Yaeyama minsah and the Minsah Kogeikan

Minsah is a thick cotton cloth woven with ribs running down its length, and it was made for men's sashes. Yomitan, Shuri, Yaeyama and Yonaguni each wove their own kind, and the technique is said to have travelled from Afghanistan through Tibet and China before it took its own form in Okinawa. Today the cloth also goes into women's sashes and all kinds of smaller things.

The Yaeyama version carries a row of five squares and a row of four in kasuri, which means the threads were dyed in sections before weaving. Five is itsu and four is yo, and together they read as itsu no yo made mo, which means forever and ever. A woman wove the sash herself and gave it to the man she was engaged to as a pledge. Japan named Yaeyama minsah a traditional craft in 1989, and the designation covers Ishigaki and Taketomi.

The Minsah Kogeikan in Tonoshiro is Azamiya's main store, and it sells minsah made into bags, shirts, ties and homewares. On the ground floor you can watch part of the work in the weaving room, which the shop says takes about 30 steps from thread to cloth, and the second floor has a room of material on dyeing and weaving. Classes on the looms run every day.