The treasure hidden in this home is the fuuru, otherwise known as the bathroom. It might surprise you to know that the bathrooms in old Okinawan houses used to double as a pigsty, and if you had to go to the restroom, you would need to get the pigs out of the way first.
It was here in this pigsty/bathroom that gods would reside. In Okinawa, it is believed that many deities reside in homes, and the fuuru deity is thought to be the strongest among them.
There is a superstition that everyone in the family must stop by the bathroom as soon as they get home or the family will be cursed with bad luck. In the past, there were some areas where it was customary that when visiting someone’s house you would stop by the fuuru, examine the pigs in the bathroom, and compliment the pigs as a greeting.
This fuuru system was actually rather eco-friendly if you think about it. Human excrement is composed of mostly undigested food and it’s a waste to get rid of this when it may still have a use. After the residents of the house used the fuuru, the animals would feed on the remains and then break it down themselves. Their excrement would combine with the hay spread out over the room and ferment into high-quality fertilizer. In other words, pig farming was combined with waste management to create organic fertilizer.
Due to the unsanitary conditions, the fuuru was abandoned in the Meiji Era, but re-examining the fuuru and its eco-friendly waste management system may provide a solution to the zero-emission goals of the 21st century.
If you look up you will see a Hibiscus tiliaceus tree which also played a role in the fuuru. The leaves of this tree used to be used as toilet paper, meaning even the toilet paper was compostable.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the fuuru was its own self-sustaining ecosystem.
To the people of Okinawa, this cycle in itself was also a precious treasure.
