One photograph killed an island’s whole view of life and death.

1966. The artist Taro Okamoto opened a certain coffin on a small island in Okinawa. Inside lay the skeletal remains of a woman. A kasuri kimono. Hair still faintly clinging to the skull. She had not been dead for long.

On that island, the dead were not buried. A coffin was set on the rocks by the sea, exposed to the wind, and left to return to nature. They called it wind burial. Okamoto photographed it. Then he ran it in a weekly magazine. The islanders were enraged.

And so they made a decision. They sealed the very place of the wind burial in concrete. So that never again could anyone uncover it. And with that, the wind burial of Kudaka, continued for centuries, came to an end. The man who “discovered the forgotten Japan” had, with that act, buried one piece of that forgotten Japan himself.

What follows is not a mere tour of power spots. A god descends from beyond the sea, a woman becomes a god, a person dies and becomes a god, and returns again beyond the sea — such a vast circle truly stood here until just a few decades ago. And this is the story of how it is quietly breaking apart.

To see. To photograph. To uncover. What does that really mean? By the time you finish reading, you may find yourself looking at your own phone in a different way. Let us begin at the entrance — the most famous sacred site in all of Okinawa.

Chapter 1 — Sefa-Utaki: Where Nothing Was the Whole Point

Sangui, Sefa-Utaki / SANGUI, SEFA-UTAKI

That scene you saw in the guidebook — a triangular tunnel formed by two giant rocks leaning against each other. Through the gap beyond, the sacred island of Kudaka seems to float. The most photographed, most praised “mystical” view of Sefa-Utaki. It was never meant to exist.

That you can worship Kudaka Island from Sangui appears nowhere in the historical records of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Why? Because in the early modern era, part of the rock wall of Sangui collapsed. Through the hole that opened up, Kudaka happened to become visible. That is all.

The Sangui of old was a sealed chamber, hemmed in on three sides by giant rocks, where almost no light reached. Kudaka could not be seen. You stand at the bottom of a darkness walled in by stone. From a thin gap overhead, a single shaft of light falls. A space completely cut off from the outer world, from the sea. That was the true innermost sanctuary.

Because it collapsed, you can see. Because it was closed, it was sacred. What we call a “stunning view” and photograph is the trace of a sacred site that fell apart. Hold on to that. From beginning to end, this article is made of “things that became visible” and “things that were uncovered.”

Incidentally, this triangular gap between the rocks is also a place where sensitive people say they “feel something.” According to a guide of many years, when someone with strong spiritual sense takes a photo, an “orb of light” appears at the apex of the triangle. Once, when an elderly noro (priestess) took a picture, a vivid orange glowing body is said to have been captured. You could call it a trick of the light and be done with it. And yet, somehow, the stronger a person’s spiritual power, the stranger the photograph. What that “light” is will come back to matter again, later.

Let us tell the story of Taro Okamoto — the man who opened the coffin at the start — a little more properly. He was no mere insensitive tourist. If anything, he was a man who fell in love with Okinawa more deeply than anyone. 1959. He set foot in an Okinawa still under American rule. The man behind “Art is an explosion.” He traveled from the main island to Kudaka, Miyako, Ishigaki, and Taketomi, and revisited Kudaka once more in 1966. Later he wrote: “I fell in love with Okinawa.” That record is his acclaimed book, awarded the Mainichi Publishing Culture Prize: Okinawa Cultural Theory — The Forgotten Japan.

Look at the title. The forgotten Japan. Dynastic culture, war, occupation, military bases. Facing the raw reality of Okinawa, what shook Taro Okamoto most violently? Not a stunning view, not grand architecture, not a glittering festival. It was “the fact that there was nothing.”

In the book he writes: what moved him most was an utaki with no substance whatsoever. No place of worship built. No sacred body, no idol, nothing. Just a nondescript clearing in the forest. A crude little square cut stone, set down so plainly you might overlook it. He was astonished by the magnificence of that “nothingness.” He called it “the vertigo of nothingness.”

A blankness dizzying enough to make you reel. Unlike the shrines of the mainland, people do not build something to enshrine a god. Into a place where a god already dwells, people quietly set foot. Not building was the highest form of dignity. Taro Okamoto saw, laid bare in this blankness, something modern people had long since lost. “This — this is us ourselves, this is Japan itself,” he said.

Why can an empty clearing become the highest sacred site? You cannot understand the answer without knowing “what comes here.” The gods of the mainland descend from the sky. Amaterasu, who descended from the high plain of heaven to the earth. A vertical image. But the gods of Ryukyu come from beyond the sea.

The name of that otherworld is Niraikanai. A paradise of the gods, said to lie at the far eastern end of the sea, or beneath the ocean, or deep in the earth. On Kudaka they call it Niraa-Hanaa. Souls are born from there, and return there when they die. The sun, too, was believed to rise from the eastern sea, sink in the west, and pass through the otherworld at the bottom of the sea to rise again. The creator deity Amamikiyo (Amamiku) is said to have come across from this Niraikanai and made the islands.

The folklorist Shinobu Orikuchi sorted the Ryukyu otherworld into two. The horizontal otherworld beyond the sea — Niraikanai. And another: the vertical, high otherworld of the heavens — Obotsu-Kagura, the divine realm where the gods who guard authority dwell. In Ryukyu, then, the gods come from two directions. From beyond the sea, and from above the sky.

