Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawaii (Latitude 20 Books)

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Author: John R. K. Clark

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Guardian of the Sea jizo in hawai‘i

john r. k. clark

Guardian of the Sea

john r. k. cl ark

Guardian of the Sea Jizo in Hawai‘i

A Latitude 20 Book University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2007 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in 12 11 10 09 08 07 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clark, John R. K., 1946– Guardian of the sea : Jizo in Hawai‘i / John R.K. Clark. p. cm. “A latitude 20 book”. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3158-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ksitigarbha (Buddhist deity) — Cult — Hawaii. 2. Hawaii — Religious life and customs. I. Title. BQ4710.K74U635

2007

294.3'4211309969 — dc22

2007012893

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources Designed by April Leidig-Higgins Printed by Versa Press Title page photo: Two surfers pay their respects at the Umi Mamori Jizo. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

In memory of Zensaku Uchibori And all the men, women, and children Who have lost their lives in Hawaiian waters

Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction xiii Prologue 1 chapter one

Casting for Ulua 4 chapter t wo

Stores, Clubs, and Tournaments 13 chapter three

Jizo the Protector 19 Jizo on O‘ahu 27 Jizo on Kaua‘i 32 Jizo on Maui 38 Jizo on Moloka‘i 42 Jizo on Lāna‘i 43 Jizo on Hawai‘i (the Big Island) 46 Jizo and Ebisu 49 Jizo in Japan as a Guardian of the Sea 51 chapter four

Jizo on the North Shore 57 Kawaihāpai Jizo 59 Kawailoa Jizo 71 Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo 77 Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission 80 Hale‘iwa Jizo 80

viii c o n t e n t s

chapter five

Warning Signs 90 Honolulu Japanese Casting Club 90 Zensaku Uchibori 97 chapter six

Jizo on the South Shore 107 Statue Ordered 107 Statue Erected 109 Statue Destroyed 114 Statue Replaced 117 Sentaro Otsubo 118 Pālolo Kwannon Temple 123 chapter seven

Pilgrimages 127 Eighty-eight Temples of Shikoku, Japan 127 Lāwa‘i International Center, Kaua‘i 129 Waimea Shingon Mission, Kaua‘i 132 Kona Koyasan Daishiji Mission, Big Island 134 Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, O‘ahu 134 Hichi Kasho Meguri, O‘ahu 137 Hawai‘i Jizo Meguri, O‘ahu 141 chapter eight

Drownings in Hawai‘i 152 Epilogue 167 Timeline of Events 171 References 177 Index 187

Acknowledgments during the four-year period between the summer of 2002 and the sum-

mer of 2006, I interviewed over 300 people to gather information for Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i. Everyone who graciously shared their stories, their knowledge, and their expertise to help make this book possible is listed below, a small token of my appreciation. Abe, Michael Abeshima, Leonard Abrigo, Maryanne Aiu, Steve Aka, Momoko Akimoto, May Akiyama, Taiken Amano, Daiya Anderson, Kathryn Arakawa, Goro Araki, Yoshie Awai, James Balfour, Bill Banes, Kevin Barrientos, Tom Barros, Jimmy Bays, Jan Belcher, Patty Lei Blair, Janyce Bolles, Laura Bolton, Wendy Bornhorst, Heidi Brand, Keiko Braun, Beverly Brown, DeSoto Camacho, Clara Castagnetti, Mark

Cates, Rob Char, Libby Chiba, Ichiro Chinen, Karlene Collins, John Cook, Chris Daniel, Brian Dean, John Desha, Edean Dias, Pearl Dillingham, Peter Downes, Monty Duponte, Deanne Dunn, Barbara Ebisui, Isamu Enoki, Fumiko Enoki, Toshihisa Ezaki, Koji Fairbanks, Marjory Feinstein, Larry Finnegan, Mindy Fitzpatrick, Gary Fooks, Bessie Fooks, Gil Foster, Hugh Fukunaga, Tadashi Fukutomi, May

Fujii, Shirley Fujimoto, Dennis Fujioka, Yutaka Funai, Sundae Furuta, Hideo Galanis, Dan Gerwitz, Laura Gillmar, Jack Gilman, Joe Goto, Ralph Greenwell, Jean Hamasaki, James Hamilton, Bill Hasegawa, Ethel Hasuike, Thelma Higuchi, Janis Hill, Sue Hino, Dai Hirayama, June Hirayama, Tom Hoashi, Seichi Honda, Isamu Honebrink, Randy Hong, Alan Honmyo, Yujiro Hori, Joan Howe, Jim

x acknowledgments

Ikeda, Masako Ikeda, Walter Imata, Bessie Ishida, Harry K. Isotani, Yoshihiko Itagaki, Kosho Iwaoka, Didi Izu, Mikio Izumi, Hiromi Izumi, Yasutaka Jodoi, Tokio Johnston, Chuck Jones, Don Kajioka, Fred Kajioka, Yoshie Kalaau, Eben Kalama, Charles Kaleimamahu, Wendell Kamahele, Craig Kaneko, Herbert Kaneko, Sadako Kaneko, Tad Katada, Ben Kataoka-Yahiro, Merle Katsuyoshi, Tom Kawanishi, Jitsunin Kawashima, Gaylen Kawasome, Katsu Kaya, Maurice Kaye, Robin Kini, Sid Kino, Keoni Kiyama, Kaijo Knutsen, Herbert Kobayashi, Victor Koizumi, Betty Kokuzo, Roy

