Naminoue-gu

Naminoue-gu in Naha, Okinawa, stands at the top of the Naminoue cliff overlooking the East China Sea and the historic port. It is the leading shrine of the Ryukyu Eight Shrines (Ryukyu Hassha), the official shrines of the Ryukyu Kingdom. The main deities are Izanami no Mikoto and the Kumano deities Hayatama-o no Kami and Kotosaka-o no Kami. Izanami is recorded in Kojiki (712 CE) as the mother goddess who bore the islands and the fire deity Kagutsuchi and then descended to Yomi. Local Ryukyu tradition associates the site with the offshore Nirai Kanai, the ancestral realm beyond the sea, indicating a fusion of Ryukyu utaki worship with the imported Kumano cult. The shrine's precise founding is uncertain but documentary records survive from the 13th–15th-century Ryukyu kingdom. The May 17 grand festival is the principal annual rite.