美しい庶民の少女の伝説と唄
ここに並ぶ沖縄の古い様式の庶民が眠る墓。そのひとつが美しさと芯の強さで知られた女性、安里屋クヤマ（一七二二―一七九九）の安息の地です。
言い伝えによると、彼女は、絶大なる権力をもっていた琉球王国の役人が、彼女を自分の賄女にしようと迫ってきたのを拒否します。この気丈さが沖縄を代表する民謡、「安里屋ユンタ」という歌にうたい継がれています。クヤマはその後、生涯結婚せず独身で過ごしたそうです。役人を袖にするという当時では考えられない行為は、虐げられていた島民たちに大きな勇気を授けたことでしょう。
「安里屋ユンタ」は、現在では「新安里屋ユンタ」として編曲され、竹富島ばかりでなく世界中で歌われています。
Asato Kuyama’s Haka (Grave)
One of these seaside graves stands out from the others, both for its appearance and its legendary history. The Okinawan-style heaped-stone burial mound is the resting place of Asato Kuyama (1722-1799). Her story, 300 years later, still intrigues the islanders; it remains extraordinary, and is not fully understood.
She is renowned more for her courage, cleverness and independence than for her beauty. Despite being a peasant woman at a time when defying authorities could lead to death, she refused to become the makanaijo (local wife) of a Ryukyu kingdom bureaucrat sent to Yaeyama for a two- to three-year period. Such a role meant she would have been required to give support as a local wife, acting as one in all respects. There were few legal benefits, but she would have received a reduction in nintozei (poll tax) for her family and she would have been allowed to own land. The story of this rejection captivated the islanders at a time when direct celebration of a seeming act of defiance or impertinence would have been extremely dangerous. After her death, she was immortalized in the song “Asatoya Yunta,” which has become one of Japan’s best-loved folk tunes. There are three songs from the Yaeyama Islands with the same name; the Taketomi version from that time celebrates a woman’s courage, her survival, cleverness, and consummate skill with social relationships in a small community, but by singing of the rejected official’s success finding a makanaijo from another village. “Shin [new] Asatoya Yunta,” a more recent song from nearly 90 years ago, has become popular not just in Japan, but on a global scale. “Shin Asatoya Yunta” is more a love song, possibly less grounded in the reality of her time.
Her courage and cleverness are demonstrated by her subsequent life: she accepted a local leader of lower rank from Yaeyama and lived out a full life. Residents can still point out the land that she held.