Komagata, Faye Komagata, Shugen Komagata, Shuji Kono, Juliet Kubota, Gaylord Kumasaka, Robert Kunishige, Clarence Laba, Leon Langlas, Charles Lanik, Tom Lawler, Mark Leber, Keith Lee, Henry Lennox, Gladys Leonardi, Attilio Lewis, Dennis Machida, Jiho Machida, Violet Maki, Clarence Maki, David Maki, Edna Mansho, Rene Maruyama, Norike Masaki, Howard Masuda, Akiko Masunaga, Glenn Matsumoto, Eric Matsumoto, Irene Matsunaga, Kate Matsuura, Amy Matsuura, Gyokuei Matsuura, Martin McEldowney, Holly McPherson, Michael Mejia, Jason Melemai, Bill Melendy, Brett Meyer, Joe

Minatodani, Dori Minatoishi, Merten Miura, Michael Miura, Tommy Miya, Gladys Miya, James Miyamoto, Clifford Miyamoto, David Miyasaki, Jennie Miyashiro, Erin Miyashiro, Gail Miyata, Garrett Miyata, Taisen Miyazaki, Masaaki Mizuno, Haruo Mookini, Esther “Kiki” Morita, Albert Morita, Natsue Morris, F. L. Motteler, Lee Mowat, Gayla Murakami, Charlotte Murakami, Violet Murakoshi, Jane Muramoto, Lynn Murashige, Carol Murashige, Tad Murata, Amy Murata, Setsu Muromoto, Masami Muromoto, Wayne Nagaishi, Fumio Nagaoka, Akira Nakamura, Dwight Nakamura, Setsuko Nakamura, Taka Nakashima, Harue

acknowledgments

Nanbara, Myrtle Napoleon, Nanette Natsuyama, Chieko Natsuyama, Eric Natsuyama, Harriet Natsuyama, Kenjiro Natsuyama, Yakue Nedbalek, Lani Nishimura, Alyson Nishiwaki, Hiroko Nishiwaki, Seigoro Nitta, Ray Nojiri, Wayne Oda, Howard Odo, Franklin Ogasawara, Motoko Ogawa, Dennis Ogdemli, Dorothea Ogdemli, Kaya Oka, Sig Okimura, Dean Onishi, Harold Onishi, Umeno Oyama, Kenji Ozaki, Tomoko Ozawa, Ted Ozawa, Walter Palumbo, Charlie Palumbo, Lorraine Paty, Bill Paty, Peggy Pratt, Dudley Pregana, Rita Pulfrey, Anne Putzulu, Clara Putzulu, Paul Pyle, Leilani Reid, Olivia

Remoaldo, Susan Reppun, Marilyn Rohrback, Don Romerhaus, Bill Rose, Jikyu Rush, Jay Sabas, John Saito, Ethel Sakai, Shunko Sakamoto, Gen Sakamoto, Patsy Sakamoto, Sumitoshi Sasaki, Alison Sasaki, Clyde Sasaki, Emma Sasaki, Horace Sato, Aileen Sato, Nobuaki Sato, Toyoko Seiki, Tadashi Seki, Tomomi Shelton, Jessica Shimabukuro, Yoshiko Shiomoto, Yoshio Shirachi, Nancy Shirai, Hubert Shiraki, Rae Shiratori, Myra Short, B. J. Sigouin, Peter Simpson, MacKinnon Sinn, Karen Sinoto, Kazuko Soares, George Sodetani, Clara Sodetani, Faith Sora, Gladys

xi

Soriano, Fred Sugasawa, Shigeru Sutherland, Dede Tachibana, Toshitugu Tajiri, Tatsuo Takamoto, Masae Takasane, Yosuke Tanabe, George Tanji, Tom Tanji, Virginia Tatsuguchi, Roland Tatsuguchi, Sumiko Thomas, Robert Toki, Shige Toki, Wilfred Tokimoto, Shoji Torres, Richard Toth, Catherine Tottori, Jane Tottori, Mitsuo Tsuda, Kozo Tsukazaki, Norman Tsuru, Reyn Tsutsumi, Gertrude Tsutsumi, Jane Tsutsumi, Umeyo Turgeon, Tim Uchibori, Michiyo Uchibori, Thomas Uchida, Mario Ueoka, Meyer Unebasami, Kay Unebasami, Richard Ushio, Shuji Uyeda, Shigeo Van Dyke, Peter Vogel, Debbie Waddoups, Richard

xii a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

Wakahiro, Flora Wakahiro, Jim Watanabe, Ethel Watanabe, Eunice Watanabe, June Watanabe, Kenichi Watanabe, Tsuneo Wessel, Irene Wilson, Peter Wong Smith, Helen

Yamada, Betsy Yamada, Thomas Yamaguchi, Ryozo Yamamoto, Barbara Yamamoto, Marian Yamamoto, Mihoe Yamanaka, Harry Yamasaki, Lloyd Yamashita, Yukiko Yamauchi, Jiitsu

Yamauchi, Lorraine Yasutake, Clara Yee, Edward Yee, Florence Yempuku, Paul Yoshida, Arlene Yoshimura, Bessie Yoshitake, Shigeyuki Yu, Marilyn Zollinger, Fred

I would also like to thank a small group of friends who worked side-by-side with me from the beginning and without whom this book would not have happened: translators David Henna, Hirotaka Sato, and Saori Sato, who translated the numerous articles from the Japanese-language newspapers, all of which appear here in English for the first time; photographer Mike Waggoner; and ulua fisherman and Hawaii Fishing News columnist Brian Funai. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their support and understanding during four years of research and writing: Koji Clark, Sachi Clark, Jason Clark, Alice Stanley, Julie Ushio, Sai Ushio, and Sam Ushio.

