Shioya;Okinawa;Japan

Scope and Contents

A group of dancers at the school grounds in Shioya, Okinawa, celebrating the Festival for the Sea God (Umigami). Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "The beginning of one of the group dances with the girls coming around in single file, shortest in the lead. Lead girls are the shortest, have blue and red costumes, others have various colors."

Scope and Contents

A group of dancers at the school grounds in Shioya, Okinawa, celebrating the Festival for the Sea God (Umigami). Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "One of the group dances with the ''butterfly girls" and their fans in the foreground and with the last ones of the line emerging from the dressing room."

Scope and Contents

A group of dancers at the school grounds in Shioya, Okinawa, celebrating the Festival for the Sea God (Umigami). Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "One of the dances of the entire group with the bright red and the mixed blue and red costumes in the foreground. Slightly overcast sky."

Scope and Contents

A group of dancers at the school grounds in Shioya, Okinawa, celebrating the Festival for the Sea God (Umigami). Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "One of the group dances with white costumes in foreground. Nearby dark kimonos were characteristic dress of Okinawan women 25 years ago."

Scope and Contents

A group of dancers at the school grounds in Shioya, Okinawa, celebrating the Festival for the Sea God (Umigami). Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "One of the group dances with fruit-bowl hats and some of the brightest costumes in the foreground."

Scope and Contents

A group of dancers at the school grounds in Shioya, Okinawa, celebrating the Festival for the Sea God (Umigami). Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "One of the group dances with the straw sun helmets nearby; girls' hands uplifted."

Scope and Contents

A group of dancers at the school grounds in Shioya, Okinawa, celebrating the Festival for the Sea God (Umigami). Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "One of the group dances, again with the straw sun helmets in foreground, some highly decorated."

Scope and Contents

A group of dancers at the school grounds in Shioya, Okinawa, celebrating the Festival for the Sea God (Umigami). Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "One of the dances by the entire group, perhaps 20 in all, with the "dressing rooms" in the background shown by the white curtains of nylon parachute cloth. These were jammed with people during the whole performance, which lasted some 4 hours."

Scope and Contents

Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "Footbridge across from Okinawa to Miyagi Shima, the little island itself, and part of the mountainside in crops above Shioya. Soils are very dry and crops are poor because of recent lack of rain."

Scope and Contents Description provided by photographer Roy Simonson reads: "Part of the village of Shioya, as seen from the mountain slope north of the west section. This shows the pattern of houses and streets in the section adjacent to the quonset hut in which we lived and the main road up the west coast. Some transplanting of rice is underway in the paddies to the left of the road. The little hill, now used for a small shrine, is apparently a former island of Lithosols from sandstones and phyllites which...