In the Yaeyama islands — Japan's southwestern edge, closer to Taiwan than to Tokyo — each community holds its own harvest festival in the lunar summer. The ceremonies differ from island to island: Taketomi has its own dances, Hateruma has its own, Kohama and Kuroshima have theirs. Different costumes, different music, different relationships to the cycles being addressed. Some ceremonies are not open to outside observers at all. None publish fixed dates far in advance — the timing is determined by the lunar calendar and by community consensus. Finding out when a particular island's festival will occur requires asking someone who lives there. Tourists who build an itinerary around it are likely to be disappointed. These ceremonies are addressed to forces older than tourism, older than the Japanese nation-state, older than the Ryukyu Kingdom. Encountering one — actually being present when a Yaeyama island performs its harvest offering — requires travel that is not about efficiency. It rewards exactly that.