Yanbaru Kijimuna Legend

The Yanbaru Kijimuna legend records a southern-island folk cycle of red-haired child-form spirits known as kijimuna ('tree spirits') in the forests of the Yanbaru region of northern Okinawa Island. The kijimuna dwell in the hollows of great trees, especially the gajumaru (banyan), and are said to share their catch of fish, particularly the irabucha, with people who befriend them; if they take offence they play various tricks. A tradition holds that the kijimuna eats only the left eye of a fish, and fishermen who found a fish missing only its left eye attributed it to the kijimuna. The figure ranges across the forest, river and shore of Yanbaru, and through its dealings with villagers forms the folk world of northern Okinawa. The structure has three parts: a sighting at the hollow of a great gajumaru or other tree; a friendship of sharing fish; and a tricking-and-breaking of the relationship after a betrayal. As a boundary figure resembling the kappa, the kijimuna is placed within the older spirit cosmology of Okinawa and the Nirai-Kanai sea-otherworld belief. The forests of Yanbaru have an ecosystem distinct from the mainland, and the kijimuna stand at the intersection of ecology and folk life. The setting includes the forests of Kunigami-son, Ogimi-son and Higashi-son in Kunigami-gun, Okinawa, the heart of the World Natural Heritage area 'Amami Oshima, Tokunoshima, the Northern Part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island', with the gajumaru and itajii subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest as the natural stage of the cycle. The figure is connected to the southern-island sphere of Kudaka-jima and Sefa-utaki (Nanjo) and is kin to the Kenmun of Amami Oshima (Kagoshima). Sources include Iha Fuyu's Old Ryukyu and Omoro Kenkyu, Hokama Shuzen's History and Culture of Okinawa and Miyagi Shinji's The Folklore of Okinawa. Records from the southern-island surveys of Yanagita Kunio and Origuchi Shinobu, the folklore volume of the Okinawa prefectural history and the Kunigami township history, the Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum's standing exhibitions and the World Natural Heritage records provide further documentation.