Introduction in 1970 i bec ame a lifeguard with the City and County of Honolulu. Dur-

ing my two-year career with the lifeguard service, I was stationed at Sandy Beach, where my partner Daryl Picadura and I made many rescues, pulling visitors, military personnel, and local residents out of Sandy’s pounding shorebreak. In the spring of 1972 I decided to write a beach guide for the island of O‘ahu that would list every beach on the island and identify its dangers, physical characteristics, recreational uses, and value as a historic and cultural site. When I joined the Honolulu Fire Department in the summer of 1972, I kept writing. The Beaches of O‘ahu, the first in a series of books about the beaches of Hawai‘i, was published by the University of Hawai‘i Press in 1977. I began my research on O‘ahu’s beaches with Sandy Beach, which is bordered on its west end by the sea cliffs of Koko Head Regional Park. Hālona Point and Bamboo Ridge, two rocky points at the bottom of the cliffs, have been popular fishing areas for ulua, or giant trevally, since the 1920s. They have also been the sites of many drownings, the result of high surf sweeping across the low ledges on these points and catching fishermen off guard. The majority of the early ulua fishermen were Japanese, and in 1929 a group of them formed the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. Concerned with the high number of ledge drownings among their members and other fishermen on the island, they decided to take action. In 1931 they initiated a community service project to erect warning signs at dangerous fishing spots around the island. The signs were wooden posts in the form of obelisks, and each one bore the Japanese calligraphic symbol kiken painted on its side, with the English translation —“danger”— written below it. For a period of ten years, posts were placed at every spot on the shoreline of O‘ahu where a fisherman had lost his life. Today, of over fifty of these warning signs, only two remain: one next to the Blowhole at Hālona Point and one on the sea cliffs at Pai‘olu‘olu Point, the western point of Hanauma Bay. In addition to setting up the warning obelisks, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club purchased a granite statue of Jizo, a Buddhist guardian, from Hiroshima, Japan. They erected the statue in 1932 on a narrow plateau overlooking Bamboo Ridge and Hālona Point to protect the fisher-

xiv i n t r o d u c t i o n

The identifying symbol, or bija, for Jizo is Ha, the initial syllable of laughter. The symbol comes from the mantra of Jizo, which in Japanese is “On ka ka ka, bi san maei sowaka” or “Om ha ha ha, hail to him in his majesty.” “Ha ha ha” is the sound of laughter, especially children’s laughter, and expresses the joy of those who are successful in achieving self-realization. Calligraphy by Reverend Hirotaka Sato.

men below, but from the beginning it was subject to relentless vandalism. When it was severely damaged in 1939, club members replaced it with the monument that stands there today: a large lava boulder with an image of Jizo carved into its west face. When I discovered the boulder in 1972 and learned its history, I attempted to find out what happened to the original statue. I made some inquiries but was told by several people that the original had been completely destroyed. So I wrote the story as I knew it in the O‘ahu beach book, and I moved on. The success of The Beaches of O‘ahu inspired the beaches of Hawai‘i series, which now includes The Beaches of Maui County (1980), Beaches of the Big Island (1985), Beaches of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau (1990), Hawai‘i’s Best Beaches (1999), Hawai‘i Place Names: Shores, Beaches, and Surf Sites (2002), and Beaches of O‘ahu (revised 2005). But during all those years, I never forgot about the statue of Jizo in Koko Head Regional Park. I considered it an unsolved mystery. In April 1999, I received a call from Brian Funai, a Honolulu architect who is an avid ulua fisherman and a columnist for the Hawaii Fishing News (HFN). Brian explained that he was researching a story for HFN on the history of fishing clubs in Hawai‘i and had seen my reference to the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club in the Sandy Beach section of my O‘ahu beach book. He asked if I had any more information on the club. I went back to my journals, reviewed my interviews, and shared what I had with him. We ended

introduction

xv

The cover of the December 1999 issue of Hawaii Fishing News with a photo inset (upper left) of one of the two original obelisk warning signs still standing today. Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club erected this obelisk on the west point of Hanauma Bay in 1934. Cover courtesy of Chuck Johnston, Hawaii Fishing News.

up talking about the club, their obelisk warning sign project, and the statue of Jizo they had erected on the sea cliffs above Bamboo Ridge and Hālona Point. HFN ran Brian’s story, “History of Hawaii’s Shorecasting Clubs,” as a special feature in its December 1999 edition. Coincidentally, Brian and I had children in the same preschool in Hawai‘i Kai, and we started running into each other regularly. I was in my research phase for Hawai‘i Place Names: Shores, Beaches, and Surf Sites, which includes fishing sites, so Brian and I started talking about the stories behind the names of some of the popular ulua fishing spots. Then on May 31, 2002, Brian told me something totally unexpected. “I happened to talk to Reyn Tsuru at Shingon Mission on Sheridan Street,” he said, “and Reyn told me

