Sēfa Utaki: Okinawa’s Most Sacred Site

Built by a Goddess, Revered by Kings

In Okinawa, the word utaki (sacred grove) is used to refer to a place where deities and the spirits of the ancestors descend to our earthly plain. In the Chūzan Seikan, a historical chronicle compiled in 1650, an account of “the beginnings of Ryūkyū” states that the ancestral deity Amamiku (also known as Amamikiyo) came to earth and created seven utaki.

One of these was Sēfa Utaki, located in what is now part of the city of Nanjō. During the time of the Ryūkyū Kingdom (1429–1879), this was the most important of the sites visited by the king on his ceremonial eastward pilgrimage of the holy places in his kingdom (agari-umāi). This was also where the enthronement of the Kikoe-Ōkimi, the highest priestess in the indigenous Okinawan religion, used to take place. I visited Okinawa to experience the atmosphere of a site that has been regarded for centuries as a home of the divine.

Within the sacred sanctuary, ferns take root in Ryūkyū limestone. (© Ōsaka Hiroshi)

Reverence for Nature

In the days of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, only women associated with the royal family were permitted to pass beyond the Ujōguchi gate at the entrance to the Sēfa Utaki. Everyone else prayed from the gate, barred from entering the sanctuary itself.

From the gate, cobblestoned pathways lead to six ibi or prayer sites, flanked on both sides by dense forest. In olden times the groves were so thick that even at noon little sunlight reached the ground. Logging and the devastation of war wrought considerable damage to the site in modern times, but today the trees have grown back, spreading their branches overhead, and a solemn atmosphere of shaded peace is gradually returning.

Following the stone path past the first ibi (Ufugūi), I come to a junction where the trail branches left and right. Turning left, I see a huge, oddly shaped rock formation at the end of the path. A large stalactite hangs down, and in the overhang is an altar formed from a carefully arranged pile of stones. The site is called Yuinchi. In the language of the royal court, the word normally referred to kitchens, but here it is thought to have meant a place where fertility and plenty gather. Priestesses and shamans would come here to divine the year’s harvests using horse-shaped stones.

Returning to the main path, I continue until I reach a pair of massive rocks leaning together to form a triangular opening known as the Sangūi. On the walls here remains the Chōnohana, said to have been the vantage point from which the goddess surveyed heaven and earth, and the place from which the sacred island of Kudakajima is revered from afar. Today, however, entry is forbidden to protect the sanctity of the site.

I notice a mother and her child, presumably locals, pressing their hands together in prayer before the sacred opening. Even though Sēfa-Utaki is now a tourist destination, it remains a living sacred site for the people of Okinawa, carrying on a tradition of faith and local culture that endures unbroken from the days when the islands were an independent kingdom.

At Yuinchi, people would pray for a plentiful harvest. (© Ōsaka Hiroshi)

(Originally published in Japanese. Text and editing by Kitazaki Jirō. Banner photo: The Sangūi, the best-known symbol of the Sēfa Utaki site. © Ōsaka Hiroshi. With thanks to Nanjō City Board of Education.)