Lion Dance of the Serikyaku

A Shaggy Lion Under the Harvest Moon

On the night of the eighth full moon of the lunar calendar, a stage goes up outside the community hall in Jitchaku, a residential district of Urasoe City just north of Naha. A lion takes the boards. It is not the smooth, cloth-bodied creature familiar from mainland Japanese festivals. Its head is carved wood, its body a mass of shaggy fiber, and inside it move two dancers, one working the front legs and one the back. This is the Jitchaku Lion Dance (Jitchaku no Shishimai), held each year at the Jugoya, the mid-autumn full-moon harvest festival.

The dance belongs to a family of Okinawan lion performances that look almost nothing like their counterparts to the north. Scholars believe the form reached the islands directly from the Chinese mainland in early times, taking a path of its own rather than passing through Japan. The lion's head is cut from the light, workable wood of the deigo, the Indian coral tree that flowers scarlet across Okinawa in early summer. The body is built from palm-fiber rope worked together with the fibers of banana plant and ramie, sewn into a thick, hairy costume that gives the animal its restless, almost living surface.

A single lion appears here, as is the custom on Okinawa's main island; in the Miyako and Yaeyama islands further south, lions usually come in pairs. Gong, drum, flute, and conch shell drive the rhythm, while a coaxing figure known locally as the shishi-waiyaa teases and leads the animal through its repertoire. The lion plays with a ball, gnaws at a roof beam, scratches at fleas, rolls onto its back. These are comic, observational turns, mimicry of a real animal's habits rather than abstract ceremony, and Jitchaku is known for performing them with unusual precision.

Selected, Not Designated: What the Status Means

The Jitchaku Lion Dance carries a specific national status that is easy to misread. In 1973 it was made a Selected Intangible Folk Cultural Property, the full Japanese term being a property "for which measures such as the production of records should be taken." This is distinct from the better-known categories of Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property or National Treasure. Selection is the government's way of identifying a living tradition that merits careful documentation and support, often as a step that precedes or stands apart from formal designation. It signals that the practice is regarded as nationally significant and worth recording in detail before it can change or fade.

What earned Jitchaku that recognition is the completeness of its repertoire. The performance is built from eleven distinct acts, divided into ceremonial pieces called Janme and lighter, playful ones called Moya, each set to its own sanshin melody. Many Okinawan communities perform a handful of the common lion-dance turns; Jitchaku has kept a fuller and more exact body of forms than most, which is why it is often described as representative of the main island's lion dance. The dance is also recognized as an intangible folk cultural property by the city of Urasoe, though sources differ on the exact year of that municipal recognition.

The history behind the tradition is long and, in one chapter, very nearly an ending. The dance is said to reach back roughly four hundred years, traditionally attributed to a figure remembered as Kore Gushiken, whose identity is no longer clear. The Battle of Okinawa in 1945 destroyed the Jitchaku district almost entirely. The village hall burned, and the lions, stage costumes, sanshin, gong, drum, and smaller props were all lost. When residents were permitted to return from the internment camps in 1947, they built a new hall at once, made fresh lions and costumes, and revived the Jugoya the same year. The festival has been held every year since without a single break.

What to Watch For

For two decades after the war the Jugoya ran from evening until dawn without pause. All eleven lion-dance numbers appeared, alongside children's dances, the young men's nisai-odori, women's dances, and a wide range of comic theatre pieces called chogin. Urbanization, changing work patterns, and the simple problem of time later trimmed the program, and several numbers have slipped out of practice. The lion dance itself remains the heart of the night and the anchor of community life in Jitchaku.

Watching, give your attention to the lion's lower half. Because two dancers must read each other through the costume, the coordination of front and back legs is where the skill shows. In the ceremonial Janme pieces the movement is measured and weighted; in the playful Moya turns it loosens into something closer to mischief. Listen for the sanshin as well. The melody changes with the type of act, so the music tells you, before the lion does, whether you are about to see ritual or comedy.

The festival's purpose sits behind every movement. The night is given over to warding off misfortune, praying for an abundant harvest, and asking for the prosperity of descendants. Younger children sometimes find the lion genuinely frightening, which is part of the point; the animal is meant to carry real force.

Around Jitchaku

Urasoe rewards a half-day even outside festival season, and its older history runs deep. Before Shuri rose to power, this was the seat of the Chuzan kingdom, and the Urasoe Castle ruins still command a long view toward Naha bay. Just below them lies the Urasoe Yodore, the rock-cut royal mausoleum associated with the early kings, a quiet and atmospheric place to walk.

A short distance away, the Urasoe Art Museum is worth planning around. Opened in 1990, it was Japan's first museum devoted to lacquerware and Okinawa's first public art museum, and its permanent galleries trace Ryukyu lacquer from the sixteenth century to the present. The building itself, with its octagonal dome and clustered towers, is a striking piece of architecture. Admission is inexpensive, and the museum sits within easy reach of the castle ruins. Urasoe is roughly forty minutes by car from Naha Airport and about ten from Shuri Castle, with the Yui Rail monorail reaching Urasoe-Maeda Station nearby.