Informational Hajichi Instagram accounts:
Articles:
Podcast episodes about hajichi:
(put together by Emily Takara - not at all a historian, just wanting to share what I've learned. If you have more/better information please contact through the Contact page above): images (all) and information (mainly) from “Tattooing in Okinawa” - Miyajima Mikinosuke, et. al., translated by Eric Shahan see Resources page!
origins of hajichi
It appears to be unknown when and where hajichi originated. An important motivator for the hajichi practice was to protect women from being moved or taken to other countries. One of the most well known legends of hajichi origin is of a Kikoe Ogimi, the highest ranking priestess ("noro"?) of the royal court, in the 1300s being forced to marry a village chief or being taken away by a Japanese noble. Apparently, encouraged by one of her clever handmaids, she tattooed the back of her hands, which ended up disrupting and ending the wedding ceremony. Also from other legends, it seems hajichi must have originated quite a while ago, due to its resilience in the face of pressure/disapproval from Chinese culture (which was powerful and with which the Ryukyu kingdom interacted with a lot because of trade and its tributary status) and from the attempt to ban it by one of the Ryukyu kingdom’s kings. There is even a mention of how in Ryukyu “the women all tattoo their hands with ink, the patterns are snakes and insects” in the Book of Sui, a history of China’s Sui Dynasty of 581-618. However, “Ryukyu” in this context may have been referring to either Okinawa or Taiwan, though either way it may be connected to Okinawa as the Ryukyu kingdom had a strong trade network and interaction with Taiwan and throughout the South Seas. So the Okinawan hajichi tradition might have been influenced by the indigenous tattooing cultures of Indonesia, Borneo, Samoa, and/or Taiwan (or vise versa).
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Hajichi banning and stigmatization
After the Ryukyu Kingdom was annexed by Japan into a prefecture in 1879, a tattoo ban was enforced and women with hajichi faced discrimination and persecution by law. Because of its association with the yakuza, Japanese culture often viewed tattoos as dirty, uncivilized, and ugly; this strong stigmatization meant that they felt that Okinawans with hajichi would reflect poorly on Japan. Hajichi was then used to look down upon Okinawan culture and suppress the cultural, spiritual, and social power women held in Okinawa’s society of female-centric spiritualism (onarigami), which opposed the Japanese patriarchy. This transformed hajichi from a practice of community, pride, and power to one of shame and oppression.
Additionally: At the same time as Japan worked to "reform" Okinawa's textile industry to disempower and devalue women and their central roles as weavers and merchants, Japanese writing and law worked to enforce patriarchy and disempower women from their powerful spiritual and land holding roles of the noro (socio-politcal-spiritual roles that held power in the different levels of government and society). The first civil code in 1898 for Okinawa worked to enforce the patriarchal household and leadership in order to weaken and delegitimize women's roles and land holding power. Articles were written about Okinawan spiritual leaders, specifically the yuta (orcales called upon by individuals and families for important events) and connected them to prostitution and deceitful practice.
With all the stigmatization and persecution, Uchinanchu in Okinawa and outside began to look down on the hajichi tradition, believing it was ridiculous and shameful. There are stories of women trying to scrub off or use acid to burn off their hajichi because of the shame and discrimination they felt, both in Okinawa and on plantations in Hawai'i. In many families, the beauty, tradition, and stories of hajichi have been lost, but some stories and curiosity remain.
Additionally: At the same time as Japan worked to "reform" Okinawa's textile industry to disempower and devalue women and their central roles as weavers and merchants, Japanese writing and law worked to enforce patriarchy and disempower women from their powerful spiritual and land holding roles of the noro (socio-politcal-spiritual roles that held power in the different levels of government and society). The first civil code in 1898 for Okinawa worked to enforce the patriarchal household and leadership in order to weaken and delegitimize women's roles and land holding power. Articles were written about Okinawan spiritual leaders, specifically the yuta (orcales called upon by individuals and families for important events) and connected them to prostitution and deceitful practice.
With all the stigmatization and persecution, Uchinanchu in Okinawa and outside began to look down on the hajichi tradition, believing it was ridiculous and shameful. There are stories of women trying to scrub off or use acid to burn off their hajichi because of the shame and discrimination they felt, both in Okinawa and on plantations in Hawai'i. In many families, the beauty, tradition, and stories of hajichi have been lost, but some stories and curiosity remain.
Hajichi across the ryukyuan islands
Hajichi (the name used on the Okinawa main island, Okinawa Honto) names, designs, and meanings varied greatly by island. While on Okinawa Honto, hajichi patterns were uniform in its design of geometric shapes, there was still some slight variation by status, village, and age. For example, hajichi in Shuri City tended to be more delicate, with smaller shapes and thinner lines–though some in Shuri castle may not have gotten hajichi at all. One theory might be that the higher class had access to more expert equipment, whereas in outer villages sometimes less delicate needle alternatives were used resulting in larger, less fine designs that are associated with lower classes. On Okinawa Honto, hajichi designs progressively grew in three stages as women aged, starting with bean-sized dots on the middle two fingers as girls (called Tontonmi or Tomibakiji) between 4 - 10 years old), then a more full design on the hand as an adult, and with age the hajichi markings grew until, in old age, they sometimes nearly covered the back of the hand.
