This article examines indigenous language acquisition (ILA) with regard to the indigenous Yaeyaman language spoken in the Ryukyus in Japan. The focus is on teachers and new speakers in an endangered language community. The following two questions are examined: (1) What kinds of problems do teachers and learners encounter in language revitalisation of the Yaeyaman language? (2) What kind of teaching practices exist in the Yaeyaman language communities? Using linguistic ethnography within the framework of indigenous research methodology to examine ILA regarding the Yaeyaman language, the paper demonstrates the aspects of inhibition in ILA. I identified four components that impede language learning of new speakers in the community: (1) indigenous teachers' lack of professional self-esteem, (2) lack of awareness of traditional speakers' rich linguistic knowledge, (3) marginalised community-based language policies, and (4) a problematic relation between gender roles and language. I locate these phenomena within the larger issues of ILA theory, also drawing from existing Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories. The paper concludes with proposals for reframing ILA theory to empower the entire target language community by focusing on diversity within indigenous language communities.