Chatan Castle (), or Chatan Gusuku () is a Ryūkyūan gusuku located in Chatan, Okinawa.
It was built on a Ryūkyū limestone hill topping at an altitude of 44.7 metres, and consists in five enclosures for a total area of 16,600 square metres. It is naturally protected by a cliff 10 to 20 metres high on the north and a two-stepped cliff on the south, with the Shirahi-gawa River running westward at the foot of the northern cliff. .
It was an important fortress of the Chūzan kingdom between the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 16th century. It is the fifth largest gusuku on Okinawa Island, after Shuri, Nakijin, Itokazu and Nanzan.After WWII, it was included in the land seized for Camp Zukeran. It was only returned to Chatan Town on 31 March 2020. Access is still strictly controlled by the Japanese Defense Bureau. Since the destruction of Ichi Gusuku, Chatan Gusuku is the only gusuku in Chatan Town.
It has been designated as a National Historic Site in 2020.
Location Address: 904-0107 Okinawa, Chatan, Ōmura, Gusukubaru. Coordinates:
Chatan Gusuku is located in Chatan, a town on the western coast of Okinawa Island. It is located slightly south of the centre of the town, facing the coast, on a limestone hill extending east-west by the estuary of the Shirahi-gawa River. The hill is about 500 metres long, 150 metres wide and 44 metres high. The surrounding landscape has been heavily modified by the installation of Camp Zukeran. It is currently bordered on the north by the Shirahi-gawa River, on the west by National Route 58 and on the south by National Route 130.
Before WWII it was surrounded by the settlements of Kuwae (on the north), Chatan, Rindō and Tamēshi (on the south). The western tip of the hill was graded in order to build National Route 58.
The closest gusuku (at the exception of Ichi Gusuku, that was an outpost of Chatan Gusuku) is Hini Gusuku located 3 kilometres eastward in Kitanakagusuku. Hini Gusuku also yielded material of the transition between the Late Kaizuka period and the beginning of the Gusuku period and its development seems contemporaneous of Chatan Gusuku.
History
Outline Chatan Gusuku was a fortress of Chūzan that was in use between the second half of the 13th century during the Gusuku period and the first half of the 17th century in the Kingdom period. Unlike most of the gusukus, it continued being used even during the Second Shō Dynasty. It was also called Ūkā Gusuku / Ōkawa Gusuku () and functioned with an outpost on the other side of the Shirahi-gawa River, Ichi Gusuku (). It seems to have lost its function as regional administrative centre when Chatan Banju Guards House () was built at the foot of the hill at the end of the 15th century. The gusuku was deserted a few decades later in the 16th century but kept a defensive aspect that was used in the resistance of the kingdom against the Satsuma invasion in 1609. The gusuku afterwards kept its role as a religious centre, and became a location for funerary purposes as can be seen by the eighty-two tombs identified in its cliffs.
Gusuku period
There is no historical document related to the construction of Chatan Gusuku, but several oral traditions compiled at a later stage exist.
The first lord of Chatan Gusuku is remembered as Kaniman Aji (), which is a common name attributed to people related to iron smithing at the beginning of the Gusuku period on Okinawa Island. The Ryūkyū-sosen hōkan (), published in 1933 by Chitoku Keruma () mentions that during the reign of King Eiso (1229-1299), the eldest son of the household of Chatan Noro was named Kaniman Aji. A tomb that is traditionally attributed to Kaniman Aji exists in a cave on the northern cliff, facing Shirahi-gawa River. People who took refuge into the tomb during WWII report that there was a large quantity of human bones inside, suggesting it was a collective tomb. The inscription on the stele in front of the tomb said "The generations of the historical lords of Chatan Gusuku, Kaniman Aji's Sacred Tomb", suggesting that several generations of lords referred to as Kaniman Aji were buried there.
Tradition says that (the last) Kaniman Aji was defeated by Ūkā Aji (Ōkawa Aji) (), who was in turn defeated by Tancha Ufunushi (lit. "the great lord of Tancha") (), before Ūkā Aji's son came to power again when his father's former followers defeated Tancha Ufunushi. Those conflicts are the subject of the kumiodori play The revenge of Ōkawa ().
Since all those names are titles transmitted from father to son, it is not clear how many generations of Kaniman Aji or Ūkā Aji actually dwelt in Chatan Gusuku. Moreover, the genealogical documents of several old houses of Chatan claim that they are descendants of both Kaniman Aji and Ūkā Aji, so that there is a theory that they were in fact related, if not the same person.
Ūkā Aji is at the origin of the other name of Chatan Gusuku, Ūkā Gusuku (Ūkā, lit. "large river", is another name of Shirahi-gawa River). This family seems to have been the main builders of Chatan Gusuku during the 14th and 15th century. Given the size of the gusuku, it is thought the Ūkā Aji family was particularly powerful. It is not clear what happened after this period of struggle for the dominance of the area, but during the reign of Shō Shin (around 1500), the lord of Chatan Magiri was known under the name of Chatan Aji (sometimes Chatan Ōkawa Aji). It is not clear if the persons referred to as Chatan Aji are direct descendants of the Ūkā Aji family.
The fifteenth volume of the Omoro Sōshi (compiled in 1623) mentions the lords of Chatan Gusuku as "kitatan-no-teda" (15/55, 56) and "kitatan-no-yo-no-nushi" (15/57, 58), meaning respectively "the sun of Chatan" and "the world-lord of Chatan". Those terms are commonly applied to kings in the same book, showing that the lords of Chatan were probably particularly powerful. It is not possible to know of which of the ajis the Omoro Sōshi refers to.