And Kunio Yanagita, in his acclaimed The Sea Road, argued that this very Niraikanai belief shares its source with the mainland’s “Tokoyo-no-kuni” — the “Land of Roots” of Japanese myth. Okinawan faith is the very prototype that Japan left behind somewhere along the way. This is what Taro Okamoto called “the forgotten Japan.”

The core of Ryukyu faith lies in welcoming “that which comes from outside.” The god is not there from the start. From beyond the sea, from outside the human world, it “visits” at a certain time. So people line up on the shore, welcome the god, and send the god off. Often the god’s form cannot be seen. Even so, they believe in the visit and wait.

And Sefa-Utaki was designed to receive that “thing that comes from outside.” This utaki faces east — agari, in the Okinawan tongue. The most sacred direction, where the sun rises and Niraikanai lies. Kudaka, seen from Sangui, is the landing place where Amamikiyo first set foot. The entire space of Sefa-Utaki was a giant antenna for receiving the god who visits from beyond the sea.

This is the true identity of the “empty clearing” Taro Okamoto saw. Not a place to enshrine something, but a place to wait for something to descend. That is why it is left empty. You must not block the front of the receiver.

And — “something descending from outside, from the sea, together with light” is something we moderns sometimes call by another name. Unidentified flying object. Visitor. Okinawan skies have never been short of sightings of unexplained lights. In recent years, a mysterious light moving in irregular, wobbling curves across the pre-dawn sky was seen over a wide area — a fireball, a U.S. military craft, or perhaps something else, people wondered. The master of Okinawan ghost stories, Takeshi Obara, even has a piece titled outright “The Red UFO.” Of course, most of these can probably be explained as natural phenomena or man-made objects.

But that is not the point. The point is the fact that the people of Ryukyu lived for hundreds of years inside a worldview in which “from outside the world, something descends together with light.” For them, sky and sea were not closed walls, but doors always open to “the other side.” The “orb of light” in the Sangui photographs. The mysterious lights in the night sky. The prayers that waited for visiting gods. They are all connected, surely, by an underground stream. Human beings have always been waiting for that which comes from outside.

In Okinawa there is a word, mabui. It means the soul. And in Okinawa, the soul falls. When you are greatly startled. When you meet with an accident. When you take a strong shock. A person drops their mabui. Leave it dropped and untended, and they say your character changes. Always dazed, never quite getting to the point, no longer reachable by anything you say. The soul has gone halfway off somewhere and not come back.

So if you drop it, you go and pick it up. To the very place where you dropped it. And you chant: “Mabuyaa, mabuyaa, come back.” This is called mabuigumi (putting the soul back in). You stand where it was dropped and put the loosened soul back into that person’s body once more. To this day, it is done as a matter of course in Okinawa.

Here, a question rises up. Where does the fallen soul go afterward? One Okinawan writes: the place where dropped, wandering souls gather and are collected — could that be the utaki? An empty clearing. A blank sanctuary that waits for a god to descend. It may, at the same time, be a place where the countless souls people have dropped quietly pool. When you “feel something” in the forest of Sefa-Utaki, it may be the presence of a god — or it may be a soul someone dropped, long, long ago.

Walk the forest and six ibi (sacred zones) appear in turn. The first place of worship is Ufuguui. Before a giant rock, a stone pavement of prayer is laid. Beyond it, Yuinchi. It means “kitchen,” but no cooking was done here. It was a place to pray for the kingdom to be filled with abundance. Both of these names, Ufuguui and Yuinchi, match the names of rooms inside Shuri Castle. Sacred site and royal castle are bound together by name.

And along the path, painful things remain. A shell-pond, formed by the naval bombardment of the Battle of Okinawa. Even the forest of the gods was carved without mercy by the wounds of war. Onto this place that awaited the gods, a rain of iron made by humans fell. The sacred site was not outside the violence of history. Even the name “Sefa-Utaki” is, in fact, only a common name. Its formal divine name is “Kimi-ga-Take, Nushi-ga-Take-no-Ibi.” The name we know is not even its real name.

Chapter 2 — The Land Where Women Become Gods: A Map of Spiritual Power

Women Who Serve the Gods / NORO & YUTA

Why, in Okinawa, are those who serve the gods all women? The noro, the yuta, the Kikoe-Ogimi, the nanchu of Izaiho — all women. Where did the men go? At the root of it lies the onari-gami faith.

Onari-gami is an old Okinawan belief that the sister (onari) spiritually guards the brother (ekeri). In Okinawa, women have long been thought to hold higher spiritual power. When the brother goes out to fish or travel, the sister becomes the one who protects him with that power. The woman who keeps the home supports, with an unseen force, the man who works outside.

Kunio Yanagita called this “the power of the sister.” And, remarkably, he pointed out that this belief was not Okinawa’s alone, but an ancient faith shared with mainland Japan. Recall Himiko. A woman who presides over ritual, and a man who presides over politics. That two-person partnership is found even in Yamatai. Okinawa preserved, still living, the “age when women were close to the gods” that Japan had long since let go.

This belief became the very structure of society. A man conducts politics, and the woman who guards him presides over the sacred rites. At the village level, the niigami (sister) who presides over ritual, and the niichu (brother) who governs by her oracle. At the national level, the Kikoe-Ogimi (sister) and the king (brother). From bottom to top, one and the same structure runs straight through.

