382 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



ited the way of life. In the Ryukyus, long considered culturally back- 

 ward, we shall see how true this is. But first we must give background 

 to the cultural picture. 



THE PREHISTORY AND HISTORY 



The Ainu, — The earliest inhabitants of the Ryukyu islands were 

 probably a preagricultural food-gathering group closely related to 

 the Ainu of northern Japan, but there is no positive evidence for this. 

 Allegedly Ainu archeological remains have been reported^ but the 

 identifications need checking. It is possible that cultural traits hark- 

 ing back to the Ainu ^ have existed in Ryukyu society within the past 

 100 years, but the matter has not been fully explored. Physical traits 

 of almost certain Ainu origin, however, are said to have been present 

 in many Ryukyuans living in the latter part of the nineteenth century.* 

 This is the strongest suggestion of an Ainu occupation. If the Ainu 

 were the first people in the Ryukyus, they were there in early times — 

 the first or even the second millennium B. C. 



The early Japanese. — Sometime before the third century B. C. a new 

 people entered Japan from Korea, and spread slowly over the Japanese 

 islands pushing back the Ainu there. These invaders were the early 

 Japanese who bore a maritime culture of manifest South Asiatic char- 

 acter, and were closely related racially to the Southern Mongoloids. 

 Some of these early Japanese settled in the Ryukyus, where they prob- 

 ably outnumbered the Ainu. The Ryukyu language, a sister tongue 

 to Japanese, is attributable to these newcomers, and it is likely that 

 they brought agriculture to the islands. 



The early history of Chinese and Japanese contact. — Chinese annals 

 of the third century B. C. contain the first historic mention of the 

 Ryukyu Islands. But it was not until the early seventh century A. D. 

 that the Chinese sent an information-collecting embassy there. Twelve 

 years later Japanese records indicated that a delegation from the 

 North Ryukyus paid their respects to the empress in Tokyo. During 

 this early historic period Ryukyu relations with Japan were even more 

 tenuous than with China, and were almost wholly carried on by upper- 

 class people in the port towns of the island chain. 



In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Japanese legendary history 

 mentions small movements of people from Kyushu to the Ryukyus. 

 Some of these emigres were displaced nobility. The most famous was 

 the archer Tametomo, who is said to have sired King Shunten — the 

 ruler of Okinawa from 1187 to 1237. When Shunten ascended the 

 throne, the Kyushu prince of Satsuma was given theoretical jurisdic- 

 tion over the Ryukyus. This is part of the modern Japanese claim to 

 the islands. 



- See Newman and Eng, 1947, pp. 114-116. 



' See Murdock, 1934, pp. 163-191, for a description of how the recent Ainu lived. 



* Newman and Eng, 1947, pp. 121-123. 



