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An interdenominational obon service, during which dozens of ministers from various Buddhist sects will chant sutras, will be held Saturday to remember pioneer Japanese immigrants buried in a common grave on the slopes of Punchbowl.
The public is invited to the annual observance, 9 a.m. at Makiki Cemetery on Pensacola Street, between Prospect Street and Wilder Avenue. The service will be held at the base of a 12-foot memorial tower commemorating the arrival of the first Japanese contract labor immigrants in Hawaii.
The granite tower sits atop a "yosebaka," or common grave, the final resting place for 289 pioneer immigrants whose scattered remains were collected from untended grave sites at the cemetery.
Officiating at the service will be Bishop Chishin Hirai of the Nichiren Mission of Hawaii, assisted by the Rev. Takamasa Yamamura of the Honolulu Myohoji Mission, who will lead the chanting of the Lotus Sutra. Hirai is also vice president of the Hawaii Buddhist Council.
Yasushi Misawa, newly assigned consul general of Japan in Honolulu, is scheduled to provide remarks. His presence at the ceremony Saturday will be among his first official duties as the highest-ranking diplomat of the Japanese government based in Hawaii, according to a news release.
Cyrus Tamashiro, newly elected president of the United Japanese Society of Hawaii, which hosts the annual ceremony, will also provide remarks.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigrants from Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Okinawa, Kumamoto and other prefectures in Japan came to Hawaii to work as contract laborers at the sugar plantations.
"Some died in Hawaii, all alone, without anyone to care for their graves or even remember they existed," Tamashiro said. "So on this occasion we remember these forgotten pioneers at our obon service and also give thanks to everyone, all those who came before us, as they helped make the standard of living we enjoy today possible."
Also to be remembered at the ceremony are 16 Japanese navy sailors and midshipmen from the 19th-century sailing ship era who are buried in an adjoining grave site; and the "gannenmono," or the 141 original Japanese immigrants who arrived in 1868, for whom a memorial was erected in 1927 in the same section of the graveyard formerly known as "Makiki Japanese cemetery."
The Hawaii Buddhist Council is made up of seven major Japanese Buddhist denominations in Hawaii, including the Higashi Hongwanji, Honpa (Nishi) Hongwanji, Jodo, Koyasan Shingon, Nichiren, Soto and Tendai sects.
The UJSH, established in 1958, has worked with its corporate, organizational and individual members to help preserve Japanese culture and promote U.S.-Japanese friendship through various charitable, educational, religious, social and cultural activities.
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