xvi i n t r o d u c t i o n

that the original statue of Jizo that was at Bamboo Ridge is at a Buddhist temple in Pālolo Valley, Pālolo Kwannon Temple. I called Pālolo Kwannon Temple, and the reverend there confirmed that the original statue is on the grounds of her church. She’s invited us to come to their sixty-seventh anniversary celebration on Sunday to talk to her and see the statue.” Brian and I were both excited. We attended the ceremony, which included an impressive fire ritual performed by a visiting bishop from Japan, met Reverend Irene Eishen Matsumoto, and saw the original statue of Jizo from Koko Head Regional Park. For me, this was the beginning. It was my chance to learn the entire story behind one of O‘ahu’s historic shoreline monuments. Starting with Reverend Matsumoto of Pālolo Kwannon Temple, one interview led to another, and I began to unravel the mystery of the missing statue. I spent the next four years trying to find as many people as I could who were connected to the original statue of Jizo. All of the issei — the first-generation of Japanese in Hawai‘i who were part of the statue project in 1932 — had passed away, and most of their children — the nisei, or second generation — were in their seventies and eighties. I interviewed as many of them as I could. The information they gave me included some key dates, so I began to search the old newspapers. I didn’t have much luck in the English papers, so I tried the old Japanese newspapers — the Hawaii Hochi and the Nippu Jiji. Since I don’t read Japanese, I scanned the microfilm looking for pictures of the statue and of fishermen with ulua. My system actually worked, and I began to find articles about fishermen and the statue. With the help of translator David Henna, the story unfolded and evolved into Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i. In one of my interviews with Reverend Matsumoto, she mentioned that there was another statue of Jizo on O‘ahu’s North Shore. She suggested I call Reverend Shugen Komagata of the Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission for more information. Reverend Komagata told me that two statues of Jizo near the ocean were under his care — one at Kawailoa and another at Kawaihāpai — and that there was a third at Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission, a church on the ocean next to Hale‘iwa Ali‘i Beach Park. After looking into the histories of the three statues on the North Shore, I realized that there were elements common to all of them and to the statue of Jizo at Koko Head, so I decided to tell the story of each one. I also decided to check the neighbor islands to see if any of the Japanese ulua fishermen there had set up warning signs where other fishermen had

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drowned or statues of Jizo in remote shoreline areas. I learned that there was no counterpart to the community service project that the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club had organized on O‘ahu in the 1930s; however, I found statues of Jizo on the neighbor islands and decided to write about them, too. I completed my research in the summer of 2006, four years after my first visit to Pālolo Kwannon Temple. The stories of these statues of Jizo are part of a much larger story — the history of the early Japanese immigrants in Hawai‘i. For many of them, Jizo was an everyday part of their lives in Japan, and through the history of the statues we see what life was like during the first half of the twentieth century for the issei, the Japanese immigrants in Hawai‘i, and for their children, the nisei. We get a glimpse of their everyday activities in the plantation camps and in the cities, including their funerals and other religious ceremonies. We see the impact of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the results of the anti-Japanese hysteria that followed, including the internment of many Japanese in Hawai‘i for the duration of World War II. And through it all, we see the strength of Buddhism in Hawai‘i, one of the powerful guiding forces that sustained the early Japanese immigrants through the challenges of assimilation in another country, a force that continues to guide their descendents today.

Guardian of the Sea

Prologue

when the City of Honolulu docked in Honolulu Harbor on February 8,

1885, the ship was carrying 944 Japanese men, women, and children. They were the first government contract laborers from Japan, the beginning of a wave of immigrants that between 1885 and 1924 brought tens of thousands of Japanese to Hawai‘i, most of them to work on the sugar plantations. Their story is told in many books, and one of the best is A Pictorial History of the Japanese in Hawai‘i 1885–1924. Edited by Franklin Odo and Kazuko Sinoto and published by the Bishop Museum Press in 1985, the book commemorates the “centennial of the first arrival of government contracted Japanese laborers in Hawai‘i.” Most of the information that follows is from this volume. When early Polynesians discovered Hawai‘i in their voyaging canoes, they had sugarcane on board with them as a food plant, but large-scale, commercial sugarcane plantations were not established in Hawai‘i until hundreds of years later. The first of these was started in 1835 in Kōloa, Kaua‘i, by three Americans, and by 1890, seventy-two plantations were operating in Hawai‘i, producing raw sugar for transport to refineries in California. Sugarcane cultivation in its early days was extremely labor intensive, generating an insatiable demand for manual laborers. Hawaiians were the first plantation workers, but their numbers could not meet the demand. They were followed by Chinese immigrants in 1852, the Japanese Gannenmono in 1868 (a small group of 148 contract laborers), Portuguese in 1878, Germans and Scandinavians in 1881, Japanese government contract laborers in 1885, and Spanish in 1899. Other groups that followed were Okinawans and Puerto Ricans in 1900, Koreans in 1903, and Filipinos in 1906. Villagers in Japan were recruited through formal government announcements, word of mouth, newspaper accounts, and, after 1900, a number of influential “guidebooks” to Hawai‘i. Interested individuals applied through

