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Ryukyu Kingdom

The Ryukyu Kingdom was an independent kingdom that ruled the Ryukyu Islands, centered on Okinawa, from its unification in 1429 until its formal annexation by Japan in 1879. For over four centuries, it functioned as a significant trading hub between Japan, China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, facilitating extensive cultural and economic exchange across the region.

The kingdom's geopolitical position had a direct influence on the development of Okinawan martial arts. In 1477, King Sho Shin banned the practice of martial arts among the population. In 1609, following invasion by the Satsuma Domain of Japan, a further prohibition on weapons was imposed. These bans pushed martial practice underground, where it was preserved and developed in secret among the ruling class and dedicated practitioners.

This environment of restricted practice contributed directly to the development of Kobudo, the Okinawan weapons system built around tools that were not recognizable as weapons: farming implements such as rice flails, mill handles, sickles, and boat oars. The nunchaku, bo, tonfa, sai, and kama all emerged within this tradition.

The Ryukyu Kingdom's connections with Fujian Province in China also brought Chinese martial arts influences to Okinawa, which were absorbed and adapted into the local fighting systems that would eventually develop into karate.

The kingdom was formally dissolved in 1879 when Japan established Okinawa Prefecture. Its martial arts legacy, however, continued and eventually spread globally through the twentieth century.

Bushido meant stoicism, self-discipline, and dignity in one’s personal bearing; it emphasized mastery of the martial arts through long training and practice; it lauded sacrifice in service to duty, without the slightest fear of death; it demanded asceticism and simplicity in daily life, without regard to comforts, appetites, or luxuries. The samurai was “to live as if already dead,” an outlook consonant with Buddhism; he was to regard death with fatalistic indifference, rather than cling to a life that was essentially illusory. Shame or dishonor might require suicide as atonement—and when a samurai killed himself, he did so by carving out his own viscera with a short steel blade. But traditional bushido had not imposed an obligation to abhor retreat or surrender even when a battle had turned hopeless, and the old-time samurai who had done his duty in a losing cause could lay down his arms with honor intact.
Ian W. Toll

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Ryukyu Kingdom
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