Goldsmithing Matayoshi

Kanzeiku Matayoshi is a goldsmith workshop in the Shuri Ishimine neighborhood of Naha, Okinawa, practicing kuganizeiku (also rendered kanzeiku), the metalworking craft that developed during the Ryukyu Kingdom. According to the workshop's own historical account, the tradition began in 1509, when a craftsman dispatched by the Shuri royal government traveled to China to learn goldsmithing techniques, which were then brought back and adapted for the kingdom's court. During the Ryukyu period, kuganizeiku artisans were commissioned by the royal government to produce nearly all metal ornaments used in court life apart from ironwork, including the ji-fā hairpins that marked social rank, along with cord rings and tassel rings worn as part of traditional dress. The craft nearly disappeared after the destruction of the Second World War, when tools, workshops and trained artisans were lost; it was revived in the postwar decades through Japan's folk-crafts (mingei) movement, with the earlier generation's Matayoshi Seiboku credited as a key figure in that revival. The workshop today is led by Kenjiro Matayoshi, identified as the seventh generation of the family to practice the craft, continuing production of traditional Ryukyu-era metal ornaments using techniques passed down within the family line rather than an industrial process.