And there is one more crucial word. Seji. The spiritual power said to dwell in all things. According to interpretations of old songs, when seji attaches to a sword it becomes a sacred sword; to a stone, a sacred stone. It attaches to gates, to harbors, to boats, to castles. And — when it attaches to a person, that person becomes superhuman. A woman was said to be able to house this seji in her body and wield it. That is why a woman can become a god.

Here you must not confuse two things. Among the women who deal with the gods in Okinawa, there are two kinds, utterly different in nature. The noro, and the yuta. Once you understand the difference, the depth of Okinawan faith suddenly takes on three dimensions.

The noro is a hereditary female priest. At the utaki and gusuku, she presides over the public rituals of the village. Unlike the mainland “miko.” If anything, she is closer to a male priest — a celebrant in her own right. The character “祝” was applied to her precisely because it originally denoted a male priest. The noro was no Shinto shrine maiden; she communed with the gods, let the god possess her body, and became the god itself. On Kudaka, “one who serves the gods” becomes, at the same time, “one who is worshipped as a god.” The one who serves becomes, just as she is, the one who is worshipped.

The yuta, on the other hand, is entirely different. Not hereditary. She is chosen — whether she wills it or not. The yuta is a folk shaman, a medium. There is said to be at least one in every village; she relays the voices of gods and ancestors to people’s private troubles. She divines illness and conveys the words of the dead. If the noro is “public,” the yuta is “private.” These two, scholars say, are the two wheels that support Okinawan folk belief.

Where the noro is inherited by blood, the yuta is, one day, suddenly named by the gods. Those who become yuta share a common pattern. Sickly from childhood, seeing the forms of ghosts and gods. In the Okinawan tongue, saadaka-umari — born with high spiritual power. And at some point in their twenties or thirties, in dreams or visions the gods appear and declare: “Enter the path of the gods.”

Normally you would think it an honor to be chosen. The opposite is true. Through long history, the yuta were suppressed by the government as deceivers of the people, and discriminated against. So even when told by a god to “become a yuta,” almost no one accepts gladly. No one wants to give up a peaceful life. But the instant you refuse, hell begins. Kamidaari. In characters: “god-madness,” “god-curse.”

Bodily pain and disorder that no hospital can cure. Inexplicable injuries, accidents, separations, bereavements striking you and your kin. Suddenly the whole body convulses as if the brain had stopped, tears and saliva running unstoppably. One record tells of a middle-school girl who fell into this state on her way to school and suffered for a whole year. Objectively, the symptoms look exactly like mental illness.

And here is the most terrible warning. The god declares: “If you do not enter the path of the gods, your life will be taken.” In their agony, people clutch at straws — visiting another yuta, visiting a hospital — and find they can escape that hell only by entering the path of the gods, that is, only by becoming a yuta. Okinawa has a phrase for it. “Half doctor, half yuta.” Medicine cannot cure it. Only once the god is accepted do the symptoms subside. To be chosen by a god is not a blessing but a trial of life and death. Flee and you are cursed; accept and your life is changed.

There is one more chilling thing about the yuta’s power. Okinawan yuta make contact with spirits through “words” — in the Okinawan language or in Japanese. So against the spirits of American soldiers, it is said, they do not understand English and will not try to use their power. The countless foreign soldiers who died in the Battle of Okinawa. The yuta’s words do not reach their souls. The dead whose language does not get through remain, to this day, somewhere on this island, soothed by no one.

If you see someone standing before a rock at Sefa-Utaki, praying with their whole heart, that is not tourism. It is real prayer. You must never disturb it. Before the very rock you photograph so casually on your phone, someone is praying with their life. Standing in the same place, the world they see is utterly different.

The wonder of Okinawa is not only inside the sacred sites. It dwells in a single tree by the roadside. Kijimunaa. The most famous spirit (yokai) in Okinawa. It lives in old gajumaru and akou trees. Its form: a red-haired, red-faced child. Depending on the region, it is also called a long-haired giant, an old man like a withered tree, a young woman, or a creature covered head to toe in hair. Its arms stretch like tree branches, and it walks with a hopping gait. At night it walks the mountain edges and shores carrying a torch. That fire was called “kijimunaa fire.” Another orb of flame floating in the Okinawan night.

The kijimunaa is extraordinarily good at catching fish. But it has a strange habit. Of the fish it catches, it eats only the left eye. So a fisherman who befriends a kijimunaa gains a mountain of fish. If it settles in the gajumaru tree of a house, that house is said to grow wealthy. A charming tale, you might think. It has even become the mascot of an Okinawan TV station. But the kijimunaa is not always friendly.

What happens if you betray a kijimunaa? One man, for betraying a kijimunaa, was killed. Another had his whole family slaughtered. The kind neighbor who grants fishing fortune shows no mercy to those who break a promise. And the kijimunaa has another face. At night it comes to where a person sleeps and presses on their chest. The one pressed cannot rise. On the mainland, they call it sleep paralysis.

On an Okinawan night, you wake suddenly and cannot move. Something is sitting on your chest. Heavy. It may be only fatigue. Or — a red-faced child from the old gajumaru next door may have come to play. In Okinawa, such non-human beings are called majimun as a group. The kijimunaa is one kind of majimun. There are others, like the piglet ghost (uwaa-majimun), said to slip beneath a person’s legs and pull out their soul.