2 guardian of the sea

local offices and obtained exit permits from prefectural governments. After receiving passports from the Foreign Ministry, they traveled at their own expense to Yokohama, where individual contracts were signed with a representative of the Hawaiian government. After a rigorous medical inspection and a boat trip of ten to fourteen days, the prospective laborers were subject to another medical examination in Hawai‘i, quarantined, and then they signed contracts with individual plantations. By 1924 the Japanese population in Hawai‘i included immigrants from many prefectures, including Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto, Okinawa, Fukuoka, Niigata, Wakayama, Miyagi, Okayama, Yamanashi, Ehime, Shizuoka, Tokyo, Chiba, Fukui, Kagoshima, and Kochi. The plantations in Hawai‘i were constantly looking for new technology to reduce their reliance on human labor. When the Japanese arrived in the late 1800s, railroads were introduced to transport laborers to the fields and cane to the mills, along with steam plows, which helped to cultivate the land for planting. But cutting the seed cane, planting, irrigating, fertilizing, weeding, cutting, and loading the harvested cane into wagons, railroad cars, or flumes all remained backbreaking manual labor. The first male contract laborers in 1885 received $9 per month and the equivalent of $6 in food, for a total of $15, while women received $6 per month and $4 for food, for a total of $10. In addition to the work in the fields, the mills required a wide range of skills: attending to machines used in washing and crushing the stalks to extract the juice; boiling and clarifying the juice; condensing and crystallizing the sugar; and finally, bagging and transporting the product for shipment to refineries in California. Support services involved carpenters, electricians, ironworkers, mechanics, and other skilled workers, and Japanese workers soon filled many of these positions. Laborers received free housing, medical care, and cooking fuel as part of their contracts from the plantations. By the turn of the century, many plantations built clusters of buildings called camps, with perhaps five or six longhouses measuring approximately 18 by 30 feet and divided into a dozen rooms. In one popular configuration, four of the rooms went to couples, while the other eight were assigned to single men. The couples lived in quarters measuring 6 by 6 feet, and the single men occupied rooms half as wide, with barely enough space in which to sleep. The quality of housing improved dramatically after the 1909 and 1920 strikes, and in the twentieth century kerosene replaced wood as cooking fuel, making life somewhat more bearable. Japanese women prepared all meals for the families and, in

prologue

3

some cases, also cooked for a few bachelors to earn additional income. The variety of ingredients was extremely limited and the Japanese immigrants generally faced simple, repetitious diets. In spite of the hardships, families concentrated on making the best of life in the plantation camps by moving on to better jobs and by establishing social and cultural practices that improved the quality of their lives. The forty-year period between 1885 and 1924 set the stage for race relations and ethnic cultural activities for society in Hawai‘i. The influence of the Japanese, arriving in large numbers during such a dynamic period in Hawai‘i’s history, proved to be a vital part of today’s unique cultural mix.

chapter one

Casting for Ulua

when the japanese came to Hawai‘i in 1885, they were an island people

coming from one group of Pacific islands to another. The ocean was an intrinsic part of their culture. Many of them had strong ties to the sea, especially as fishermen, and within a few years of their arrival they were fishing on the shores of every island. Many of them had been commercial fishermen in Japan, and when their contracts with the plantations expired, they turned to the sea to make a living. The boatbuilders among them made gomai, or sampans — specially designed boats that Japanese fishermen used to catch pelagic fish such as aku, or skipjack tuna. Aku are abundant in Hawaiian waters, especially from April to September. The schools come close to the Hawaiian Islands, where they are spotted by watching for flocks of seabirds feeding on the small fish that the aku chase. Tuna fishing was so good in Hawai‘i that by the early 1900s, Japanese fishermen had formed fishing companies and brought in shipwrights from Japan to build more boats. An article in The Japanese in Hawaii in 1921, published by the Nippu Jiji Co., Ltd., publishers of the Nippu Jiji Japaneselanguage newspaper, provided the following information on three of the earliest fishing companies: Established in 1908, Hawaii Fishing, Inc. is the oldest company among the local fishing companies and was formed by Gensaku Nakamura, Taro Shibazome, Toshiyuki Mitamura, Seimatsu Takahashi, Yasutaro Soga, Tomoichi Iwanaga, Yuukichi Ishii, and Tatsuzoo Kuramatsu and twenty other countrymen. At the present time Hawaii Fishing, Inc. employs 370 fishermen and utilizes 50 gasoline-powered fishing boats. The Pacific Fishing Company, composed of Japanese countrymen, began its operation in Hawaii on June 8, 1910. At the present time, the president is Mr. Matsutaro Yamashiro, and this company employs more than 300 fishermen and utilizes as many as 48 gasoline-powered fishing vessels.

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5

The Honolulu Fishing Company was established in September of 1914, thanks to the beginning outlay of $5,000 as well as the strenuous efforts of Mr. Chozaemon Nakafuji. Since then several company presidents have come and gone, but the firm still remains.

By the 1930s, a large commercial sampan fishing fleet was based in Honolulu at Kewalo Basin. Sampans were the heart of Hawai‘i’s tuna canning industry, with most of their yearly catch purchased by Hawaiian Tuna Packers. On January 1, 1937, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported that “200 sampans were idle in Kewalo Basin while their seamen celebrated the New Year’s holiday.” Each boat was decorated with flags, and the fishermen had attached sprigs of ironwood and bamboo to the masts for good luck. The cannery closed in 1985 when local canning was no longer profitable, and today only one sampan — the Kula Kai — remains. The historic wooden boat, built in 1947 by Seichi Funai, is still operating in Hawaiian waters, fishing for tuna. Although the large fleet of sampans has disappeared, the Bishop Museum owns a scale model of one that was donated in 1977 by retired Honolulu

In May 1949, four Big Island residents caught eleven ulua and one pa¯pio during a fishing expedition to South Point. From left to right, their last names are Togashi, Kobeyashi, Hata, and Takahashi, and their largest ulua weighed 90 pounds. Photo courtesy of the Togashi Family.


