392 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 194 7 



was the Panama-hat industry, confined largely to the Central Kyukyus. 

 Linen cloth made from the fibers of the textile banana constituted the 

 third industry. Its manufacture was concentrated in the South 

 Ryukyus. Other textile products were rush matting, cotton cloth, and 

 straw articles. A large part of the weaving in all textile industries 

 was done by women on hand looms in small shops or at home. Natural 

 dyes, especially indigo and the juice of the Japanese hawthorns, were 

 still used, although larger factories had begun aniline dyeing. Both 

 batik and vat dyeing were practiced. 



Other manufactures in the Ryukyus were conducted on a very small 

 scale. Carpenters and stone masons still performed high-quality 

 work in the cities, despite their rather primitive tools. Food process- 

 ing and canning accounted for a few more workers, and dealt largely 

 in dried bonito, and camied meats and vegetables. Other small in- 

 dustries only worthy of mention were machine and metal work, wood 

 and bamboo working, paper manufacture and printing, ceramics and 

 tile, and mining and quarrying. 



The arts. — The leveling of the native class system by the Japanese 

 had the effect of abolishing the national art of the Ryukyus. Lacking 

 upper-class patrons for luxury goods of traditional design, craftsmen 

 turned to Japanese markets for an outlet. This meant that the pat- 

 terns and decorative styles were dictated by Japanese fashions. Tra- 

 ditional designs lost out, except in crafts such as architecture and 

 woodworking which catered to the small local market. Ryukyu ce- 

 ramics and lacquerware used to be of high artistic excellence, owing 

 largely to Chinese influence. Recently, however, only building tile and 

 pipe and cheap utilitarian and ornate funerary ware were produced 

 for local consumption. The exports followed Japanese designs, usu- 

 ally the more gaudy. The textile industries alone retained much of 

 the old-time technical excellence, but had to use Japanese styles. 



As with the artistic crafts, the Ryukyu theater, music, and dance 

 had distintegrated from lack of upper-class patrons. In the cities 

 traditional forms of entertainment were largely replaced by Japanese- 

 style performances, especially by geisha. The rural areas still retained 

 their folk music and dances, which figured largely at the annual 

 festivals. 



The Socio-politicai, Patteen 



Settlement pattern: The family. — The biological family, consist- 

 ing of parents and their children, was the basic unit of Ryukyu soci- 

 ety. Economic and religious pressures made family ties particularly 

 strong. Great family solidarity, almost to the exclusion of other 

 loyalties, was encountered by Americans during the invasion. It 

 was almost impossible to secure volunteer blood donors or nurses 



