Spendor of Okinawa Bonus: A story from the Ryukyu Kingdom

  

The Legend of the Feather Robe

In the Mashiki district of Ginowan City, there’s a spring called Mui-nu-kaa (Forest River). This spring gushes out of the earth in the middle of a peaceful forest. From time to time the call of a mountain bird deepens even more the sense of peacefulness in the forest.

A long time ago, a young man from the village finished off his work in the fields early and stopped by Mui-nu-kaa intending to wash his hands and feet as usual. But, there was a beautiful young woman bathing alone there. The young man quickly hid himself and, without even thinking, took in the sight of the woman.

Mui-nu-kaa

“How can a woman be so beautiful!” he thought. She was so beautiful that she took his breath away. Then, chancing to look around, he saw a faintly gleaming robe hung firmly over the branch of a pine tree. The young man, knowing full well he was doing wrong, took the cloth-like robe off the branch and quietly left the spot.

After going back home for a while, he could not get the beautiful woman out of his mind. So, he returned to check Mui-nu-kaa. The beautiful woman was still there, but softly sobbing, her face in her hands. Without a second thought, the young man called out to her. “Excuse me, what’s wrong? Why are you standing there crying like that?”

Hearing the human voice, the woman immediately squatted down into the water and answered, while still sobbing. “I’m an angel from heaven. I was charmed by the beauty of this spring and just had to take a bath in it. But my feather robe, which I’m sure I left hanging on that pine branch, isn’t there anymore. If I don’t find that robe, I can’t get back to heaven.”

“Being naked like that must be embarrassing for you. I don’t know if it will be a problem for you or not, but, at any rate, please put on my clothes and wait at my house. I’ll find the feather robe and give it back to you,” said the young man. Then he dressed the woman in his own clothes.

Now there is a rule that angels must never visit a human house. But, with her feather robe gone, she had no choice but to stay at the young man’s house. 

The young man pretended to search for the feather robe every day. He continually fooled the angel by suggesting, “The wind was strong that day, so maybe the robe blew away, or maybe a bird picked it up with its beak and flew away with it.”

But time passed and after a while the couple fell in love. They became husband and wife and their two children were born, a boy and a girl. As now a mother, the angel seemed to have completely forgotten about the feather robe and heaven to live with her family of four. But from time to time, she would go to Mui-nu-kaa, look up to heaven, and sob gently.

In his heart, the young man knew he had done her a wrong, but now that they even had children, there was nothing to do but decide to pretend not to know what he really knew.

Then one day, the children were playing in the barn and did not even come home for lunch. Thinking it was strange, the angel went to check the barn. Her children were there, but she was surprised to also see something gleaming in a corner. After all those months and years, she could see it wrapped in a completely faded cloth, her feather robe.

“Ah, could it have been my husband who stole my feather robe?” The angel’s heart was rocked with confusion. Under the circumstances, she had a duty to return immediately to heaven. But, when she considered her children and her love for the young man, the angel stood there with her feather robe in her hands, not knowing what was best to do.

However, now that she had found her feather robe, living any longer on earth would be unpardonable for an angel. So one day, with a heart more charged with more affection than ever before, she saw the young man off to the fields. 

Then she said goodbye to her children and told them why. “Now that I have my feather robe, your mom has to return to heaven. You two must be strong together and become wonderful people. I’ll watch over and protect both of you forever and ever from high up in the sky.”

As their mother’s figure lifted up gently, her two weeping children stretched out their hands to follow her. At that painful goodbye that seemed to cut her flesh, the angel  seemed to almost hesitate, but then swirled high up into the sky. Her heart was left behind in her parting.

Turning to look back on the pure faces of her two children, the angel let her tears flow freely. The freely falling tears became raindrops and sharply sketched a rainbow in the western sky.

Hearing the voices of his children bitterly crying, the young man came swiftly running to see what had happened. Seeing his two children crying hysterically while looking up to the sky and the angel’s form in the far distance, he understood completely. It is said that he looked up into the sky and held his hands together in prayer for the longest time.

Their two children grew up to be wonderful adults, and the boy, at the urging of the people, became the King of Ryukyu.

Note on pronunciation: Okinawan consonants sound much the same as their alphabetical counterparts in English. Vowels follow the sounds of the a,e,i,o,u of Italian or Spanish. Doubling means that the vowel is lengthened, not repeated.

 

Story: compiled and written in Japanese by Kyoko Ishikawa. English translation by William A. O’Donnell (odomnail@rocketmail.com), edited by Thomas Marsh.