Seji dwells in all things. In trees, in rocks, in roads. In Okinawa, the world of humans and the world of non-humans sit side by side, separated by the thinnest sheet. The boundary between sacred and profane, this shore and the far shore, is far thinner than on the mainland.

At the summit of the noro, the highest priestess: the Kikoe-Ogimi. Her inauguration rite was the greatest festival held at Sefa-Utaki — the Oaraori. From 1470 to 1879, for about 400 years and across fifteen generations, it continued. What happened that night? A detailed record from 1840 survives. Let us reconstruct it.

Early morning. The newly chosen woman departs the palace, attended by many noro and court women. After worshipping at the main hall of Shuri Castle and at Sonohyan-Utaki, the procession heads east. She rides a white horse, and along the way the noro chant the old Ryukyu song “Kwena” endlessly. At the beach of Yonabaru, priestesses purify themselves, let their hair fall behind them, and wear white robes to greet her. Around three in the afternoon, the party departs Yonabaru. On a steep slope along the way, the Ogimi changes from horse to palanquin. And — around nine at night, she reaches Sefa-Utaki.

Before the utaki, a temporary palace had been built for this day. The ceremony ground was spread with white sand brought all the way from the sacred island of Kudaka. That preparation alone is said to have taken half a year. Around ten at night, more than seventy noro and priestesses assemble in all. The Ogimi, with her party behind her, advances into the innermost depths through the darkness. The Kwena of the noro rings through the night forest.

This is no mere inauguration. Modern scholarship grasps the essence of the Oaraori thus: a sacred-marriage rite — a “union” with the creator deity of Ryukyu. The name of the descending god is Kimitezuri. A goddess who governs sea and sun, said to descend from heaven at moments when the kingdom’s very survival hangs in the balance. She is also said to dwell in Niraikanai.

The god descends from both sea and sky. On the night of the Oaraori, that goddess of sea and sun descends, in the dark sealed chamber, upon a single human woman. That night, a human woman becomes a god. The morning sun rising from Niraikanai beyond Kudaka, beyond the sea, is said to have witnessed the event. The office, as a rule, lasted for life.

And let us touch on a core that tourist guides never tell. Hearing “the priestess guards the king,” you might think the priestess stands beneath the king. But originally it was the reverse. Concerning the founding of the Second Sho dynasty, a tradition survives that King Sho Sen’i was removed from the throne by a high priestess, and the son of Sho En (later King Sho Shin) succeeded. A woman dethroned a king. There was an age when divine authority surpassed royal authority.

King Sho Shin, who understood that danger better than anyone, organized the priestess corps as a state institution. He placed the Kikoe-Ogimi at the summit and installed his own sister as the first to hold it. He enshrined and praised the power of women at the highest rank while, at the same time, taming that power through institution. To revere and to seal. He pulled off both at once.

Chapter 3 — The Life of Kudaka: The Island Where Housewives Become Gods

Izaiho: Crossing the Seven Bridges / IZAIHO, KUDAKA

From Sefa-Utaki, look out at the eastern sea. About 5.5 kilometers off, a flat, slender island floats. Barely 8 kilometers around, with a population of some 220 — a small island. Kudaka. The island that Amamikiyo, the founding ancestor of Ryukyu, is said to have crossed over from Niraikanai and created first of all.

This island differs from everywhere else at its very root. On its land, there is no private property. On Kudaka, the land is thought of as borrowed from the gods. So no individual owns land; apart from public land, the community council holds it in common. This system, called soyu (collective ownership), is a custom from the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom, and survives in Okinawa on Kudaka alone. Outside the settlement, almost everything is sacred ground. The whole island belongs to the gods.

On the island’s east coast lies Ishiki Beach. It is said to be where the ship carrying the gods came from Niraikanai and anchored. To this beach, a jar containing the five grains drifted ashore. From there, grain spread to Kudaka, and then to the main island of Okinawa — the mythic birthplace of the five grains. By some records, what drifted ashore was not a jar but a gourd, picked up by a couple named Akacchumi and Shimariba. Because it is so sacred, swimming is forbidden.

There is a fascinating custom. On Kudaka, at the start of the year, each boy picks up three stones from this Ishiki Beach and keeps them at home as charms. And at year’s end, he returns those stones to the beach. Borrow, and return. Nothing is made one’s own. Yes — on this island there is a rule you must know. From this island, you may take nothing home.

Not a pebble, not a shell, not sand, not a plant. People who took something home lightly, as a souvenir, fell ill, met with accidents, were struck by misfortune — such stories never end. And when they come to return what they took, they recover as if by magic. So even now, “returned” items arrive on the island from all over the country. What is there is best left there. What belongs to the gods, to the island of the gods.

Recall Taro Okamoto from the opening. From this “island you must take nothing from,” he took out the very thing you must least of all take out — the figure of the dead. The weight of that act only truly registers once you know this island’s rule.

On Kudaka there is a sacred site at the exact opposite pole from Sefa-Utaki. Fubo-Utaki (Kubo-Utaki). One of the seven utaki of Ryukyu created by Amamikiyo, and the most sacred place on the island. But here, unlike Sefa-Utaki, it is not opened to tourists at all. No one may enter. Once it barred men, and women could go in. But now, neither man nor woman — no one may enter. The only ones who may set foot inside are the noro who perform the rites. Only women who can become gods themselves are permitted into the garden of the gods.

