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Paantu: Visiting Deities, Ritual, and Heritage in Shimajiri, Miyako Island, Japan

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Paantu: Visiting Deities, Ritual, and Heritage in Shimajiri, Miyako Island, Japan PAANTU: VISITING DEITIES, RITUAL, AND HERITAGE IN SHIMAJIRI, MIYAKO ISLAND, JAPAN Katharine R. M. Schramm Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Folklore & Ethnomusicology Indiana University December 2016 1 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee ________________________ Michael Dylan Foster, PhD Chair ________________________ Jason Baird Jackson, PhD ________________________ Henry Glassie, PhD ________________________ Michiko Suzuki, PhD May 23, 2016 ii Copyright © 2016 Katharine R. M. Schramm iii For all my teachers iv Acknowledgments When you study islands you find that no island is just an island, after all. In likewise fashion, the process of doing this research has reaffirmed my confidence that no person is an island either. We’re all more like aquapelagic assemblages… in short, this research would not have been possible without institutional, departmental, familial, and personal support. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the following people and institutions for helping this work come to fruition. My research was made possible by a grant from the Japan Foundation, which accommodated changes in my research schedule and provided generous support for myself and my family in the field. I also thank Professor Akamine Masanobu at the University of the Ryukyus who made my institutional connection to Okinawa possible and provided me with valuable guidance, library access, and my first taste of local ritual life. Each member of my committee has given me crucial guidance and support at different phases of my graduate career, and I am grateful for their insights, mentorship, and encouragement. A few short words cannot do them justice. Michael Dylan Foster has been my editor, mentor, teacher, and colleague, and now he’s a Chair, too. I have appreciated his good humor, advice in the field, and ruthless critical feedback. Henry Glassie, Jason Baird Jackson, and Michiko Suzuki have all been pleasures to work with during my time at Indiana. They have all challenged me to become a better writer, clearer thinker, and better folklorist. The Department of Folklore & Ethnomusicology, the East Asian Studies Center, the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures got me through graduate school and then through the dissertation-writing process through teaching and research assistantships that provided me with valuable experience and incredible v connections. I owe especial thanks to Jon Kay of Traditional Arts Indiana, whose encouragement, friendship, and mentorship over the years I greatly appreciate. I offer my sincere thanks and love to the whole staff of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, in particular Chief Curator Ellen Sieber, who made the period of readjustment to academia a pleasure after life in the field, and to Teri Klassen and Emily B. Rogers for putting up with me in the same office space. Huge thanks to my dissertation group, whose regular support saw me through the dark valleys of writing isolation: Jim Seaver, Eli Konwest, Brynn Heckel, Mollie Abels, and Sarah Richardson. Laura Clapper and Mary Migliozzi deserve so much thanks and credit for lighting our fire, and I’m grateful we were able to keep it burning. For those of us who rely on the goodwill of people and their openness to our intrusive questions and presence, we who pry open others’ personal narratives and actions to write our papers and presentations and dissertations, I like to think that we must retain a healthy dose of humility. Our teachers, the experts to whom we rely upon for our insights and whose appreciation we reflect in our work, instill in us a sense that our knowledge is never truly complete, never truly known. For those of us who struggle for the right words to say, and are repeatedly gifted with patience despite our academic awkwardness and stumbling mannerisms, we owe the entirety of our work to the people who gifted it to us. In some small way, I hope that the return of this work to the people who worked with me will be a small offering of thanks, and if possible, something useful. My most important thanks go to the many people in Shimajiri, Nobaru, and across Miyako who generously offered their incredible hospitality, offering their goodwill, time, conversation, and friendship. Not all the interviews I held made it into this dissertation, and not vi all people wish to be thanked by name. However, I here offer my thanks to Miyara Tamotsu, Hentona Toyoichi, Ikema Sadao, Hentona Tadashi, Hentona Etsuko, Hentona Kiyoshi, Fukuhara Kôyû, Roger Johnson, Ikuyo Johnson, Tomori Mariko, Tomori Yutaka, Tomori Rieko, Arakaki Yutaka, Arakaki