Shipyard owner Seichi Funai. For his eighty-sixth birthday, Funai built the model, taking four weeks to complete it. Funai came to Hawai‘i in 1917 from Wakayama Prefecture, which he said was the place of origin of the sampanstyle boats that were introduced to Hawai‘i in 1899 by Gorokichi Nakasuji. Before he retired in the mid-1950s, Funai built more than 150 sampans in his shipyard, located where Ward Warehouse stands today. Funai presented the model to the museum accompanied by his friend, Katsukichi Kida, head of K. Kida Fishing Supplies, Co., Ltd., who also donated many artifacts and photographs of tuna fishing in Hawai‘i. The early Japanese shoreline fishermen used throw nets and poles. They fashioned throw nets like those they had used in Japan and introduced throw-net fishing to Hawai‘i. In her book Hawaii Goes Fishing, Jean Scott MacKellar noted, “In spite of the fact that it is one of the most photographed of all Hawaiian fishing techniques, throw net fishing is not a native sport. It was brought from Japan about 1890 and quickly adopted by the Hawaiians because of its effectiveness along Island shores.” In 1974, a newspaper reporter interviewed Harry Okamura, a Japanese throw-net fisherman who was born in Kōloa, Kaua‘i, in 1900 and raised in Anahola. “I learned thrownet fishing from old-time Japanese when I was eight years old,” Okamura said. “I used to see Japanese teaching Hawaiians how to make the nets and throw them. The Hawaiians had lay or gill nets that were made of native fiber.” Okamura concluded by saying Kaua‘i has “nice, wide, long reefs for throw-netting. That’s still about the best island for this kind of fishing.” Fishermen in Japan call throw-net fishing toami, which literally means “to cast a net.” One of the places toami fishing is still practiced is on the Shimanto River, the longest river in Kochi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. Toami fishermen on the Shimanto, which is often promoted today as Japan’s last pristine river, throw their nets from the front of small, shallowdraft boats while heading downstream. Using throwing techniques and nets similar to those in Hawai‘i, they cast for ayu, or “sweetfish,” a freshwater fish renowned for its wonderful flavor and distinctive aroma. In Hawai‘i local fishermen adopted throw nets as their own and took them into the ocean, often using them where waves break on shallow reefs. Some local Japanese fishermen coined their own slang for throw nets, calling them nageami, a term derived from nageru, “to throw,” and ami, or “net,” while Hawaiians called them ‘upena ho‘olei, “nets that are thrown like a lei,” a poetic description of the nets’ circular shape in flight. On Kaua‘i‘s north shore, the ‘āpapa — the long, flat fringing reefs that parallel the beaches —

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are still among the best throw-net sites in the Islands. Schools of moi, āholehole, manini, kala, pualu, and nenue, the fish that inhabit these reefs and forage in the whitewater of surging waves, are among the most popular catches. The early Japanese fishermen also fished with poles, or tsurisao, which were like those they had used in Japan. Fashioned from bamboo, they called these poles cane rods in English, and in 1946 Edward Hosaka described the process of making them in his book Sport Fishing in Hawaii: The cane rod is a simple, one-piece bamboo. There are two kinds of cane rods, the Japanese bamboo and the India or Calcutta bamboo. Of the two, the Calcutta is heavier, but the Japanese is more flexible. Points to consider in selecting a fishing pole are balance, lightness, pliancy, and strength. A good fishing pole should have a stiff back, but be pliable to respond to the varying pull of the fish. Most of the bend and play should be in the upper two-thirds of the rod to form a smooth curve. After a little experience, any one can pick up a pole and tell whether it will make a good or poor fishing pole. Usually, a tapering pole with short internodes makes a good casting pole. When the pole has been selected, trim it to the desired length and temper it by holding it directly over an open alcohol flame for a few seconds and straighten it. The heated pole is easily bent. Wipe off the oil that exudes from the bamboo with a clean cloth. In tempering a pole, start from the small end and gradually work toward the larger or butt end, sighting from time to time to see that the pole is straight. When the pole is tempered and straightened, it is ready for the guides. Before the guides are put on, rub the pole lightly with very fine sandpaper or powdered pumice on a wet cloth so that the varnish will adhere tightly. The next step is to lay the pole on the ground and mark off the places where the guides and the reel seat are to be placed. This marking is important, because the guides should always be placed on the convex side of the pole. Cut off the small end of the pole, a few inches above the last joint, and place a short piece of hard wood in the cavity and trim it so that the tip guide fits on securely. Smear the end with household cement, put on the tip guide, and wrap the joint with silk thread. The next step is to wrap the pole with silk thread at intervals to re-enforce it. The guides are put on from the top down. Four to five guides are sufficient. In putting the guides on, sight the position of the guides from the reel seat to


the tip guide so as to place them in a straight line. Guides when not aligned will cause unnecessary rubbing and will wear out the line. There are many kinds of guides in use: glass, tin, chrome steel, agate, and others. The chrome steel guide is a satisfactory one, for it is fairly resistant to corrosion and damage by careless handling. The size of the guides depends on the size of the pole. On a light casting pole, small guides are used. After the guides and the reel seat are put on and the pole wrapped with silk thread, apply three or four coats of varnish. No fisherman should deprive himself of the pleasure and satisfaction of making his own pole.

