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Kuba Tsuru (1881-1943)
Jun. 20th, 2025 08:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomiKuba Tsuru was born in 1881 in Shuri, Okinawa. She is said to have been the first (confirmed) literate Okinawan woman. In 1896 she was among the first students to enter the women’s department of the Okinawa Normal School, passing a tough exam to do so, and the only native Okinawan in her class of ten; she was able to attend advanced schooling (for the time) because her father was a postmaster, but she concealed her attendance at school from her neighbors, hiding books in her pockets and never reading aloud at home.
She became a teacher at Shuri Elementary School two years later (graduates of the Normal School were required to work as elementary school teachers for six years). The new existence of female elementary school teachers made a difference in their communities not only in the classroom but as advisors and supporters for other women, who previously could only consult priestesses or shamans (miko or yuta, I don’t know enough about Okinawan customs to get the terms right in English) with their concerns.
Tsuru was among the first women to switch from Okinawan to Japanese clothing, influencing female students to do the same; this was in part because the traditional Okinawan dress was associated with peasants and commoners, so that students from well-to-do families would look down on their teacher in her Okinawan garb, making her job more difficult. She also worked to eliminate the custom of hajichi or hand tattooing (one theory is that as education became more widespread among women, the use of hajichi as a sign of coming-of-age was no longer needed; the custom did not entirely disappear until the 1950s). Many of these changes were met with significant opposition from the community (“The Kubas’ girl Tsuru is all Japanese now, next thing you know she’ll cut her hair and become Dutch.”).
There is relatively little information about her later life; she married a man called Yasumura (or Amura?) Ryokoh and had four daughters, continuing to work as a teacher for over thirty years. She died in 1943.
Sources
http://www.ayirom-uji-2016.com/woman-that-character-cant-be-summation (Japanese) Picture of girls dressed up in historical school uniforms, right to left representing 1898, 1901, 1904, 1920-ish, 1927.
*It is worth noting that none of my reference books contain any Okinawan women at all, and no Ainu women apart from Chiri Yukie. Japan has such a blind spot about this kind of thing, even now. H/t two friends, thank you T-kun and T-先辈, who are well informed on Okinawan matters and pointed me in the direction of some people to include.
She became a teacher at Shuri Elementary School two years later (graduates of the Normal School were required to work as elementary school teachers for six years). The new existence of female elementary school teachers made a difference in their communities not only in the classroom but as advisors and supporters for other women, who previously could only consult priestesses or shamans (miko or yuta, I don’t know enough about Okinawan customs to get the terms right in English) with their concerns.
Tsuru was among the first women to switch from Okinawan to Japanese clothing, influencing female students to do the same; this was in part because the traditional Okinawan dress was associated with peasants and commoners, so that students from well-to-do families would look down on their teacher in her Okinawan garb, making her job more difficult. She also worked to eliminate the custom of hajichi or hand tattooing (one theory is that as education became more widespread among women, the use of hajichi as a sign of coming-of-age was no longer needed; the custom did not entirely disappear until the 1950s). Many of these changes were met with significant opposition from the community (“The Kubas’ girl Tsuru is all Japanese now, next thing you know she’ll cut her hair and become Dutch.”).
There is relatively little information about her later life; she married a man called Yasumura (or Amura?) Ryokoh and had four daughters, continuing to work as a teacher for over thirty years. She died in 1943.
Sources
http://www.ayirom-uji-2016.com/woman-that-character-cant-be-summation (Japanese) Picture of girls dressed up in historical school uniforms, right to left representing 1898, 1901, 1904, 1920-ish, 1927.
*It is worth noting that none of my reference books contain any Okinawan women at all, and no Ainu women apart from Chiri Yukie. Japan has such a blind spot about this kind of thing, even now. H/t two friends, thank you T-kun and T-先辈, who are well informed on Okinawan matters and pointed me in the direction of some people to include.
