Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Naminoue shrine bell at Annapolis Naval Academy in Maryland, US.
Dr Bettelheim and his family eventually were to resettle in Illinois, then Missouri, where
he and his wife are buried. In spite of this rather mixed record, it seems somewhat odd that in
May, 1926, a memorial to honor Bettelheim was unveiled on the grounds of his former home
at the shrine. Neverthe less, the memorial is there today.
But the story is not over. When Perry departed from his final visit to Okinawa more than
a year later, having left and returned several times in the interim, he was offered, among oth-
er gifts, a temple bell from Shuri Castle. For whatever reason, this was found unsuitable and
a bell from the Naminoue Gokoku-ji Shrine was offered instead. It's an historic piece, having
been forged in 1456 during the reign of Shō Taikyū. As it was part of the Bettelheim residen-
ce, which was considered to have desecrated the shrine and therefore had not been used as a
place of worship for eight years, the Ryukyuan authorities were willing to part with it. Bettel-
heim, who kept meticulous diaries, expressed delight in seeing the “heathen temple” further
dismantled.
Intended by Commodore Perry to be mounted atop the Washington Monument which
was then under construction, the committee responsible for the monument rejected the idea
and turned down the gift. Later, Perry's widow donated the bell to the US Naval Academy
at Annapolis, Maryland, where it was installed just outside Bancroft Hall, the academy's
largest building. The bell was kept and rung in celebration of Navy victories in the annual
Army-Navy football game for the next hundred years. However, the original bell was con-
sidered an important part of Japanese cultural heritage. In the 1980s, negotiations were un-
dertaken by the US Navy to return it to Japan and it was returned to Naminoue Shrine in