Ready for action with their 12-foot, custom-made cane rods, Japanese fishermen in Hawai‘i cast for ulua, or giant trevally, a prized game fish and a valuable source of food that can weigh over 100 pounds. Certain ulua are found off sand beaches, while others are caught off rocky ledges, especially ledges next to deep drop-offs. By watching Native Hawaiian pole fishermen, the early Japanese shorecasters quickly learned the locations of the best spots and soon they were catching ulua off O‘ahu’s reefs, beaches, and sea cliffs. In Sport Fishing in Hawaii, Hosaka describes two common species of ulua that can weigh up to 150 pounds and reach 5 feet in length: the black ulua (Caranx lugubris) and the white ulua (Caranx ignobilis). Ulua fishers wrap their poles with reflective tape in distinct color patterns so they can easily tell whose pole is moving or bending at night during a strike. These poles at Portlock Point during the 1970s created a collage of light while an angler reeled in an ulua. His friends helped by coaching him, watching for waves, checking his footing on the sea cliff, and focusing the strong beams from their headlamps on the fish. Photo by Dan Matsuda.

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Black ulua inhabit rocky situations near the shore and the deeps beyond the reef. They remain in caves in fairly deep places during the day and come out to feed at night, traveling long distances from the “nest.” If the cave is large, several of them may be seen there together. When searching for food at night they usually remain in rocky locations. Black ulua come close to shore in large numbers from March to June to spawn and during these months large ones are caught with rod and reel at night from shore. Black ulua seem to feed more actively on dark nights than on bright moonlight nights. They are usually caught with hook and line from a rocky shore. Some people use hand lines, but most sport fishermen prefer to fish with rod and reel. The black ulua strikes hard and fights gamely, and it gives anyone an exciting fight that is not easily forgotten. The first few runs are straight outward and when the fish is stopped, it starts to cut in sideways parallel to the shoreline. Then all of a sudden it dashes out again for a short run. Now and then the fish sounds, and that is when one must be most careful because of the danger of cutting the line on the sharp coral. In fighting the fish, always keep the tip of the rod high and pump the fish in as fast as possible. The black ulua is an important food fish in the islands and is commonly sold in the markets. The head is unsurpassed as the basis of fish chowder. The flesh is excellent fried, broiled or raw. The white ulua inhabits sandy beaches and may be seen by day or night. It swims about in search of food along sandy bottoms, where patches of corals make many channels. The fish comes in close to shore to feed, [where it eats] sand crabs, squid, and fish such as moi, oio, and white eel. It is caught with hook and line from sandy beaches. Most sportsmen use octopus for bait. The white ulua takes the bait with terrific speed, and in no time many yards of line go out. After the first few runs straight out, it cuts sideways for a short distance and then back-tracks sideways again. The important thing to remember when fighting an ulua is to keep the tip of the pole high and the line taut. This is to prevent the fish from diving into holes in the reef. The white ulua is a very important food fish and it always commands a higher price than the black ulua at the market. The flesh is white and firm and is delicious when breaded and fried, broiled, or baked. It also makes excellent raw fish.

Japanese fishermen coined their own names for these huge fish: gunkan, or “battleship,” for black ulua; shiro, or “white,” for white ulua; hoshi, or

10 g u a r d i a n o f t h e s e a

“star,” for ‘ōmilu, a type of ulua with yellow starlike spots; kagami, or “mirror,” for a broad, silvery ulua with streamers; and butaguchi, which is a corruption of butakuchi, or “pig mouth,” for a thick lipped ‘ōmilu. They called the circular-shaped ulua hook nemuri bari, or “sleeping hook,” referring to their practice of sleeping in their camps at night and leaving their poles unattended. They gave names to other Hawaiian marine species: menpachi for squirrel fish (u‘u in Hawaiian), shaku for mantis shrimp (‘alo‘alo), tohei for white eel (puhi aha), tako for octopus (he‘e), ika for squid (muhe‘e), namako for sea cucumber (loli), okoze for scorpion fish (nohu), and tsubu for a small edible mollusk (pipipi). Sometimes they gave Japanese names to the places they fished: Ipomatsu, or “lone pine,” in Pūpūkea where a single ironwood tree stood on shore; Dan Uchi, which is short for dan no uchi, or “house steps,” in Kealakekua Bay where the ocean bottom is a series of ledges, or steps, that descend into deep water; and Goro Goro near Ka‘ena Point, which is an imitation of the sound of the boulders that roll on the ocean bottom during heavy winter surf. For many issei, living off the land was an important part of their lives. Most of them worked on the plantations where the pay was poor and money was scarce, so they farmed, planting gardens and fruit trees and raising chickens and pigs to supplement the food items they bought. Many of the sites of the former plantation camps still have large mango, lychee, star fruit, and mountain apple trees, testimony to the former importance of living off the land. The issei also lived off the sea, catching the wide variety of reef fish, lobsters, and crabs that are common on Hawai‘i’s reefs, but the true prize from the ocean was the ulua. Even the smaller 25 and 30 pounders provided enough to feed a large family and to share with the neighbors. Hawaii Fishing News columnist and ulua fisherman Brian Funai described the situation in his own family: My grandfather’s family lived on the plantation, so they definitely depended on fish that my great-grandfather caught. My great-grandfather was issei, or first-generation, and they lived at Kawailoa Camp on the North Shore from 1900 to 1920. He fished to supplement their diet, which was typical for the rest of the families in the camp. He would use a hand line for ulua and a pole for smaller fish and also caught lobster, but it seems he never really went for “fun.” Everything he caught, he took home to keep or give away, no matter how much there was — especially in the twenties and thirties. My grandfather’s generation, the second or nisei generation, was already

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In June 2002, Hawaii Fishing News featured one of its popular “ulua covers” with Kyle Saplan holding a huge 110 pounder. Ivy Tsukayama photographed Saplan after he made his catch on 60-pound test line at Kapoho on the Big Island. Saplan is now a member of the HFN 100-Plus Club for fishers who have landed giant trevally weighing 100 pounds or more in the main Hawaiian Islands. Photo courtesy of Chuck Johnston, Hawaii Fishing News.

