Sefa-utaki Legend

The Sefa-utaki legend records the supreme sacred site of the Ryukyu kingdom on the Chinen peninsula in southern Okinawa Island. In the Ryukyuan creation tradition, the creator deity Amamikyo descended from the heavens and made seven utaki, of which Sefa-utaki is foremost. The investiture of the kingdom's highest priestess, the Kikoe-Ogimi, was conducted here in the rite called Oarari. The precinct contains three altars - Ufugui, Yuinchi and Sangui - of which Ufugui served the principal royal rites and Sangui faces the sacred island of Kudaka offshore. The female-priestly system maintained at the site differs in lineage from mainland shrine worship. The site is in Kudeken, Chinen, Nanjo City, and was inscribed in 2000 as part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu. Sources include the Chuzan Seikan (Hashi Choshu, 1650), the Omoro Soshi (Shuri court compilation, sixteenth to seventeenth centuries) and the Ryukyu-koku Yuraiki (1713), with later documentation in the Okinawa prefectural history and the Nanjo City and Cultural Affairs Agency World Heritage records.