Kingdom period During the Satsuma invasion of 1609, Chatan Gusuku was held by Yō Chōhō Sashiki Chikudun Kōdō, who opposed a strong resistance to the invader. He was still fighting and holding his position when he heard that Shuri had fallen, and he committed suicide out of sorrow. His tomb is also located on the northern cliff of Chatan Gusuku. During this resistance, the outpost of Chatan Gusuku located on the other bank of the Shirahi-gawa River, Ichi Gusuku, also played a large role.
After the invasion, the fortress was completely abandoned and part of its lands inside the enclosures were used as agricultural fields. When Ichi-gusuku-bashi Bridge () was rebuilt in stone in 1821, stones from Chatan Gusuku walls were used. It is also said that those stones had been used for the construction of Machinato-bashi Bridge () as well.
Reversion and designation After WWII, the area of Chatan Gusuku was seized by the U.S. Forces and became part of Camp Zukeran (later renamed Camp Foster). On 5 April 2013, the Consolidation Plan for Facilities and Areas in Okinawadefense.gov decided that Camp Foster would be comprised in the seized lands that should be returned to Okinawa "after 2019". This reversion was to take place gradually and the area comprising Chatan Gusuku was planned to be returned to Japan in 2020.
The area was finally reverted to Japan on 31 March 2020, but access is still strictly controlled by the Japanese Defense Bureau. Chatan Gusuku was designated a National Historic Site on 20 Novembre 2020.
Chatan Town is currently pushing for the creation of an historical park that would showcase the archaeological remains.
Archaeological remains
Before the construction of the fortress
There was a village located on the hill of Chatan Gusuku before it became a fortress at the transition between the pre-agricultural Late Kaizuka period and the agricultural Gusuku period, before and during the 12th century. The site has yielded number of postholes and artefacts of this period, starting with locally produced flat constricted bottom pottery. Only a few other gusukus are known with an occupation of the Late Kaizuka period preceding their transformation into a fortress: Gushikawa Gusuku () and Katsuren Gusuku () in central Okinawa and Gushichan Gusuku () in southern Okinawa.
As seen from the representative artefacts, the chronology at the transition between the Late Kaizuka and the Early Gusuku periods in Okinawa Island generally goes from the locally produced flat constricted bottom pottery at the beginning of the 12th century to the "early Gusuku set" in the 12th to 13th centuries (fragments of talc pots, Chinese white porcelain and Kamuiyaki ware), before it shifts to imported celadon in the 13th century. The remains on the hill of Chatan Gusuku go directly from the Late Kaizuka period local pottery to imported celadon. A few 13th century celadon sherds have been found, but most are dated of the 14th and 15th century.
The quantity of imported material of the 12th and 13th century in the lowland sites such as Kumuibaru and Kushikanikubaru is on the over hand overwhelming, leaving no doubt that the power centre had not been established yet on the hill at that time.
Chatan Gusuku's fortress
The fortress makes use of a natural limestone hill by the estuary of Shirahi-gawa River from which you can see Nakagusuku Gusuku, Urasoe Gusuku and Shuri Gusuku. The river is particularly wide at this location, and the cliff particularly steep. There used to be two smaller hills on the east, that were all linked by a ridge path. The two smaller hills disappeared in the landscape modifications by the U.S. Forces after WWII and Chatan Gusuku appears as a single hill dominating the landscape. Excavations have shown that in the 12th century, the ocean came as far inland as the foot of Chatan Gusuku.
The gusuku comprises five enclosures all quite well conserved. The enclosures are numbered 1 to 4 from East to West, with Enclosure 5 north of Enclosure 4. Enclosure 1 is at the highest point of the gusuku, the altitude getting lower going westward. The enclosures are defined by flattened areas surrounded by partitions made by filling the gaps into the natural limestone outcrops with stone walls. This construction of the gusuku, with very limited modification of the natural landscape, is one of the characteristics of Chatan Gusuku. Since the limestone outcrops are less present in the lower enclosures, the proportion of stone walls in the enclosure walls increases from Enclosure 1 to Enclosure 4. The walls are better conserved on the eastern side of the gusuku. Some of the stone walls are conserved up to 1.5 metres high, and can be up to 9 metres wide. The walls are in rubble or ashlar masonry, the ashlars being made in some of the walls of limestone, in some others of stony coral.
The different ajis mentioned in the history paragraph are thought to have built the fortress gradually between the 13th and the 14th centuries. Most of the archaeological remains unearthed are dated of the 14th and 15th centuries. The main residential building that has been found in Enclosure 2 seem to have been first built at the very beginning of the 15th century.
Three different routes leading to the gusuku (all including clear anthropic modifications of the landscape to ease progression) have been identified: one from the south, one from the north and one from the east. There are nowadays other ways to enter the gusuku but none of them include archaeological remains that would confirm that they were used during the Gusuku or Kingdom periods.
The southern route is probably the official one: the path is wide and can be used by several persons at the same time. It leads into Enclosure 4, from which it turns westward to what was probably the main gate in the wall of Enclosure 3. It is called "the Noro's path" since it was used until WWII by Chatan Noro when she was going to the praying sites inside the gusuku.