And what guards this absolute forbidden ground is no grand wall, no security guard. Just a single cord, strung across. Step over it lightly and anyone could enter. Physically, there is no barrier at all. Even so, people stop their feet before that cord. “Let us not trample this ground,” each restrains themselves. By that conscience alone, for hundreds of years, this prohibition has been kept.

A place you could step over but no one does is far stronger as a sanctuary than a place you physically cannot enter. An invisible membrane is stretched there. An unseen wall by the name of awe.

And it is not that no one breaks that membrane. Okinawan ghost stories tell this tale. A young man who violated an utaki he should never have carelessly entered fell into kamidaari — and when his bewildered family called a yuta to pray, they were told the young man had dropped his mabui (soul). The utaki is not a place to set foot in lightly. And in recent years it is also whispered: there are utaki that, with depopulation leaving no one to guard them, have been abandoned and left unprotected. Onto a house built atop an abandoned sanctuary, calamity falls.

Opened Sefa-Utaki, and Fubo-Utaki guarded by a single cord. Two utaki of the same Amamikiyo — one welcomes people as a World Heritage Site, the other still refuses people completely. This contrast itself asks us what a sacred site is.

Kudaka has a proverb that sums up the island’s soul in a phrase: “Men are uminchu (people of the sea), women are kaminchu (people of the gods).” When men come of age, they become fishermen. They go out onto the rough sea and feed their families. In fact the uminchu of Kudaka were skilled, and from medieval into early modern times sailed to fish as far as the Amami Islands. Work staked on one’s life. Sea accidents were many. And the women — become gods.

This is no metaphor. On Kudaka, married women born and raised on the island become, almost every one of them, priestesses once they pass thirty. Not just a few special women. Nearly every woman who meets the requirements passes through a certain rite and becomes one who serves the gods. Recall the onari-gami faith. The sister guards the brother spiritually. The woman who has become a god guards the man who goes out to sea. The photographer Yasuo Higa, who went on photographing Kudaka, titled his book recording the island The Land Where Women Protect Men. And the book recording the rite by which women become gods, he titled The Hour When Housewives Become Gods. The name of that rite — is Izaiho.

Izaiho was held once every twelve years, over four days, from the full-moon night of the 15th day of the 11th lunar month in the Year of the Horse. The protagonists: married women born on Kudaka who had passed thirty since the last festival. In these four days they become full-fledged priestesses. Recorded in historical sources as having a history of over 600 years, it is held, as a rite of visiting-god belief, to preserve the prototype of Japanese ritual. What took place over the four days? Let us follow it, day by day.

Early on the first day. “The succession rite of the grandmother’s spirit censer.” This is the deepest core of Izaiho. The grandmother’s censer, in which the dead grandmother’s spiritual power — seji — dwells. Its ashes are gently moved into a small censer the nanchu has brought. The one who moves the ashes is the nanchu’s aunt. When she carries that censer home and transfers it to the household censer, a new priestess is born. In other words, Izaiho is the rite by which a dead grandmother’s spiritual power transfers into the body of her granddaughter. From woman to woman, across generations, spiritual power is handed down.

The evening of the first day. “Crossing the Seven Bridges.” The sun sets, darkness wraps the island. Women in white robes, with washed hair hanging loose and bare feet, come rushing into the ritual ground crying “Eefai, eefai.” Led by senior priestesses, they circle the worship hall seven times. And then — they cross the Seven Bridges. The “Seven Bridges” are bridges laid at the boundary between this world and the world where the gods dwell. In the darkness, the women in white, washed hair streaming in the wind, sprint across these bridges.

They do not merely cross. This crossing judges whether one is fit to be a priestess. The unfit fall from the bridge. And the fallen, it was believed, die. A woman who had two husbands, a woman who married a man from off the island, a woman thought to be of poor conduct — these cannot cross the bridge of the gods. They fall. It also meant that the community of the island watched a woman’s entire life.

The women who finish crossing enter the “Nanatsuya,” where the grandmother spirits wait, and pass a night. The morning of the second day: “the loose-washed-hair dance.” Women who passed a night with the grandmother spirits in the otherworld appear in this world, hair still loose, and dance. The morning of the third day: “shuriiki (the marking in vermilion).” Women who have merged with the grandmother spirits and gained protective power tie up their hair, place izai flowers made of colored paper in their forelocks, and have vermilion marks pressed on forehead and cheeks. The moment of certification as full priestesses. The fourth day: “the house round.” The woman who has become a god returns home and receives a cup of sake from her brother, the symbol of the one to be protected. The sister guards the brother — the onari-gami bond is sealed here.

A woman who became a priestess this way rises in rank — nanchu, yajiku, unsakuu, tamutu — and until she retires (teeyaku) at seventy, she carries more than twenty sacred events a year, praying ceaselessly for the island’s health and prosperity, and for her family. This far is the “form” of the rite. But there is something only the living voice can convey: the voices of the very women who crossed this bridge and became gods.

In 2017, a researcher visited thirteen women who had experienced Izaiho and listened to their stories. Even the youngest was already in her seventies. They spoke in their own words. Not recorded, but written down in a notebook — hear those voices.

One woman said: you do not say you “receive” Izaiho. The island women say you “enter” it. Because it was at once a rite and an entry into the “organization” that carries the sacred events. A woman who ran a shop said she “would not take part,” pleading busyness — and right after, she fell and injured her foot. Thinking “the gods have punished me,” she put on a compress and took part.

