Thursday, August 13, 2015

Special Box in Okinawa Known as Binshii

Used During Rituals

 

 

On many occasions, I have seen these wooden boxes but, just learned the name today.

They are carried to shrines and sacred sites for prayers and offerings.

wooden box, binshii, people, praying

Most of the day was spent researching this one and, is was a toughie.

Some references, had me believing, Juu-baku, would be the correct terminology.

But, when verified through several other sources, I changed my mind.

Juu-baku boxes have similar compartments but, are usually square in shape.


ビンシー, Japanese,Ayako Toguchi,book,ISBN4-89095-136-9

 Luckily, I remembered this photo, from a book by Ayako Toguchi.

The shape of the boxes, I have been seeing, are always rectangular.

Using the characters ビンシー (binshii) I plugged them into a Japanese search engine.

And, got confirmation, that is the wooden box used for rituals in the Ryukyu Islands.



The wooden containers hold, rice, salt, incense and awamori for community rituals.

Do they have any special prayer boxes like this where, you come from ?



REFERENCES:

Photo illustration from Ayano Toguchi ISBN4-89095-136-9 P.243




Okinawan-English Wordbook ISBN 978-0-8248-3102-8 P.17




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