“This work aims to show how science and culture are not two distinct entities, but can be combined to teach both Indigenous arts and Indigenous science.” – Justin Higa, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).
2025 is the 125th anniversary of Okinawan immigration to Hawai‘i.
On January 8, 1900, twenty-six men arrived in Honolulu and were recorded as the first Okinawan immigrants to Hawaii. In the years following, Toyama Kyuzo (“father of Okinawa immigration’”) led many more Okinawan Issei to establish their family roots in Hawaii. Immigration was much more severe and challenging than any of them ever assumed. – Hawaii United Okinawa Association.
A new study by a University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Earth scientist and Ryukyuan music practitioners has revealed that the lyrics of traditional Okinawan songs were found to record past climate and geological history of the Ryukyu Islands (21st-century Okinawa Prefecture, Japan). Songs whose lyrics and meanings had been lost over time.
Commenting Justin Higa said:
“I hope this work can help connect the descendants of Okinawan immigrants in Hawai‘i, who generations later, may not speak the language, with the arts and knowledge recorded in these songs.
“More of these descendants may then be inspired to become scientists or Indigenous practitioners, or both.”
The researchers are all classical Ryukyuan music practitioners with the Ryukyu Koten Afuso Ryu Ongaku Kenkyu Choichi Kai USA, Hawaiʻi Chapter, a music school with groups on Oʻahu, Maui, and Kauaʻi and in Los Angeles. The team included June Uyeunten Sensei and Kenton Odo Sensei, who are Master Instructors in the artform, and Justin Higa who has been a member of the music school for over a decade.
They assessed a repertoire of indigenous Ryukyuan classical music that documented the 18th-century ocean voyages of envoys from the Ryukyu Kingdom and the winds, waves, and volcanoes they observed along the way. With Higa’s geologic background and the musical expertise of Uyeunten Sensei and Odo Sensei, they worked together to combine Indigenous Ryukyuan knowledge in song with Western scientific knowledge in the scientific literature to find where the knowledge matched.
By comparing these observations with 20th- to 21st-century scientific literature, they found wind directions match seasonal changes following the East Asian Monsoon season and that rough ocean conditions in the past and currently may be related to Pacific Ocean circulation patterns and typhoons. They also found a record of an 18th-century volcanic eruption on an isolated island.
“Indigenous knowledge, tied to the land someone is most familiar with, is one avenue for applying place-based learning to make complex environmental science more accessible to general learners,” shared Higa.
“Identifying sources of Indigenous knowledge, by the knowledge holders/practitioners themselves, is a unique opportunity to make new connections between art and science, improve how we connect science to the daily lives of Indigenous Peoples, and ensure the correct interpretation and usage of Indigenous knowledge.”
In the future, they hope to catalogue more classical and folk Ryukyuan songs to document additional historical records of environmental science, including water resources, ocean life, and flora and fauna.
Click on this link to access, Place-based science from Okinawa: 18th-century climate and geology recorded in Ryukyuan classical music, published in Geoscience Communication.