page_title: Turtleback tomb
section_title: In the Ryūkyū Islands
hierarchical_section_title: Turtleback tomb / In the Ryūkyū Islands
caption_attribution_description: Okinawan grave, kamekobaka (turtle-back-tomb). Photo of my authorship.
context_page_description: Turtleback or Turtle-back tombs or turtle shell tombs are a particular type of tombs commonly found in some coastal areas of Fujian, China, the Ryukyu Islands of Japan and in Quang Nam province of Vietnam.
  In the Chinese version, the tomb itself is made to look like the carapace of a tortoise; the vertical tombstone with the name of the deceased is put where the tortoise would have had its head, at the end of the grave where the feet of the buried body are. The tomb is surrounded by an Ω-shaped ridge, with its opening on the side where the tortoise's head would have been and where the tombstone is.
  The Ryukyuan version has the same overall shape and layout, but on a much greater scale. The body of the "tortoise" serves as a family burial vault.
context_section_description: Turtleback tombs are thought to have been introduced into the Ryukyu Kingdom from Fujian in the late 17th or early 18th century ("in the interval between the careers of Shō Shōken and Sai On", according to Gregory Smits' monograph on the intellectual history of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Some authors give earlier dates; in particular, the tomb of Gosamaru (d. 1458) is often described as the first Ryūkyūan turtleback tomb. Okinawans believe that the shape of the tombs represent a woman's womb, so that the dead "return to the source".
  As of the mid-20th century, the turtleback tomb became the predominant tomb style in some parts of the Ryūkyū Islands. E.g., this was reported in Kabira Village (near Kabira Bay) in Ishigaki Island. Unlike single-person turtleback tombs of Fujian, the turtleback tombs of Ryūkyū were more of a burial vault, where bones of many generations of a particular family could repose. Typically, the coffin with the body of a deceased member of the family would stay in one part of such a tomb for some years (3, 5, 7, or 9). After the body would have decomposed, the bones would be washed by young female relatives of the deceased, placed into a large earthenware jar,  and stored elsewhere in the tomb.
  In a fictionalized description of a turtleback tomb in the eponymous novel by Tatsuhiro Ōshiro (where much of the action happens inside such a tomb), the tomb's floor space is 150 square feet. Inside the tomb, urns with the bones of deceased ancestors stand on multiple rows of stone shelves, in the order of seniority. The doorway of the tomb is closed with a massive stone, serving as a door.
  In the spring of 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, many Okinawan civilians sought refuge from the naval bombardment of the island inside their ancestors' turtleback tombs, just like the characters of Ōshiro's short novel. Later, many of these tombs were also used by the Japanese defenders of the islands. The image became iconic enough for a local novelist, Tatsuhiro Ōshiro, to name a novel after these turtleback tombs. (Kame kōbaka, 1966).
  Fighting for the turtleback tombs is mentioned in the accounts of American soldiers as well.
caption: A turtleback tomb in Okinawa
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