin/”Place-based science from Okinawa: 18th-century climate and geology recorded in Ryukyuan classical music”
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Geoscience Communication
Illustrations of (a) Nubui Kuduchi and (b) Kudai Kuduchi dancers with (c) uta sanshin, (d) fwansō, (e) kūchō, (f) kutū, and (g) tēku musicians. Actual performances may have more than one dancer or musician per instrument, particularly for uta sanshin.
Dancing in the diaspora
The co-authors in the study are all classical Ryukyuan music practitioners with the Ryukyu Koten Afuso Ryu Ongaku Kenkyu Choichi Kai USA., Hawaiʻi Chapter. It’s a music school with groups on Oʻahu, Maui, Kauaʻi, and in California.
The songs were recorded and performed among the group.
June Uyeunten, a co-author, was in charge of the cultural side of the study. She said she was excited to learn about the songs.
“It goes hand-in-hand with how the Hawaiian culture and the Hawaiian history is told through music,” Uyeunten said. “But the idea of utilizing what goes on in nature and what goes on in science, and how Justin was able to find actual research and writings about it made it even more special and more exciting to pursue.”
Uyeunten recently performed the songs at the all-women’s recital “YUI” on Sept. 14 at the Hawaiʻi Okinawa Center in Waipiʻo. It was the debut performance of the all-female group “Mikaji Nu Kai” within the Afuso Ryu Choichi Kai.
Uyeunten said it was the first all-women performance outside of Okinawa.
“We did the combination of the two songs side-by-side at the same time, telling the stories of what his (Justin Higa) research also shared,” she said. “That’s the exciting part about this whole project. It just fell into place at the same time that this recital fell into place.”
Although about 300 years have passed since the songs were written, Higa said not much has changed geologically in that short time frame.
He said he was surprised when he found songs that talked about climate and geology.
“I think it’s hopefully going to inspire us to look at more songs that we sing that talk about things like animals and fishing and water resources.”
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