Refine your search

The results of your search are listed below alongside the search terms you entered on the previous page. You can refine your search by amending any of the parameters in the form and resubmitting it.

Select all Deselect all Add selection to lightbox
Large Small
Thumbnails per page
The Ryukyu Islands (琉球諸島 Ryūkyū-shotō), known in Japanese as the Nansei Islands (南西諸島 Nansei-shotō, lit. 'Southwest Islands') are a chain of volcanic Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan. The largest of the islands is Okinawa.
Pechin (親雲上 Peechin, also Peichin) is an Okinawan term for the scholar-officials class of the former Ryūkyū Kingdom (modern day Okinawa, Japan), the class equivalent of the Japanese Samurai. Though initially culturally different, by the nineteenth century these feudal scholar-officials of the Ryūkyū Kingdom would eventually call themselves samurai.<br/><br/> In the last two hundred years of the existence of the Ryūkyū Kingdom there was a strong push to make Ryūkyū more Japanese, and gradually displace the native language, customs and culture. The once culturally distinct Ryūkyū warrior gradually become more Japanese, to the extent that they adopted Bushido. In Japanese documents from the nineteenth century it is common to find that Pechin are simply addressed as Samurai, making no distinction to any cultural differences.