Another woman lost her fisherman husband to a typhoon and was raising six children while running a guesthouse. One hardship after another. Even so she says: to be born in Kudaka and not enter Izaiho is not good — for the children’s sake, I entered. She inherited a censer from her paternal grandmother’s elder sister. A woman who had lost her fisherman husband the year before and held four children said she “would not enter.” Then she was scolded: think of the children rather than your dead husband; you must enter. She entered. “But because of that, everyone helped me,” she recalls.

And the words of women who “saw” the gods. One woman, with a steady gaze and a teaching tone, said: “The gods are truly there.” One says: “On Izai-yama the gods were present, and it was truly divine.” One says that when she went through the rite, she “felt I had become unlike an ordinary human,” that she “felt I had become a god.”

The Kudaka language has an adjective, masashii. Right, clear, strong, awesome, superb — a word that gathers all of these together. One woman declared flatly: “The gods of Izaiho are masashii, I think. The gods are watching me.” These are not summaries. Not footage. They are words each woman spoke from her own mouth, looking back over her own life. The woman who hurt her foot. The woman who lost her husband. The woman who says she saw the gods. As you read, they rise up before you, one by one.

Now, look at the numbers a researcher left behind. Year by year, how many women became gods. 1942 — 14. 1954 — 7. 1966 — 30. 1978 — 8. And then. 1990 — zero.

What happened? Depopulation. After the war, men left the island in search of work. Women, too, began to work off the island. The population plummeted. And women qualified to become priestesses — born on the island, married to island men, past thirty — vanished entirely. The eight of 1978 were the last. Even so, the devout islanders carried it through with their whole being, not departing from a single rite or gesture. It made onlookers shudder and weep. And that was the last time.

1990, the next Year of the Horse. The nanchu newly becoming priestesses: zero. The assistant to the Hokama noro, who knew the rite’s prayers and procedures best, had already passed away. A formal Izaiho could not be held. To learn what was done instead breaks the heart. The gods possessed only a handful from the bloodline of the rite’s founder, and those few alone performed a virtual “crossing of the Seven Bridges.” No real bridge, no real nanchu remained. Even so, so as not to let something end, a few crossed an imaginary bridge. Everyone wept.

2002, and 2014 too — canceled for want of nanchu. In 2014, even a “prayer of apology” to the gods for the cancellation was held. One of the thirteen women told the researcher: in the sacred songs, they once sang “Izaiho, for generations without end.” They sang for it to last forever. And she went on: “And yet, now it is not done.”

For over 600 years, repeated every twelve years, the rite by which women become gods. The prototype of ritual that Japan forgot. In this very age in which we live, it has quietly, and forever, ceased.

Finally, one unforgettable story of Izaiho. 1978, the last Izaiho. Among the nanchu was a woman who could not hear. By rights, she should have become a priestess twelve years earlier, in 1966. But for fear she would fall from the Seven Bridges, she was passed over that time. To be unable to cross the bridge means you cannot become a priestess. Twelve years later. Her son had grown and gone out onto the distant sea aboard a deep-sea fishing boat. To pray for her son’s safety at the catch, the mother volunteered herself. I want to become a god once more. I want to guard, as a god, my child gone out to sea. And supported by the women around her, she crossed the Seven Bridges to the end and safely became a priestess. Men are of the sea, women are of the gods. The son gone to sea, guarded by the mother who became a god. The purest form of onari-gami stood there, truly, in the last year of a vanishing rite.

Chapter 4 — The Death of Kudaka: The Dead, Too, Become Gods

Returning to Niraikanai / THE CIRCLE OF NIRAIKANAI

So far we have told the story of “women becoming gods.” But the true awe of this island lies in the other half. On Kudaka — and in many places of old Okinawa — the dead, too, became gods.

Recall the wind burial from the opening. On Kudaka, the dead were not buried in earth. On the island’s western side, on the rocks facing the sea (called gusoo — the afterworld), a coffin holding the body was set. And exposed to the wind. Struck by the rain. Burned by the sun. Over years and years, returned to nature. This is not abandonment. If anything, the reverse. In some areas, the bereaved went to the wind-burial site every day to look in on the departed.

Imagine it. The body of a loved one decaying little by little. To gaze on that form, every day. Flesh falling away, bone laid bare. Does it sound cruel? But for the people of Okinawa, it was otherwise. The very process of the body decaying was the meaning.

As the flesh weathers away, the person draws apart, little by little, from this world to the next. When the raw body is gone and only clean bone remains, that person is no longer a person. They become a god. They become an ancestral spirit. Death was not a single instant of severance. It was a “transition to godhood” over a long, long span of weathering flesh. To become bone was to become a god. So people watched over that transition, every day.

In time the bones are washed. This is senkotsu (bone-washing). They are cleansed with seawater or sake. The “new dead,” whose bones have not yet been washed, were placed near the tomb’s entrance and said to guard the tomb. Because they are still half on this side. And after thirty-three years, the dead cease entirely to be individuals and become ancestral deities who guard the clan. After seven more generations, their souls dissolve completely into gods who protect their descendants. Where the dead are bound is Niraikanai.

Here, everything connects into one. Niraikanai. The otherworld beyond the sea. From there, gods come. Amamikiyo comes. The five grains come. Perhaps the grain was carried by ancient seafaring peoples who rode the Kuroshio current. Ancestors, food, life — all came from beyond the sea. And a person is born. The soul comes from Niraikanai and dwells in a human body.

