RYUKYU PEOPLE — NEWMAN AND ENG 399 



prefect. The broken homes occasioned by easy divorce apparently 

 did not cause appreciable maladjustment in the children. The reasons 

 for this are obscure and would merit special study. 



Almost all married couples and their children lived in a narrow 

 work-a-day world which called for hard labor and great frugality. 

 Americans were particularly impressed with Ryukyu woman's hard lot, 

 not realizing her relatively high social status. It is true that the 

 women worked in the fields, did the housekeeping, raised children, 

 carried heavy burdens, marketed much of the produce, and performed 

 many other routine tasks. But the men of the working class also 

 worked hard. Theirs were more specialized tasks, such as building, 

 carpentry, and irrigation, as well as a good part of agricultural work. 

 Both sexes were extraordinarily well muscled and hardy. The small 

 number of days a year when they were too sick to work would make 

 a proud record in the United States. 



This physically strenuous life, coupled with low emotional tensions 

 and a simple and largely vegetarian diet, apparently made for late 

 senility (Steiner, 1946, pp. 22-23). The number of elderly people 

 compared favorably with that of Western countries noted for their 

 medical science. Outstanding in the Kyukyus was the very small 

 amount of heart disease, alimentary and kidney disorders, cancer, and 

 other degenerative changes so common in the more civilized world. 



Old people were able to remain active most of their lives. When 

 they could no longer carry on, their families took care of them. Above 

 all, special care was taken to give them a proper funeral and place the 

 coffin in the family tomb. Years later the unmarried girls of the fam- 

 ily would carefully clean the bones in sweetpotato brandy, and rev- 

 erently place them in a funerary urn. Within the vault these urns 

 were arranged on an altar according to the status and kinship of the 

 persons whose bones they contained. The bones of the husband and 

 wife were often placed together in a single urn, so they could grow 

 old together. It is reported ^^ that the tombs were deliberately fash- 

 ioned in the shape of a womb, and that the Ryukyuans considered death 

 merely a return to the place from whence they came. 



The Ryukyu Culture Pattekn and the Ryukyuan's Wori>d View 



In the past 1,000 years or more, the influences of Chinese and Jap- 

 anese civilizations were largely absorbed by the upper class of Ryu- 

 kyuans. Some of these foreign customs filtered through to the com- 

 moners, who in the main went on eking out their simple rural exist- 

 ence much on the same cultural level as the medieval Japanese peasant. 

 After Japan annexed the Ryukyus, she lopped off the upper classes 

 there, placing almost everyone in commoner's status. 



" Moloney, 3 945, p. 396 ; Steiner, 1947, p. 311. We consider these reports of questionabie 

 validity, but cannot disprove tliem. 



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