‘오키나와(沖縄) 문학’의 모색: -오시로 사다토시(大城貞俊) 「마부이와카시 기담(マブイワカシ奇譚)」을 중심으로-

Abstract

This paper explored how "Okinawan literature" can be written and read today by analyzing Mabuiwakashi Mysteries by Sadatoshi Oshiro who continues to literate the memories of the Battle of Okinawa. Mabuiwakashi Mysteries deals with a kind of shaman called "yuta" based on Okinawa's local beliefs, but ‘yuta’ is used as a literary device rather than emphasizing special characteristics of the Okinawan culture. In other words, in this work, Dengan Kiyo as yuta is in charge of the ritual of returning the "mabui" = spirits of the dead souls floating around this world to the next world, and the process of talking and listening to memories plays an important role in this ritual. Outside each of the framed stories that compose the work, "I," who has her own painful memory, listens to this story with the bereaved family and becomes a yuta-like being. Just like this, ‘Okinawan literature’ is a place where people create a relationship with the dead through the process of listening or reading, beginning from their own wounds or pain. On the other hand, each memory described in this work is not only related to collective identities like Japanese and Okinawans, but also to individualized experiences that cannot easily be established in public history. This highlights the experience of violence that cannot be tied up as a national or ethnic victim of war, while at the same time casting a 176 new question of individual responsibility for death and killing on the battlefield. Through this process, the work allows the reader to imagine the more complex texture of the memories of the Battle of Okinawa.