Seifa-Utaki

Halfway up the walk to the shrine is the place where the men stay, they are not allowed to continue where the priestesses go.

The road splits and to the left is the 'kitchen' where meals were prepared after the rituals. Look at that brave little Japanese boy holding up that stalactite.
Continuing to the right we come to a couple of pots placed below a couple of exposed stalactites, the pots collect rainwater used in telling the fortunes for the highest ranked priestess and the king's son. The pots would also indicate whether they would be having drought (based on how much rain they got throughout the year from typhoons and such).

Then we continue on the road through the giant triangle created when a giant slab of the limestone slid off the top sometime in the distant past, and we find ourselves at the main worship site.

Its a bad picture, but at the bottom you see the altar where they made the offerings and said prayers. The view is a straight shot of Kudaka island, which has been called the Okinawan Garden of Eden, where life on the island is supposed to have originated from. There is a room in Shuri-jo castle which points this way as well for the same reason, and it is in an area that was restricted to allow only priestesses as well.

More Shrines

Third stop I forgot my camera in the bus, we weren't there long because everyone was hungry (went to huge Naha Jusco that felt like an American mall with a really cool entryway into the second floor restaurant area, all Okinawan oldschool). There were two sites right next to eachother, first had a shrine for praying for unborn babies (originally built to pray for babies they had to abort because they wouldn't be able to feed the child). This is the second half where there are three separate shrines in the one location, a confucious shrine, a shrine to the ocean goddess, and one to another god of fortune I think.

This is the drive down the road we took to get to the last stop on the tour. Romantic view.

It was a bit of a hike to this location, but it beats the hike that royalty took once a year to this shrine back in the day (10 days), and this is the original road, 600+ years old.

More road.

More road... at one point while walking this road there is a divot in the ground on the side of the road where the area received its only bomb from the war.

Futenma Shrine 2

At one end of the cave is a gate they open annually June 30th. During WWII this cave sheltered hundreds of Okinawans, all of which survived, bringing extra luck to the cave. It is one of the nicer caves to have hidden in as well, it had a breeze and the floor was dry.

The shrine's 'backyard' was a rock garden.

'Romantic' view (as the Japanese translate it, any beautiful view or flower is romantic)

Before everyone had clocks the time was told by the bells from the shrines. Shinto is a nature worship religion, and is quite possibly the oldest religion in history. Okinawan Shinto transformed when they were invaded by Japan and a lot of the shrines gained the characteristic torii (bird resting spot) with a shift to the emporer being a direct line to the heavens.

Inside one of the buildings we find 24k gold, lots of lotus, and on the pillow on the floor cushions a drum in the shape of a fish so that the eyes will remind the drummer to stay awake during the ceremony.

Futenma shrine

I don't remember which computer the pictures we took the first time we went are on, I thought we posted before about it too... but I can't find it. We went on a tour this week to several sacred sites and the first stop was Futenma Shinto shrine. Its a prayer site complete with priests, priestesses, good luck talismans for sale, fortunes, walls to write good luck wishes, and an area to tie bad fortunes. All of this is in the other pictures we took. Several of the things I talk of can be seen here...


http://www.okinawa.usmc.mil/public%20affairs%20info/archive%20news%20pages/2006/060505-shrine.html


This particular location for a Shinto 'temple' was chosen because of a story about a woman, some 1000 years ago, who was very beautiful and received too much attention for her likes, her sister tried to let a man view her in secret, but she saw and fled. She ran a long way, finally running into the cave and she never came out again. Here is a drum offering with a painting of the woman as a goddess.

You need permission to unlock the gates to the caves.

Here is one of the 'lucky' rock formations to pray at, I'm not sure what this particular one is for, but at the entrance to the cave on either side are two that compliment eachother which people pray at for fertility.


Here is the main shrine inside the cave.