Grateful for the blessings of the sea

In Amami, where there are no prominent hunting animals in the forest, people have long sought food from the sea. Amami’s ancestors created various fishing methods such as shellfish gathering, catching octopus, Izari (night fishing), single-line fishing, spearing Spanish mackerel, and drive fishing and are passing these  techniques to the present by devising and improving tools and boats to make a living on the food of the ocean that is a blessing from heaven.

Off the coast of the sea, people catch and spear fish. Rocky shores and coral reefs are called “sea fields”, where people got and used as much seaweed as they needed when they needed it. Until the 1960s, seaweeds such as sargassum were growing near the coast of the Amami Islands, a source of nutrition and a habitat for marine life. These became people’s ingredients, and those that were launched onto land during typhoons also became fertilizer for fields.

Amami people, who have survived and lived by relying on the sea, have seen the sea as the root of salvation. Land creatures were also supposed to have been brought by a god who dwelled beyond the sea. And from these things, people believed that there is a kingdom of a god beyond the sea who brings fertility. This is the crux of Amami’s Neriya Kanaya faith.

As the words of a saying go, “If the mountain cries, the river gets angry, and if the river gets angry, the sea loses abundance.” The ecosystems of the forest, the river and the sea are connected. To enrich the food of the ocean, we must cherish the forest.

Photo/ HORIZON Editorial