How to place a shisa — direction, position, and the Ishiganto stones, from Senaga Island's connoisseur

You bring a shisa home — and then stall. The entrance? A shelf? By the window? Which way should it face, and does it need to be one of a pair? What is obvious to people in Okinawa is a puzzle for travelers.

This article is a placement map, drawn from Ikeshiro Yasushi, who runs Shisa Chui, a shisa specialty shop on Senaga Island in Tomigusuku, Okinawa.

What a shisa actually guards

A shisa is a guardian being that protects a home and its family. They exist on the Japanese mainland too, sometimes standing alongside komainu shrine dogs. In Okinawa they spread into every household, becoming so familiar that the shisa is now one of Okinawa's defining figures.

In other words, a shisa's post is the home. The iconic image is a figure glaring outward from a roof or gatepost, but placed inside the house, its job is the same.

The saying — the open mouth to the right of your heart

The rule of thumb handed down at the shop is simple: place the open-mouthed one to the right of your heart. That is how it is told at Ikeshiro's shop.

There is no need to be bound by strict rules. What actually stops customers in the shop is color and, surprisingly, size — in other words, the fit with the place you intend to put it. Picture the spot first. That is the shortest path for both placement and choosing.

Ishiganto — guarding the street, not the house

Walk an Okinawan street and you will notice stones carved with the characters Ishiganto set into walls at T-junctions. These are wards too, but they guard differently. Demons are said to travel only in straight lines, so the stones are placed where a street dead-ends into a house, keeping them from entering. Think of it as something like a protective talisman, the owner says.

So: the shisa is the guardian you place at home; the Ishiganto is the ward at the end of the street. Many households keep both, and Shisa Chui carries one-of-a-kind Ishiganto carved from limestone by Studio de-jin.

And the shisa has an origin story of its own: Ishijishi placed to protect whole villages from disaster are said to be where it all began. Studio de-jin's stone shisa take Ishijishi as their motif. The lineage of guardians runs from village to house — and on to your room.

Choose backward from the spot

Outdoors, sturdy ceramic makes sense; for interiors there are resin and wood, or even painted works. The materials run wide — ceramic, resin, Okinawan wood, gettou-paper papier-mache, paintings, limestone — each with a different expression.

And if you get stuck, there is a window to ask. The shop owner has approved an online consultation service where you can ask about placement, or which shisa fits your room, before your trip. It clearly discloses that an AI is answering, the content is based on the owner's first-hand information, and it is free.