Recently I have been asked about a periodization of Okinawa. Surely there are various, often based on different approaches and perspectives.
In 1989, Takara Kurayoshi presented an update of the usual perdiodization. I think it still did not reach the mainstream, so here it is. At that time, Takara advocated a periodization of Ryukyuan history into four divisions. He used this as an immediate working hypothesis for his new research findings and – for easy understanding – contrasted it to the accepted transition of Japanese history. This periodization is good for most tasks.
Translation and design: Andreas Quast, first published in Karate 1.0, 2013.
However, when looking at the combat arts in Ryukyu, a slightly different periodization is necessary. Therefore, based on Takara’s proposal, I came up with the following periodization. It is based specifically on my findings regarding the transition of security related government organization and official posts over the course of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
In any case, when talking about the kingdom era, one specific periodization should be used as a reference, and it doesn’t need to be one of the above two.
© 2019, Andreas Quast. All rights reserved.