Utaki

The indigenous belief of the Ryukyu Islands centres on the utaki, sacred places that are usually a grove, spring, cave or mountain near a village, where ancestors and nature gods were venerated. Its holiest spot, the ibi, could be entered only by the noro, the priestesses. The women of the family were held spiritually superior, a belief called onarigami.

Sefa-utaki, where the goddess Amamikyu, who gave birth to the Ryukyu Islands, is said to have come down, was the most sacred official site of the Ryukyu Kingdom. In the traditional accounts Shō Hashi united the three kingdoms of Okinawa into one in the early fifteenth century.

King Shō En made his daughter the kikoe-ōgimi, the chief priestess, in 1469. After Satsuma invaded in 1609, Confucian thought wore down the priestesses' authority.