If you go through the pass, made of stones too large to be the product of human hands, look to your right. Your field of vision suddenly opens up. What you see far away is Kono-shima (Kudaka-jima).
This space is Sangui, the fifth uganju, and the stone summit to the right is called Chonohana, the sixth uganju.
After Amamikyo, the creator of Ryukyu, came down to Kudaka-jima, she crafted the kingdom’s seven utaki. When crafting Sefa Utaki, she descended upon Chonohana and followed the stone walls to Sangui.
As the first place in all of Ryukyu where Amamikyo set foot, this place is held especially sacred.
The golden “magatama” (comma-shaped beads) and old Chinese coins excavated from beneath the stone pavement are said to be evidence of this event, as magatama are patterned after the shape of the soul and were special ornaments to ancient people.
Of the nine magatama excavated, three were made of gold. Even in Japan, golden magatama have only been excavated once at an ancient tomb in Wakayama Prefecture. With a relic so old left here, one can grasp how sacred the Ryukyu people must have held this place to be.
However, there aren’t any records explaining why golden magatama were buried here. Scholars hypothesize them to be sacred items buried to appease the gods. While it’s unknown whether there was a famine or plague, it’s thought the kikoe-ogimi sensed these misfortunes to be a sign of divine wrath and likely buried these valuable treasures and prayed to pacify the anger of the gods.
Also, Chonohana has fifteen koro, and there’s a reason behind this number.
In Sefa-utaki, there was a ritual to inaugurate the kikoe-ogimi, she would bring her own koro from Shuri Castle and, after the ritual, would offer them here before returning home. As such, Ryukyu has had fifteen kikoe-ogimi in its history, with a koro representing each of them.
It’s important to note that these aren’t replicas, but are indeed the actual koro. These koro, each of which store an everlasting history, are left here because this still lives on as a place of worship. Okinawans come here, place incense on these koro, and make offerings to the gods; replicas could never hold the weight of such serious worship.
When you enter Sefa-utaki, you are tested: can you sense the history and significance within ordinary-looking rocks and trees and respect them? There aren’t any shrines or statues here. What remains now is a primitive form of worship—the faithful worship and the spirit of the Okinawan people.
With this, we’ve reached the end of our visit to the uganju within Sefa-utaki. But we want to introduce one more spot to conclude: a place for purification.