A woman, past thirty, becomes a god. She inherits her grandmother’s spiritual power, crosses the bridge, and as one of the gods guards the man gone to sea, and her family. A person dies. The flesh weathers, becomes bone, becomes a god (ancestral spirit). And the soul returns to Niraikanai. The returned soul, in time, comes back from Niraikanai as a new life. Come, live, become a god, die, become a god, return, and come again.

A single otherworld, Niraikanai, governs both birth and death. The place of being born and the place of returning are the same. A vast circle centered on the far side of the sea. The small island of Kudaka was a place where that circle had become, whole, a single island. Now you understand why Sefa-Utaki has gone on pressing its palms together toward the eastern sea — the direction of Niraikanai. That empty clearing was the near side of the door through which life and death pass in and out.

The true identity of what Taro Okamoto called “the forgotten Japan” is, probably, this. To receive death not as severance but as circulation. To welcome the dead not with fear but as gods. Another view of life and death, which we let go somewhere in the modern age. At the most delicate place in that circle — the wind-burial sanctuary where the dead transition into gods — a single camera stepped in.

In 1966, Taro Okamoto (or a companion) broke a promise to the islanders, opened the lid of a wind-burial coffin, and photographed the skeletal woman. And that photograph was published in 1967, in the magazine Shukan Asahi, in an article titled “Kudaka, Island of Mystery.” For the islanders, it meant the most defenseless figure of an ancestor in the midst of becoming a god, exposed to the public eye. The sacred transition from death to godhood was uncovered mid-passage.

The islanders were enraged. And so that such a thing would never happen again, they sealed the wind-burial place in concrete. At that moment, the wind burial of Kudaka ended. That time in which the dead decay and become gods no longer flows. The death-side half of the circle was cut through by a single photograph.

Here, pause. Was Taro Okamoto a villain? He loved Okinawa more than anyone. He saw “the forgotten Japan” on this island and tried to tell the world. His book still calls many people to this island. That you are reading this very article may, traced back, be due to the fire he lit. He loved. He tried to understand. And even so — no, for that very reason, he photographed. Because he wanted to see. Because he wanted to tell. To see. To photograph. To record. It is a form of love and, at the same time, a form of violence.

And we — we who photograph Kudaka through the collapsed hole at Sangui. We who stand in a sanctuary where a god descends and press the shutter. We who, without thinking, try to capture in our cameras the back of a yuta praying with her life. Is that finger of ours truly different from Taro Okamoto’s finger?

The Sangui of Sefa-Utaki collapsed and became a stunning view. The Seven Bridges of Kudaka vanished when no one was left to cross them. The wind-burial sanctuary was sealed in concrete. The “nothingness” that gave Taro Okamoto vertigo is opened, photographed, consumed, and worn down little by little. Tourists photograph the view through the collapsed hole and go home. Before the same rock, a yuta who has passed through kamidaari prays with her life. Looking at the same sea, one sees a blue landscape, the other a path of the gods. Standing in the same place, the world they see is utterly different.

When we gaze at Kudaka through the gap in the triangular rock, what we truly see may not be the island beyond the sea. What we see is — the god come from outside, received by women; people who live, die, become gods, and return again to the sea — the last smolder of that vast circle. The woman who crossed the bridge even with an injured foot. The woman who felt she had become a god. The mother who became a god once more for her son. The bereaved who watched their kin decay, every day. And the island that sang “Izaiho, for generations without end” — and could no longer have those generations. All of it, we merely “watch.” Camera in hand.

So, finally, let me ask. Did you come to this island merely “to look”? Or — are you already being called? And if you are being called: what will you see here, what will you photograph, what will you take home, and what will you, gently, leave just as it is? The far side of the sea is, today as well, quietly looking back at us.

The god comes from beyond the sea.
The woman becomes a god and guards the man.
The dead decay, become gods, and return beyond the sea.
And come again.
Before that circle, we simply hold up our cameras.

A Pilgrim’s Code

What to Eat Before You Leave the Island of the Gods

From here on is a practical guide for actually “traveling” the sacred sites. After crossing the sea — what to eat, where to stay, which hot spring to soak in. We map out a two-day, one-night trip, carrying the afterglow of the myths.

There is one dish you absolutely must eat on Kudaka: irabu soup. A nourishing medicinal broth of smoked sea snake (erabu sea krait), simmered slowly — a dish that, in the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom, never reached commoners’ mouths. It is said the uminchu who sailed the open sea carried it as a precious source of nutrition. Its flavor defies its appearance, and they say “eat it twice a year and you won’t catch a cold.” You can have it at the island diner “Shokujidokoro Tokujin.” Next to the ferry waiting hall, it serves, besides irabu soup, the “Kudaka gozen” (a daily set meal) of island ingredients, “nigana-ae” made with the island’s bitter greens, Okinawa soba, and a sashimi set. It is the island mothers who cook. A genuine island diner.

Back on the main island, head for the heights of Chinen. Cafe Kurukuma is a stunning-view location cafe set in “Kurukuma Forest,” close to the Niraikanai Bridge. Ethnic cuisine by a Thai chef from Thailand; the signature is the “Kurukuma Special,” three curries served with crispy chicken. From the wide terrace, you can take in Cape Chinen and the sea where Kudaka floats. Dining inside, then tea on the terrace after — a popular way to spend the time.

