Members of Hawaii’s Japanese community and Buddhist leaders gathered Saturday morning at Makiki Cemetery to remember the Gannenmono — the first Japanese laborers who came to live and work in Hawaii.

The Obon Houyo memorial service commemorates the 136 men and five women who made the 14-day voyage from Yokohama to Hawaii in 1868 to work on sugar plantations, according to information provided at the service. They were buried in a yosebaka, or common grave, that is now marked by a 12-foot-tall granite monument.

“It is the pioneering spirit and remarkable sacrifices that set the momentum for others to follow and to lay down roots in Hawaii,” said Yuutaka Aoki, Honolulu’s consul general of Japan, who attended the ceremony. One can only imagine the slew of obstacles they faced, including great societal and language barriers, Aoki said.

Also honored at Saturday’s service were 16 Japanese imperial navy sailors who died in the 1800s and are buried next to the Gannenmono. Most of them perished from nutritional deficiencies that were common among sailors of that era. They were buried in Hawaii when their warships passed through the islands, according to Kanzo Nara, president of the United Japanese Society of Hawaii.

Bishop Kosen Ishikawa of the Hawaii Council of Jodo Missions conducted a mukaebi — or welcoming fire — ceremony, lighting a small fire at the yosebaka. From that fire, he lit a candle, which was placed in a glass cylinder to be brought back to a temple so that the spirits of the dead would find their way to the land of the living, he explained.

The tradition is usually performed at the beginning of the obon season in July so that ancestors may enjoy the summer. At the end of obon in August, another ceremony is performed to send the spirits back to the “Pure Land,” Ishikawa said.

Most of the Gannenmono contract workers came to Hawaii to make money to send home to Japan. They were dispersed to various sugar plantations throughout the islands and received wages of about $10 to $15 a month, toiling in sugar fields and mills for 10 to 12 hours a day.

Many Gannenmono returned to Japan or sailed on to the U.S. mainland, and those who stayed did not always have family here and died with no one to tend to their graves.

In 1985, the Oahu Kan­yaku Imin Centennial Committee decided to find a way to honor them. Using donations collected from the community, the committee was able to gather the Gannenmono’s remains, as well as the remains of the second group of Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii in 1885, and rebury them in the Makiki Cemetery.

A granite memorial was made in Okayama, Japan, and delivered to Hawaii to be placed on the gravesite. It was unveiled in February 1986.

Since then, the yosebaka memorial service was held every February until the United Japanese Society of Hawaii took on the responsibility of organizing the service in 1994. The observance was then moved to July to coincide with the annual obon season.

All of those buried at the yosebaka have their names engraved in the monument, said Rika Hirata, chair of the Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce board of directors. However, it’s difficult to uncover who in the islands still has ancestral ties to the Gannenmono buried at Makiki Cemetery, she said.

Nara said he prefers to think of the Gannenmono as pioneers rather than immigrants.

“Immigrants sounds like a status you will put on your visa application,” Nara said, “whereas a pioneer is a person who is an adventurer.”

The strength and courage the Gannenmono displayed in being the first Japanese laborers to move to Hawaii was that of a true pioneer, he said.