Nakijin Nobuko (1887-1968)

[nnozomi]

Nakijin Nobuko was born in 1887 in modern-day Okinawa, the daughter of Crown Prince Shō Ten of the Kingdom of the Ryukyus (by the time of her birth, already deposed under Japanese rule and made a peer instead); her birth name was Shō Omito. She was a part of the first graduating class of the Okinawa Prefectural Girls’ Higher School in 1904, among the elite who were in the vanguard of the shift from Okinawan to Japanese (and later to Western) dress and from Okinawan to Japanese names.

Upon her marriage to the Okinawan nobleman Nakijin Choei, she took the (Japanese-style) first name Nobuko; in addition to their daughter Kazuko, they had a son, Choshu, who died fighting in the Battle of Okinawa. In 1944 Nobuko ascended as the 18th kikoe-ogimi or high priestess of the Ryukyus, inheriting the position after the death of her aunt Princess Amuro, although between Japanese colonization and the war, she was unable to carry out most of the traditional practices. The following year she was briefly a prisoner of war during the US invasion of Okinawa. She died in 1968 at the age of eighty-one.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

I know very little about the Ryukuan islands, people, and religion -- shamefully little, really! Maybe I can spend some time this week deepening that knowledge.