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;Ryukyuan Postage Stamps
From the Period of U.S. Military Rule, 1945-1972
From 1945 through 1972, the Ryukyu Islands comprising present-day Okinawa Prefecture were under U.S. military rule. Travel to (mainland) Japan by Okinawans required a passport, the U.S. dollar was the currency, and there was a separate postal system for the Ryukyu Islands. Many of the Ryukyuan postage stamps are of excellent artistic quality, and they tend to commemorate Ryukyuan history and culture. Such commemoration, of course was not politically neutral. It reinforced the U.S. claim that the Ryukyu Islands should be regarded as distinct from Japan.
Click on each thumbnail image below for the full-sized version of the stamp. Below the group of thumbnail images I have included brief explanations for each stamp.
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1. Stamp commemorating Sai On, the most influential politician and thinker of the eighteenth century (for a detailed study of Sai On in English, see Gregory Smits, Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics. University of Hawaii Press, 1999).
2. Rare stamp commemorating Sai On's forestry policies. Sai On's name appears above the fish-scale like background, which is itself significant in terms of the details of Sai On's forestry methods.
3. Stamp commemorating agricultural scholar, bureaucrat and popular rights advocate Jahana Noboru (for a biography of Jahana in English, see Gregory Smits, “Jahana Noboru: Okinawan Activist and Scholar.” Anne Walthall, ed., The Human Tradition in Modern Japan. Scholarly Resources, 2002: 99-113.)
4. Stamp commemorating the literary scholar and politician Giwan Chôho, who lived during the last years of the kingdom and advocated close ties with Japan (a fact probably unknown to the American bureaucrat who approved the stamp).
5. Eighteenth-century physician and medical researcher Nakachi Kijin, who, among other accomplishments, developed an inoculation technique for smallpox using cowpox scabs.
6. Stamp commemorating the 300th anniversary of Noguni Sôkan's ("Inspector Noguni") bringing the sweet potato to Okinawa from China (Okinawan cuisine page).
7. Stamp commemorating the izaihô religious rites performed by high priestesses on Kudaka Island (just offshore from Okinawa) to commemorate the gift of edible grains from the deities.
8. Stamp commemorating a dramatic performance of an event from Ryukyuan mythology connected with the reign of the semi-legendary King Gihon, in which a filial daughter offers herself to be devoured by a giant serpent.
9. Stamp featuring the Benzaiten Shrine in Shuri that housed 15th-century Korean editions of Buddhist sutras. It was destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa.
10. Stamp featuring the Shurei-mon, the main ceremonial gateway leading to Shuri castle and featuring a plaque bestowed upon the kingdom by a Chinese emperor saying 守禮之邦, literally "The country that preserves proper ritualized forms of propriety,"--a great compliment from a Chinese emperor.
11. Stamp featuring the main hall in Shuri Castle.
12. Stamp featuring the Madama Bridge near Naha, built in the sixteenth century and destroyed in the Battle of Okinawa.
13. Stamp commemorating the restoration of the main gate at the Enkaku (also "Engaku") Buddhist temple, which was destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa.
14. Stamp featuring the Nakamura family residence (a wealthy farm household preserved in its early 19th-century manifestation and commonly called) and commemorating the cultural preservation week.
15. Stamp featuring the bridge over the Hôshô Pond at the Enkaku Buddhist temple and commemorating the cultural preservation week.
16. Stamp commemorating the unjami festivals, which correspond to Japanese o-bon festivals in the late summer or early fall.
17. Commemorated by this stamp, Benzaiten-dô is a small Buddhist structure within the Rinzai Zen temple complex of Enkakuji. Benzaiten was a Buddhist guardian deity, and the building housing (-dô) it is located on an island in a pond. Benzaiten-dô was also the repository of several classical texts (another photo).
18. Stamp commemorating the statues of Niô (a common Buddhist guardian deity usually depicted in an "a-un" pair) at Tôrinji, a small Rinzai Zen temple in Yaeyama.
19. Reversion!
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FYI: Catalog of Ryukyuan stamps for sale (no endorsement of the business implied).
