Native Okinawan Village and Omoro Arboretum Official Site

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Mutuya

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  • The House of Soke, the village head and founder

    Old Okinawan villages were usually located mid-slope or at the base of a hill, facing south. In those villages built on a slope, the mutuya, headman's family house, was commonly built at the highest part of the village, either at its center, rightmost or leftmost spot. Down to its left and right were the houses of the immediate kin, followed by other branch family houses, with the village area widening downward. Found behind the headman's family house was a sacred site, utaki, enshrining the guardian gods of the village, to which the house was connected by a passageway. Modeled after an old house that used to stand at Sumiyoshi-cho in Naha City, this wooden tile-roofed house is built in a Japanese style called nuchija.

  • Switch Photo

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  • Entrance

  • Surrounding edges

  • Ichibanza

  • Nibanza (from wood-floored room)

  • Kitchen

  • Kitchen

  • Location

Ground plan

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