At Ainu memorial service in Okinawa, prayers for peace and friendship

At Ainu memorial service in Okinawa, prayers for peace and friendship

Memorial service participants quietly offer a prayer while wishing for peace and friendship between the Ainu people and Okinawa, on May 17 in front of the Namboku Tower in Maehira, Itoman


May 24, 2019 Ryukyu Shimpo

(Itoman) On May 17, the Uruma Association in Solidarity with the Ainu People (representative: Shinya Mayonaka) held an Ainu memorial service (“Icharupa”) in front of the Nanboku Tower in Maehira, Itoman to honor the souls of Ainu soldiers and Okinawans who perished in the Battle of Okinawa. Around 30 people from Hokkaido, Kanto, Kansai, and other places outside Okinawa, as well as Uruma Association members, Maehira residents, and others participated in the service and offered a prayer, wishing for peace and friendship between the Ainu and Okinawa.

The Uruma Association in Solidarity with the Ainu People, in cooperation with the “Anti-‘Northern Territories Day’! Carry out the ‘New Ainu Law’! National Executive Committee,” holds a memorial service every year around May 15, the day of the Okinawan reversion to Japan. This year’s was the twentieth service.

“We had our language and culture stolen from us, and were treated almost identically to the Ryukyuans. I hope to forever continue offering condolences at the Nanboku Tower,” said Shinritsu Eoripakku Ainu Kawamura, 68, director of the Kawamura Kaneto Ainu Memorial Hall in Asahikawa, Hokkaido and chair of the Asahikawa Ainu Association.

Kawamura and others surrounded a flame dressed in traditional Ainu clothing and gave an offering of rice wine to the god of fire and the god of the Okinawan land, praying in the Ainu language. The women took fruit and snacks and ate half, offering the other half to the ancestors, and offered a quiet prayer.

(English translation by T&CT and Sandi Aritza)

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