While many of the islands’ hajichi designs vary, Miyako islands has perhaps the most unique. The designs on the fingers and knuckles are more uniform and similar to other hajichi, but on the rest of the hands and even up to the arms the are various symbols related to Miyako weaving designs, some of them representing skills, like sewing and cooking. Some of the older women had more symbols, all the way up to their elbows, perhaps displaying their abilities. In general, it seems like the Miyako hajichi had more variation and personalization, as opposed to the uniformity of the Okinawa main island area. |
ceremony and meaning
Throughout the islands, the ceremony and meaning around the hajichi tradition also differed from being commemorative to religious to protective to playful. In the Miyako islands, for example, it seems like hajichi practice was more casual and playful, as sometimes young girls tattooed each other for fun/out of curiosity and women got as many as they wanted, rather than being tattooed in a ceremony by a hajicha like on Okinawa Honto.
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In addition to being a symbol of beauty, hajichi holds spiritual and symbolic meaning, offering protection and passage to paradise/heaven after death. It also served as a rite of passage, marking the transition into womanhood, symbolizing endurance of pain through life, and celebrating the milestones of life, like adulthood and marriage. Hajichi often grew through a woman’s life, marking special occasions like coming of age and marriage and was an important communal practice for women. It fostered social bonds, rituals, and a sense of belonging and strength from the painful, shared experience within the female community. Finally, it served to protect Okinawan women from being taken by outsiders like the Japanese (see the “Okinawan Princess Da Legend of Hajichi Tattoos” book).
On the main island, the designs were standardized and was more of an official coming of age ceremony for girls, often tied to marriage. Hajichi often was a symbol of womanhood, adulthood, and even validation, where there were some times when girls without hajichi were teased or felt embarrassed and felt pressured to get tattooed. There were some cases, particularly when Okinawa was annexed by Japan, where parents had their young daughters get full hajichi, which was untraditional and without their understanding or choice, in order to protect them from being taken to Japan. Recently, there are accounts of older women with hajichi who don’t know or understand the meaning behind the tradition or symbols. On the other hand, to many women hajichi became something beautiful, connecting, comforting, and especially spiritually protective (as insurance to go to an afterlife). Many women sought out hajichi and treasured the art with pride, as seen by these translated Ryukyuan folk song lyrics: |
“Colorful tattoos, my greatest desire in life, the shapes of which can be seen in the next life” “There is a time when you want a husband, there is a time when you want a family, but when you want a colorful tattoo, it is something that will be with you your whole life” “If my skin is dyed with colorful tattoos, when the redness departs it will be like a fence preserved on my body” “The tattoos on my hand that I treasure with all my heart, the night before I get my tattoos, I am overflowing with joy” “Money you can use only once, but my tattoos will last me forever” The joy and pride hajichi instilled in Uchinanchu women was powerful and even when the law banning tattoos was passed by Japan and with the prevalence of Japanese stigma and discrimination around tattoos being ugly and barbaric, hajichi persisted, with many women, especially outside the main island, continuing to get tattooed for a while. |
revival
Though the hajichi practice became very uncommon and unknown because of both the Japanese ban and stigma, there is now a growing number of hajicha around the world, with women practicing the tattooing tradition in Okinawa, California, Hawai’i, Brazil, and more. And though hajichi as always been a tradition of many facets and perspectives, there are even more new views on modern hajichi. Some time after Japanese annexation, some Uchinanchu women with hajichi came to look down on the practice with regret as something “stupid” (or furaa in uchinaaguchi), especially with the intensity of the discrimination and persecution sometimes experienced by women with hajichi (story from Moeko Heshiki). A younger generation of hajicha, however, feel empowered by the practice and believe hajichi can be a reconnection to an oppressed cultural artform and celebration of cultural heritage. Some with a traditional perspective believe hajichi should only be practiced on “women” and on the hands. Other hajicha view traditions like hajichi, as something that naturally evolves with time and can take on evolved forms and meanings, such as more untraditional hajichi on other parts of the body or in different designs. Though hajichi can be seen as a practice that enforces a constricting, limiting gender binary, especially when it can be seen as invalidating femininity without marriage and childbirth, people can choose hajichi to be an empowering symbol of shared “female” experiences, even for those outside of the gender binary. From this perspective, the practice of hajichi that grows throughout one’s life can come to signify meaningful life experiences or community, outside of just marriage and childbirth. And even though part of hajichi’s past can be seen as disempowering and even traumatizing, such as women being shamed or forced into getting it in a possibly vaguely patriarchal context (though women held all of the spiritual power in Luchuan society in a system call Onarigami and held powerful positions throughout society and government), perhaps people who identify with the experience of “womanhood” today can choose to give hajichi new, more empowering meanings, while being aware and knowledgeable about hajichi’s past/stories. What might an evolved hajichi tradition look like and mean?
(Please share your thoughts in the Revival section at the bottom of the Home page or in the Share Hajichi Story section!) |
Moeko Heshiki, a hajicha in Okinawa, hand-pokes hajichi and will only tattoo it on the hands of Uchinanchu women and ensures that those getting hajichi understand the history and meanings.
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What should we focus on while learning about and reviving hajichi tradition and stories? Keeping the original practice and meanings? How hajichi can be meaningful in the modern day context? Or maybe just engaging and starting conversations about hajichi and Uchinanchu stories?
Does it still matter who can get hajichi? Is it important or realistic to try to "preserve" history and traditions exactly, when stories and perspectives evolve naturally (oral and written)? Which parts of the practice should we focus on continuing and exploring?
Does it still matter who can get hajichi? Is it important or realistic to try to "preserve" history and traditions exactly, when stories and perspectives evolve naturally (oral and written)? Which parts of the practice should we focus on continuing and exploring?