Miyuki, Yamauchi Rena, Yamauchi Hayato, Yamauchi Nagisa, Shinzato Hidehiko, Matsukawa Hiroyuki, Hanashiro Hiroki, Shimajiri Mayumi, Shinzato Yuuei, Shimajiri Tadashi, Watanabe Issei, Alvarado Kyoko, and Alvarado Jesus, Shimajiri Yôko, Sunagawa Gensei. Kazufumi. The Kiyûna family, Kairada family, Shimajiri family, and really, all your families. My very warm thanks to all the children of Shimajiri, old and young, and to the unnamed many more who gave me your time, your insight, and your friendship. Thanks also to the Nobaru Fujinkai, with especial thanks to Itô Saeko, Itô Aimu, Shinzato Sachiko, and Sugama Nobuko. Thanks to the teachers of Miyajima-sho and Karimata-sho, especially Uesato Masaaki, Sunakawa Narumi, Katsuren Katsuei, Iraha Tomoya, Motomura Yoshie, Yonaha Haruna, Kondô Tadashi, Tana Makoto, Taira Satsuki, Matsumoto Michiko, Sunagawa Machiko, Furuken Naoko. To the whole staff at the Historical Research Compilation Office, in particular Shimoji Kazuhiro, for your assistance and hospitality, and to Nakasone Kôichi, my generous Sumafutsu teacher, and his family. To everyone at Sei Yakobu for your warmth and welcome, with especial thanks to Totsuka Tetsuya, Totsuka Kyoko, and Kiba Emiko. To our friends in Japan that made our transition in and out of the country so much better, particularly Setsuko and Bill Reis. Thanks to everyone in the Okinawa YuYuKai, whose friendship and support has seen me from the beginning to the end of this research, especially to Mineko and Dave Grunow. vii Naturally there are many others to thank for their friendship and support, and I’m surely going to leave some of you out unintentionally. Special additional thanks go out my community of folklorists and friends, who have been supportive through the many different phases of this research: Steve Stanzak, Keith Turpin, Suzanne Godby Ingalsbe, Nate Ingalsbe, Selina Morales, Maria Kennedy, and so many more of you who helped keep me sane over the long time of writing. Finally, thanks to my family—John and Barbara Schramm, and Joy and Joe Kelley, for your steadfast belief and support (financial, emotional, and otherwise). And thank you to my life partner, Tim Kelley, and Harper and Ada, who make my life and research so much richer. viii Katharine R. M. Schramm PAANTU: VISITING DEITIES, RITUAL, AND HERITAGE IN SHIMAJIRI, MIYAKO ISLAND, JAPAN Legal instruments like national heritage designations frequently utilize a one-size-fits-all approach, but understanding the questions about how heritage is affected, conceptualized, and constructed requires local engagement. The local protective rite of Paantu Punaha, located in the town of Shimajiri on Miyako Island in southern Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, was designated as national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1993. This event exists at the center of a nexus of longstanding folkloristic interest in Okinawan ritual as well as the growing popularity of the ritual’s central figures, the mud-covered visiting deities known as paantu. This research explores the economic and social realities that affect the ongoing practice of Paantu Punaha, while also looking at the influence of the system of intangible cultural heritage designation and its effect on the town of Shimajiri. This research investigates how local conceptions of ritual meaning and practice exist as ritual, but also as cultural heritage. Residents’ interpretation of ritual meanings intersect with contemporary concerns about social change, while their ritual understandings of Paantu Punaha come into conflict with visitors’ understandings, viewed through both action and discussion. As a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, it is possible to see the processes by which the paantu became designated heritage, and how it intersects with the experiences of people within Shimajiri. Through the ways that Shimajiri people identify problems and solutions that their community faces, it becomes possible to see how heritage is conceptualized and utilized locally. ________________________ Michael Dylan Foster, PhD Chair ________________________ Jason Baird Jackson, PhD ________________________ Henry Glassie, PhD ________________________ Michiko Suzuki, PhD ix Table of Contents Nmyaachi (Welcome!): A Note on Orthography .................................................................. xiii Glossary of Frequently Used Miyako Words .......................................................................... xvi Chapter 1: Intermediaries, Peripheries, Methods, Theories .................................................... 1 Intermediary Ethnography, Marginal Discipline ........................................................................ 5 Paantu Punaha.........................................................................................................................
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