I was asked by one of our members to quickly review the cultural exchange done at the Kumemura village with the “36 families” and the Okinawan people. First let me say that it is a bit overstated in some cases that the cultural exchange was the most important point in Karate’s development. One has to realize that there were multiple sources of information that was brought in to Okainwa to create what we now know as Karate. However, the Kumemura area was very lively with cultural exchanges and at the time the Okinawan culture was a bit of a hybrid of Chinese, Japanese and native cultures. The people of Okinawa were in a kind of cultural schizophrenia and often would mix cultural norms to create the hybrids that they came to see as acceptable to both larger countries.
Under pressure from China and the Chinese court to be a way station of sorts for Chinese exchanges and also under pressure from the Japanese to be a port for them to use in both military and exchange missions, the Okinawans were in the middle of two of the most powerful countries in the region at the time, and two powers that did not like each other very much.
Okinawa was faced with being pressured by a Japanese military that was bent on ruling the region through raids and putting puppet governments into areas they took as well as supporting rulers that bowed to their emperor and more importantly the Shogun. The other force that they were being pressured by was the Ming Imperial government from China, a very orderly and ritualistically ridged government that had a large army and would also send them into areas that they wished to rule and who would not “play ball” with them. The Okinawan government and people did their best to appease both groups and play off each group to not only prosper but to keep the larger two nations from swallowing them up.
So, what was the Kumemura? The Kumemura was a village outside of the ancient Okinawan port of Naha. Naha was once a port city that had deep water docs for ships that were traveling from major ports in China and Japan to other countries and had many warehouses for the goods that were brought to the port. Often the port city acted as an informal trade post for the major powers who “officially” did not want to have any relations with the other.
The Chinese government was engaging in further trading with the Ryukyuan government once the three kingdoms were united under King Sho and as such many of the Chinese businessmen that had visited Okinawa now had a more stable government to trade with and to set up commerce with. For the most part it is suggested that this was nothing really new for China and governments in the Ryukyu island chain but now that they had one over all government to deal with the relationship was cemented.
Soon after the Ming court established a set relationship with the Sho Kingdome (read they intimidated by intimating they may invade and just scoop them up if they did not behave and play nice) the diplomats brought with them scholars who were sent to study and learn to communicate with the Okinawan people. They brought with them an attitude of superiority that was encouraged by the Ming Court and set up in Tax free lands by the Okinawan court…probably not a suggestion that the Sho Court Came to on their own if you know what I mean. Further they were given food and a rice stipend, which at the time was seen as giving them funds simply for the act of culturally invading the country.
Okinawa was swiftly set up as a tributary state for China and seen as a “Lesser nation” by the Chinese and were expected to carry themselves as such. Now the settlement was set up before the unification and to some extend the Kumemura group enjoyed diplomatic and trade with all three kindoms to some extent before they were united into the single governing group. Once the Okinawan kingdom was untied as one the Kumemura settlement began to share even more with the Okinawans; teaching them to read Chinese, navigation, geomancy, shipbuilding and how to make specific and very important textiles and equipment. The relationship was seen as beneficial to both parties, even if by force.
Most historical notes say that the first of the Kumemura people were scholars, but most likely, and based on research I read, the Kumemura people were originally Ship guilders sent to China by the Ming Courts to help repair the Chinese trade ships that were often docked in Naha waters. They would send workers to live on the island and do work to keep the trade ships sailing and money changing hands. After the obvious advantage of “Owning” a country that was on their shipping lines came to be seen the Ming courts then sent administrators to “take” the spot of administration away from the lower cast country. After the administrators came other culturally important people like scholars, religious monks and finally artists of all sorts.
By the middle 15th century not only were Chinese officials living in the now protected and enclosed village, but so were Korean diplomats and officials from other countries in the region. This secluded village housed many cultures and many cultural dignitaries that had official business with the Ryukyu kingdom.
The term “36 families” is a misnomer really. First off their were probably many more than 30 families in Kumemura, but the term was probably more a illustration than a accurate depiction of the number of people in Okinawa. Also, it probably would have been rare for a government official or business man establishing trade in Okainawa to bring their families with them. The truth is many of the people sent to Okinawa would have been lower class Chinese and single men sent by the government and other business interests in China to establish a connection then to take on the task of influencing the Okinawans. The Island nation played the middle man between Korea and China as well as any other nation in the region that traded with each other.
The Chinese government sent reams of envoys, bureaucrats, diplomats and scholars over the years and many of them were sent without family, but the group became known as the 30 families for the mass and size of the group that came to settle outside Naha port. Now a distinction has to be drawn here that many people don’t do…the people that came from China and Korea more than likely knew NOTHING of martial arts. The business envoy from shipping companies and the government officials and scholars were more than likely educated men that may not have been high level government officials but they were not interested in fighting or the fighting arts.
