While driving around Okinawa, well, since I don’t have my license, while Hiromi is driving around Okinawa, I noticed something that I overlooked while here. At every T section or actually, any road that leads to a house, there is something in the wall facing the house. It’s either a tablet or just an engraving into the wall. It’s in kanji so I had to ask Hiromi what it was but what she told me amazed me.

The kanji means Ishiganto or sometimes Ishigantou, either or. This is the name of a heroic man who was a Chinese legend and stood up against all evil. Now, according to their beliefs, evil spirits travel in straight lines. Once they reach a T section and there is a house or building there, rather then turning and leaving, those pesky spirits just stay there or invite themselves into the house in the middle of the T section. Now these peaceful Okinawans can’t have that now can they so they inscribe and place an Ishiganto outside of their home right in front of the wall facing the road. This way, when the spirit comes there and sees the Ishiganto, they have to disappear. Actually, I’ve heard that they can do either of two, turn or disappear. Not sure which is the true correct answer, but either way, they ain’t going into your house so your happy right?

Okinawa seems to have a lot of evil spirits so next I’ll talk about another item that is to ward off evil or bad luck.

By the way, here is a link to the high res image. Remind me to take a better picture next time.
http://flickr.com/photos/fybix/222725105/