Name	Location / Contact	What to try	Booking / Details
Shokujidokoro TokujinKudaka	Kudaka, next to the ferry waiting hall TEL 098-948-2889	Irabu soup / Kudaka gozen / nigana-ae / Okinawa soba	Tabelog ▶
Cafe KurukumaView	Kurukuma Forest, Chinen, Nanjo City (near the Niraikanai Bridge)	Kurukuma Special / Thai curry / sea-view terrace	Tabelog ▶

*Hours, closing days, and prices change, so confirm before visiting. Tokujin closes irregularly and may, for the time being, operate on shortened hours.

For souvenirs, choose the island’s own products. Kudaka’s specialty nigana, seafood, and irabu-related processed goods can be found at “Nanjii Shoten,” the online shop run by the Nanjo City Tourism Association, and at the “Nanjo City Regional Products Hall” at the entrance to Sefa-Utaki. The products hall also sells admission tickets to Sefa-Utaki. Note that, as written in Chapter 3, taking stones, sand, shells, or plants from Kudaka is strictly forbidden. Choose souvenirs from “things you may carry off the island.”

Places to See the Far Side of the Sea with Your Own Eyes

Centered on Sefa-Utaki and Kudaka, the east coast of Nanjo City strings together spots that “look toward Niraikanai.” The Niraikanai Bridge is a great curving bridge, 660m long and 80m high, descending from the Tsukishiro area toward National Route 331. From the bridge, you can take in Cape Chinen and Kudaka floating on the cobalt-blue sea. You cannot stop on the bridge, so the right move is to park at the observation deck and look from there.

Cape Chinen Park is a grassy cape jutting into the sea. A free, stunning-view park with Kudaka straight ahead and Komaka Island to the right, also known as a sunrise spot. Azama Sun Sun Beach, adjacent to Azama Port where you cross to Kudaka, is an artificial beach but its water is clear, and you can swim in the season. On the Kudaka side, the mythic Ishiki Beach (no swimming; sacred ground) and the island’s far end, Cape Kabel (Habyaan) = Amamikiyo’s landing place, can be toured by rental bicycle.

*Obey the off-limits zones within sacred grounds and the requests to refrain from photography. Taking flora, fauna, stones, or sand from Kudaka is strictly forbidden.

Surrender to Bath and Sleep, Facing the Sea

In Nanjo City there are inns with rooms facing Kudaka. Two places where, in the afterglow of the myths, you can sleep as if dissolving into the sea.

★ LUXURY ─ Ikyu

Hyakuna Garan

A Japanese-Ryukyuan style inn standing on the coast near Mibaru Beach. Every room is an ocean-front suite; from the “Hakuin room” you look out at Kudaka and Ou Island. The top-floor private open-air bath is a sky-blue water that seems to melt into the sea. Awarded a Michelin Key in 2025. An adults-only inn for ages 13 and up. (TEL 098-949-1011)

Check availability on Ikyu ▶

◆ REASONABLE ─ Jalan

Yuinchi Hotel Nanjo

A red-tiled wellness resort on a hill in Sashiki. On its 11.5-hectare grounds: the natural hot spring “Enjin no Yu,” indoor and outdoor pools, the all-you-can-play “Peace-Po” with some 50 activities, even contact with Yonaguni horses. An affordable place that three generations of a family can enjoy. There are also rooms with private hot springs.

Book on Jalan ▶

No Stay, Just the Bath ─ Day-Trip Hot Spring

A natural hot spring, rare in Okinawa, lies right beside the sacred sites. Sashiki no Enjin no Yu is a free-flowing source spring that Yuinchi Hotel Nanjo draws up from 2,119m below ground. Waters of roughly 54 million and 5 million years ago blend naturally; the water, neither diluted, heated, nor filtered, is enjoyed together with a stunning hilltop view. Blue sea and sky by day; the night view of Nanjo City and a starry sky by night. Both day-trip bathing and private baths are available.

*Bathing fees and hours differ by source and change. Confirm on the official site or by phone before visiting.

A Stunning Natural Hot Spring, at a Discount ─ Enjin no Yu

Sashiki no Enjin no Yu offers advance-sale discount bathing tickets (bath + towel set, etc.) on Asoview. No payment on the day; go to the bath empty-handed.

See Enjin no Yu tickets on Asoview ▶

If You’re Unsure How to Get There ─ Access to the Island of the Gods

Kudaka is a remote island, requiring transfers between ferry/high-speed boat and route or community buses. With a rental car + lodging, or a southern-Okinawa tour plan that bundles Sefa-Utaki and Kudaka, you can leave the whole travel arrangement to JTB. The harder a sacred site is to reach, the better a package works.

Find a southern-Okinawa trip on JTB ▶

Two Days, One Night: Tracing the Circle

At Sefa-Utaki, feel the “blankness that waits for the gods”; cross the sea and walk the “island where one becomes a god / returns” on Kudaka. A route that traces the circle of life and death in two days.

*The ferry and high-speed boat run about 6 round trips a day; no reservations, buy at the counter on the day. After the last boat (departing Azama Port at 17:00), you cannot return to the main island the same day. Service may be canceled in bad weather. Confirm the day’s operation with Kudaka Kaiun (098-948-7785).

Access & Essentials

For Those Who Want to Go Deeper (Further Reading)