There is a certain fascination with early descriptions of the indigenous martial arts of Ryūkyū in Western literature. The overviews are numerous. In this context, we certainly think of the “boxer’s position of defense” mentioned by Basil Hall (1818), the “well-trained fighter” described by Ernest M. Satow (1873) who “can smash a large earthen water-jar, or kill a man with a single blow of the fist”, as well as the young men mentioned by William H. Furness (1899) who “occasionally engage in boxing bouts”. In 1818, Herbert J. Clifford’s Vocabulary of the Language Spoken at the Great Loo-Choo Island translated the verb “to quarrel” as “Titskoong”. And in Bernard J. Bettelheim’s English-Loochooan Dictionary (1851), which I analyzed in January 2020, the English expressions “to box”, “to box with the fist and kick with the feet” and “to fight with fists” are similarly translated into the Ryūkyūan language.
However, one reference that, as far as I know, has always been missing from all these reports comes from the diary of Blanche Tilton Bull (1874–1961). The original is in the library of the University of Ryūkyū, but fortunately Carolyn Bowen Francis published the diary in 1994 under the title “An American woman in Okinawa: Blanche Tilton Bull diary: 1911–1913”. Here we find the following interesting passage:
Tuesday, December 26, 1911: “… the barber gave an exhibition of boxing …” (according to a note dated February 28, 1912, there was even a photo of this barber, but as far as I know, it has not yet been found.
About Blanche Tilton Bull
She arrived in Okinawa on November 11, 1911 with her husband, the Reverend Earl Rankin Bull (1876–1974). Both were sent by the Methodist Episcopal Church from the United States as missionaries to work with the Okinawan and Japanese Christians in the Methodist churches on Okinawa. Blanche left Okinawa on June 11, 1913, but was one of the few foreigners who had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the Ryūkyūan martial arts of the 1910s. Who wouldn’t have wanted to be there?
Investigations into the history of karate 
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