📅Article 1 │ Periodization of Japanese and Okinawan History
Before reading this series, we need to fix the time frame used to divide up the history of the Japanese archipelago and the Ryukyu arc (the island chain stretching from Kyushu toward Taiwan). Japanese history and Okinawan history overlap, yet each has kept its own calendar. To place the events of karate history correctly — to answer “when did this happen?” — we must first share this timeline.
Introduction — What Is Periodization?
History is continuous, and yet historians divide it into periods. Such divisions are only a convenience: real societies carry the features of the preceding age forward and change only gradually. Even so, periodization is necessary, because we need a shared map in order to traverse a vast stretch of time together with the reader.
Japanese periodization in fact uses two overlapping schemes. One is a political-history scheme, based on shifts in the seat of power and changes in the ruling class (e.g., “Kamakura,” “Edo”). The other is an economic- and social-history scheme modeled on European history — ancient, medieval, early modern, modern. What trips up many Western readers is that the Japanese term for “early modern” (kinsei) refers, roughly, to the Tokugawa era of 1603–1867. This differs in both timing and connotation from the European “early modern” period (roughly 1500–1800).
Okinawan history has its own, separate scheme. Until 1879 it had a history of its own, centered on the Ryukyu Kingdom; before 1609 in particular it lived as an independent kingdom, on a different clock from the political history of the Japanese mainland. After 1609 it was incorporated into the Satsuma–Tokugawa order while still maintaining its tributary relationship with China — the condition known as “dual subordination” to both Japan and China. This article sets the two histories side by side.
Periodization of Japanese History
Ancient (to c. 1185)
- Jōmon period: roughly 14,000 BCE – 1,000 BCE. A hunter-gatherer culture, named for its cord-marked (jōmon) pottery.
- Yayoi period: c. 1,000 BCE – 3rd century CE. The arrival of wet-rice agriculture and metal tools.
- Kofun (Tumulus) period: late 3rd – 7th century. The age of a confederation of powerful clans, symbolized by the keyhole-shaped burial mounds (kofun); the formation of the Yamato polity. The official transmission of Buddhism to the court (538, or by one account 552) also falls within this period.
- Asuka period: 592–710. The flourishing of Buddhism, Prince Shōtoku (Umayado no Ōji), and the Taika Reforms.
- Nara period: 710–794. The consolidation of the ritsuryō system (a Chinese-style legal and administrative code) and the capital at Heijō-kyō (modern Nara).
- Heian period: 794–1185. The capital at Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto); aristocratic court culture; and the rise of the warrior (samurai) class.
Throughout this era Japan comprehensively adopted the legal institutions, Buddhism, writing system, and architecture of China (the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties), forming the eastern edge of the Sinic civilizational sphere. For karate history, what matters is that the name “Japan” and the prototype of a Japanese conception of the state took shape in this era.
Medieval (c. 1185 – 1573)
- Kamakura period: 1185–1333. Minamoto no Yoritomo establishes the bakufu (the “shogunate,” a government run by the warrior class).
- Northern and Southern Courts period: 1336–1392. An age of two rival imperial courts.
- Muromachi period: 1336–1573. The rule of the Ashikaga shoguns. Its latter half overlaps with the Warring States period.
- Sengoku (Warring States) period: c. 1467 – c. 1590. The age of rival regional warlords following the Ōnin War.
This was the era in which the warrior class held power and the martial arts (archery, horsemanship, swordsmanship, and the spear) developed as a profession. Later notions of budō (“the martial way”) would look back to this era even as they were reconstructed in modern times (discussed in detail in Article 6).
Early Modern (1573–1867)
- Azuchi–Momoyama period: 1573–1603. The age of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
- Edo period: 1603–1867. Warrior rule under the Tokugawa shogunate.
The Tokugawa shogunate fixed a four-part status order (warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants) and, in foreign affairs, maintained the limited-contact regime known as sakoku (“the closed country”), trading only with the Netherlands, China, Korea, Ryukyu, and the Ainu. Literacy was high, an urban townspeople (chōnin) culture flourished, and the schools (ryūha) of swordsmanship, jūjutsu, and archery were systematized in this era. The arrival of Commodore Perry’s American fleet in 1853 brought external pressure to bear on this regime and set in motion the Meiji Restoration.
Modern (1868–1945)
- Meiji period: 1868–1912. The Meiji Restoration, the abolition of the feudal domains and creation of prefectures, the introduction of constitutional government, and the First Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars.
- Taishō period: 1912–1926. “Taishō democracy,” Japan’s entry into World War I, and the Great Kantō Earthquake.
- Early (prewar) Shōwa period: 1926–1945. The Manchurian Incident, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Pacific War, and defeat.
This is the period the present series mainly treats. In karate history, the transition from tūdī to karate, its transplantation to the mainland, its spread overseas, and its links to the military and the school system all occurred in this era.
Contemporary (1945– )
- Postwar Shōwa period: 1945–1989. The Allied occupation, the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the era of rapid economic growth, and the reversion of Okinawa to Japan (1972).
- Heisei period: 1989–2019.
- Reiwa period: 2019– .
Periodization of Okinawan (Ryukyuan) History
Okinawan history keeps a calendar separate from that of the Japanese mainland. The standard scheme is as follows.
