Cape Chinen Park

This guide to Cape Chinen Park on Okinawa looks out at Kudaka Island, the low green shape offshore where legend says the creator deity Amamikiyo founded the Ryukyu Islands. It follows Izaiho, the induction ceremony once held there every twelve years in the year of the horse, when women born on Kudaka and married to a native islander became priestesses in a forest forbidden to men. Look again at that quiet green horizon before you leave, and consider how much of what founded a kingdom still depends on who's left to keep it going.