So, where did the Chinese martial arts come from….well every envoy and official that was sent from China brought with them a staff, and on the staff they brought would have been soldiers, body guards and basic security experts who were more than likely trained in hand to hand and weapon fighting. As the majority of the security that were hired by the business men were local to Fujian the majority of the fighters that they brought with them were trained in the prevalent styles of the area. Fujian white crane was the style practiced by the majority of the fighters. However there were many other styles of fighting that were taught in that region.
Chun fa fighting in China (kung fu or any other term associated with the fighting arts) is a mish mash of training arts. In a single region of China the size of London the pleather of styles available for one to study was probably in the number of 70 schools with styles as vast as the academies were. It therefore stands to reason that the men that came over as body guards were schooled in a multitude of arts.
Also the diplomats did not have to hire men to protect them, they had the Ming military to back them up, as well as private hired men. This means that skilled fighters from many Chinese schools of fighting came to Okinawa and along with the men they worked for teaching their culture and scholarly wares, some of the fighters passed on their arts to the Okinawan people.
The importance of this exchange of martial skills is vastly overstated by most to be the start of Karate on the island of Okinawa. My thoughts are that it is simply a cog in the machine that soon became known as Karate.
We have people like Uechi, Higaonna and others traveling to China to study and bring back the art, we have people who came to Okinawan on their own for other reasons unrelated to the Kumemura location or for business/political reasons and lets face it, almost all cultures have their own indigenous arts that existed from day one.
The Kumemura village faded into the Naha Township and finally the Shuri Capital took all of the area under its own walls. The main reason that the Kumemura village did not last however was probably directly related to who was living in the village when the Satsuma clan took Okinawa for the Japanese.
For many years the Okinawan or Lewchewan people played interference between the Chinese dignitaries and the Japanese Samurai that inhabited the different areas of Okinawa. While the Chinese ran their interests from Kumemura, the Japansese held a seat of power in the capital. This delicate balance of letting each group think they were in control was difficult to maintain and often the Okinawans had to lie to both groups and work them with deceptions to keep the peace. The Chinese had been a powerful influence in Okinawa since 1392 and the Lewchewan people had rapidly integrated many of the cultural elements of Chinese life, including clothing and many rituals, into their own culture and the royal family had also “converted” their lives to be more Chinese.
In 1609 however the Shimazu clan invaded Okinawa and sacked the island. The Satsuma Samurai of the Shimazu clan banned the people of Okinawa from wearing weapons and also started to influence the Okinawan culture and ban the clothing that the Chinese had brought to the culture a few centuries earlier. The art of Karate is said to have come out of necessity because of this banning, but we have to get again some perspective here. The people learning Karate were called Commoners, but that meant all Lewchewan people, including the royal guard, retainers and those that were of Samurai status but Okinawan decent! So, it was not the farmers and shop keepers learning Karate by moon light as some of us have been lead to believe but the military who were basically unarmed by the Japanese…the dignitaries that also guarded the king who also were unable to use weapons or even keep them.
Soon after the Japanese took the island by force the Okinawans began doing what they did best…absorbing the new rules culture and hoping for peace through assimilation. This meant that the circular self-defense they had learned from the Chinese was not being influenced by the more direct and linear Japanese sword based fighting skills.
The situation was a strained and strange position for the Okinawans to be put in. They still had tight ties with China and still paid their “tax” to the Chinese, but they were not directly ruled by the Japanese. To counter this they began meshing the Japanese culture into the Okinawan/Chinese culture. Clothing changed as did the language and traditions, all of this happened in a very rapid time frame. Most of the young men that had been sent to Fujian province and even Bejing to study at the Royal Chinese academy were not sent to Japan for higher learning and many suggest that Azato Sensei was one of these men, and he came back with Japanese influenced Kenjutsu over the Chinese influenced Chun Fa fighting his predecessors would have learned when attending school off island.
By the Meijin era most of the Chinese influence was “garnish” and not relevant to then modern Okinawan society. They had bent to the will of the new masters culturally, or as I like to see it, assimilated out of self-preservation. The culture had become more Japanese and the fighting arts followed suit, adopting much of the hand to hand defensive techniques from an amalgam of Ju jitsu styles, Kenjutsu styles and traditional Okinawan fighting systems that had adopted the previously learned Chinese styles. What we end up with is a much more linear system of fighting that still has more robust movements in striking that the Ju jitsu counterparts and a culture that is heavily influenced by the Japanese, but with direct undertones of Chinese society and traditional Okinawan ideals of assimilation and adaptability.
One of my friends said to me that the best part about the Okinawans is that they are pliable people. You can see it in the fact that first they were a small nation that needed to change and become one single kingdom and soon after the wars to unite they acted as if they were always one people. Then the Chinese came in and they quickly became entrenched as a off shoot of Chinese society…the Japanese came and they became somewhat more Japanese than the Japanese for a while. And after the war they were the most flexible and quickest to adapt to western ways. They are seen to be traditional in many ways and staunch traditionalists, but when they do change, the change is almost like it was always that way.
The Village of Kumemura is simply one root to the tree that is Karate and while a major influence, not THE influence that created Karate or even the only source for Chinese martial arts on the islands.
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