or angama odori (angama dance) is a style of dancing that is performed in many communities of Japan's Yaeyama Islands during the Bon Festival, which is known as sà Ârin (< shà Âryà  (ç²¾éÂÂ)) in Yaeyama. A related performance is known as mushÃÂma in Hateruma. In Kohama Island, the northern community performs a dance named jiruku while the southern community performs Minma buduri.
There is no consensus on the etymology of angama. One theory decomposes angama into *an (possibly meaning mother) and *gama (possibly a diminutive suffix). Another theory relates angama to "elder sister" (angwÃÂ in Okinawan). Some argue that it might mean "disguise of a mask".
Angama shares its mainland Japanese origin with Okinawa's EisÃÂ. The songs to which people dance are called nenbutsu songs. According to the genealogy of the San'yà  lineage, nenbutsu practice was brought from Ryà «kyà « in 1657 when Yaeyama's samurai leader Miyara Chà Âjà « traveled to Okinawa to pay tribute. It is known from other sources that by that time nenbutsu practice had spread to the capital ShuriâÂÂNaha region of Okinawa Island. There were at least two traditions of nenbutsu practice. One was started in the 1600s by Taichà « (1552âÂÂ1639), a Jà Âdo sect monk from Mutsu Province, and was carried on by his followers in Kakinohana, Naha. The other was performed by the ChondarÃÂ, a Shuri-based group of puppeteers, who also had mainland Japanese roots. Folklorist Shinjà  Toshio argued that what Miyara Chà Âjà « learned must have been Taichà «'s one. Sakai Masako, a researcher on folk music, questioned Shinjà Â's theory. Pointing out that Yaeyama has a larger repository of nenbutsu songs than Okinawa, she presumed multiple origins of nenbutsu songs. It was considered taboo to sing nenbutsu songs out of season.
According to the local historian Kishaba Eijun, angama traditions can be divided into two groups: one is performed by the four samurai communities of Ishigaki Island and the other is of commoners in rural communities and remote islands. He argued that the latter had better preserved its traditional way. In the samurai communities of Ishigaki, a group of people with drums (taiko) and sanshin parades around houses of each village. They enter a house that is surrounded by a larger number of spectators. Once everyone sits, Uya nu Ugun (親ã®御æ©, or Nzà  Nenbutsu ç¡èÂ憨愯Â) was sung to mark the beginning, and dancers clap with the beat. Dances and songs alternate with question and answer, in which two masked character Ushumai (old man) and Nmi (old woman) represent ancestral spirits and answer in a humorous way to questions about the afterlife asked by villagers. Kishaba noted that what distinguished samurai's angama from the rural one was that the former was an indoor performance.
In rural communities, angama dances are performed in the garden. A group of people forms a circle. In the center people sing and play drums, flutes, gongs and sanshin, depending on regional variants, and they are surrounded by male and female dancers. "Shichigwachi Nenbutsu" (ä¸ÂæÂÂ念ä»Â), "Kà ÂKà  Nenbutsu" (Ã¥ÂÂè¡Â念ä»Â) and "Chonjon Nenbutsu" (仲é Â念ä»Â) were mainly sung.