Ryukyu Indigo Dye
Cultivating indigo plants and extracting dye from them
requires a considerable amount of skill
Ryukyu Indigo-Dye Preservation Society
Designated in 2002
Social Education Division,
Motobu Town Board of Education 5 Higashi,
Motobu-cho, Kunigami-gun,
Okinawa Prefecture 905-0212
The Ryukyu indigo plant (Strobilanthes cusia) has long been cultivated and used in Okinawa as a source of indigo dye for bashōfu (cloth fashioned from the Japanese fiber banana) and other local traditional fabrics. It is different from the species of indigo used for conventional indigo dyes.