Prehistoric period (to c. the 12th century)
The age of the “shell-mound” (kaizuka) culture. It developed a distinctive material culture, different from the Jōmon and Yayoi cultures of the Japanese mainland.
Gusuku period (c. 12th century – 1429)
An age in which local lords (aji) held sway across the islands and built stone fortresses (gusuku). In its latter half, the main island of Okinawa split into three powers — Hokuzan (“northern mountain”), Chūzan (“central mountain”), and Nanzan (“southern mountain”) — the era of the “Three Kingdoms” (Sanzan).
First Shō Dynasty (1406–1469; as a unified kingdom, from 1429)
In 1406, Shō Hashi overthrew Bunei, king of Chūzan, and installed his own father, Shō Shishō, as king of Chūzan. This was the beginning of the First Shō dynasty. In 1429, Shō Hashi unified the three kingdoms and established the Ryukyu Kingdom as a single unified state, with its royal capital at Shuri.
Formal relations with Ming China themselves reach back further, to 1372, when Satto, king of Chūzan, began sending tribute. The reigns of Shō Shishō and Shō Hashi inherited this China–Ryukyu relationship and built it up into the legitimating foundation of the unified kingdom.
Second Shō Dynasty (1470–1879)
The dynasty beginning with King Shō En. During the reign of King Shō Shin (r. 1477–1526), centralization advanced, Buddhism was patronized, and the aji were resettled together at Shuri; the kingdom entered its golden age. From the Satsuma invasion of 1609 onward, it was placed under the peculiar regime of “dual subordination” to both Japan and China (Article 3).
Okinawa Prefecture period (1879–1945)
Through the Meiji government’s “Ryukyu Disposition” (Ryūkyū shobun), the kingdom was abolished and became Okinawa Prefecture (Article 4). Standard-language education, military conscription, and the tax system were brought into line with mainland norms, even as Okinawa was subjected to discrimination by the mainland and offered only limited employment opportunities.
Period of U.S. military administration (1945–1972)
Through the Battle of Okinawa and Japan’s defeat in the war, Okinawa was severed from the Japanese mainland and placed under U.S. administration. The currency was the U.S. dollar, traffic drove on the right, and a passport was required even to travel to mainland Japan.
After reversion (1972– )
On 15 May 1972, administrative authority over Okinawa was returned to Japan. Yet the situation in which roughly 70% of the land used exclusively by U.S. military facilities in Japan is concentrated in Okinawa Prefecture continues to this day (Article 11).
Overlaying the Two Calendars
| Western year | Japanese mainland | Ryukyu / Okinawa |
|---|---|---|
| 1429 | Muromachi period | Unification of the Three Kingdoms (a unified kingdom under the First Shō dynasty) |
| 1609 | Early Edo period | Satsuma invasion; “dual subordination” begins |
| 1868 | Meiji Restoration | Ryukyu Kingdom still in existence |
| 1879 | Meiji 12 | Ryukyu Disposition; Okinawa Prefecture established |
| 1945 | Defeat in the war | Battle of Okinawa; U.S. military administration begins |
| 1972 | 27 years after the war | Reversion to Japan |
For karate history, the crucial thing is to distinguish clearly between two stretches of time: the roughly 450 years during which the Ryukyu Kingdom survived as a monarchy (including the period of Satsuma overlordship after 1609), and the 140-odd years from the creation of Okinawa Prefecture to the present. Itosu Ankō and Higaonna Kanryō — pivotal figures in karate’s history — were active in the generation immediately after the kingdom vanished and Okinawa became a prefecture. They came from the kingdom’s shizoku (the former gentry, or scholar-official class) and, while still carrying the memory of the kingdom-era “hand” (ti / te), they “translated” tūdī into a form of school physical education within the new prefectural system.
Notes on Terminology
- “Ryukyu” and “Okinawa” are, strictly speaking, distinct concepts. “Ryukyu” is the name of the kingdom and of the wider region (from the Amami Islands in the north to the Sakishima Islands in the south); “Okinawa” was originally the name of the main island at the kingdom’s center, which later became the name of the present-day prefecture. This series uses the two terms according to context.
- “Japan.” The name “Japan” (Nihon / Nippon) came into being in ancient times, but “Japan” as a modern nation-state was established only in the Meiji period. Care should be taken not to equate the premodern “Japan” with “Japan” from the modern era onward.
- For the correspondence between Japanese era names and Western calendar years, see the year-by-year chronology in the appendix.
Coming Next
Article 2 takes up the founding of the Ryukyu Kingdom and its investiture relationship (sakuhō) with China (the Ming and Qing dynasties). Why was so small an island state able to preserve its independence? The secret lies in the structure of the early-modern East Asian international order.
Bibliography
- Takara Kurayoshi, Ryūkyū ōkoku [The Ryukyu Kingdom], Iwanami Shinsho, 1993.
- Asato Susumu et al., Okinawa-ken no rekishi [A History of Okinawa Prefecture] (Prefectural History Series 47), Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2004.
- Gomi Fumihiko and Toriumi Yasushi, eds., Shinshō Nihonshi [New Detailed History of Japan], Yamakawa Shuppansha (school textbook, latest edition).
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, “Materials Relating to Ryukyu,” https://dl.ndl.go.jp/