getting into fishing more for sport, buying real surfcasting tackle like expensive rods and reels. About his time — the late 1920s through the 1940s — tackle manufacturers were able to sell to the average worker by mass producing cheap but well-made reels. That was the key to the rise in interest in sport fishing here. It wasn’t just a rich man’s sport anymore. Yet even though they went for the prestige and sport of catching ulua, they still felt it was a valuable


food. That Ed Hosaka chose to write his book in 1946 and include recipes documents this. I believe that our Island culture always approached “sport fishing” differently from the rest of the U.S. Since we value things that come from the ocean as food, everyone I know — at least up until the last twenty years or so — would never throw anything back. That would be poho, or wasteful! It’s only recently with environmentalists pushing for marine preserve areas that fishermen have seriously considered practicing catch and release. Several of the major ulua tournaments have even eliminated the “most fish” category within the last ten years because of conservation issues. Once I remember telling my grandmother that I should throw back some pāpio, and her response was, “Oh, no! Don’t do that,” like it was too good to throw back. Although my grandmother grew up in Kukuihaele, a small plantation town on the Big Island, and her family probably had less of a hard time as her father ran a small store, Hino Store, she still valued a good reef fish. “Grandpa Hino would eat fish so clean, there was nothing left but bones,” my grandmother would say. Much of that thinking of your catch as part of the dinner table still carries on from when people really had to depend on catching fish to supplement their diet. If you think of all the different ways to make ulua as a food, you might begin to see the idea of “no waste”: sashimi, poke made out of the stringy part of the meat, fried/baked/broiled fillets, nishime (shoyu/sugar), ulua head (and don’t forget to suck the eyeball!), and bones for fish stock/soup.

Ulua today are still one of the most prized catches in Hawaiian waters, and although the emphasis has shifted from subsistence to recreational fishing, catches of these giant trevally are never wasted.

chapter two

Stores, Clubs, and Tournaments

when the issei first arrived in Hawai‘i, they lived in plantation villages, or camps. Isolated from mainstream society, they continued to speak Japanese, perpetuating their culture and traditions. After 1900 Japanese women began arriving in substantial numbers, many of them “picture brides” — women who had found husbands in Hawai‘i through an exchange of photographs. As the issei married and had children who were American citizens by birthright, they developed a strong sense of community. They built Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines; they established Japanese-language newspapers; and they developed Japanese-language schools for their children, the nisei, so the second generation would learn the culture and values of their parents. A History of Japanese in Hawaii, edited by James Okahata, explains that the Japanese also established many different types of organizations and that “the number since 1885 runs into the hundreds, or more likely into the thousands — starting with home-town village associations (mura no kumiai), prefectural associations (kenjin kai), mutual assistance financing groups, business groups, special emergency committees and associations, charity groups, hobby groups, recreational groups, and a multitude of other associations, societies and committees.” Of all of these organizations, the kenjin kai, or prefecture clubs, seem to have enjoyed the greatest longevity, and many of them are still active today. The kenjin kai united people from the same areas in Japan. When one was established, it carried the name of the prefecture, such as Fukuoka Kenjin Kai, or the “club of people from Fukuoka Prefecture.” Members shared not only the same nationality, language, and place of origin, but often the same habits, traits, foods, customs, dialect, and religious practices. Members of the kenjin kai regarded other club members as extended family and supported them in times of need. In some areas, people from the same vil-


lage formed their own support groups called mura no kumiai, or village associations. In 2004, Honolulu attorney Roy Kodani wrote an article for the Hawaii Herald entitled “Hawaii Island Hiroshima Kenjin Kai.” In it he recalled his father’s association with the Hawai‘i Shima Hiroshima Kenjin Kai on the Big Island. Among the Issei and older Nisei, the bonds of friendship and camaraderie were particularly strong if their ancestral roots were in the same prefecture in Japan — and even more so if they were from the same mura, or village. Although my father lived most of his life in Hilo, his good friend and advisor was Wallace Matsumoto, an accountant who lived in Honolulu and one of the founders of Central Pacific Bank. I once asked my father why he was so close to Matsumoto and why he trusted him so much. “We come from the same mura,” my father replied. “That’s it?” I asked incredulously. “That’s all you need,” was his matter-of-fact response.

As more immigrants arrived in Hawai‘i in the early 1900s and many of them took up fishing for food and recreation, other fishermen within the Japanese community responded to the increased activity by establishing fishing stores, casting clubs, and fishing tournaments. The appearance of fishing stores showed that fishing was popular enough to support specialty shops for equipment. While these early stores carried other general merchandise, including food and drinks, to help support their business, they still called themselves fishing stores. At the same time the fishing stores emerged, fishermen began organizing a new type of social group: the casting club, a fishing club specifically for ulua fishermen. Known as kyasutingu kurabu in Japanese, the clubs all chose to use English names. They resembled other clubs that the issei had formed such as the kenjin kai, but with one major difference. While casting club members shared the same nationality and language, they were not necessarily from the same prefecture. Casting club members were united by another common bond, one that crossed prefectural lines: the love of fishing — specifically, the love of ulua fishing. Fishing tournaments followed immediately in the footsteps of the fishing stores and casting clubs. The tournaments were good for everyone. Sponsored by the fishing stores, tournaments generated new customers, encouraged the growth of the clubs, and promoted the sport of fishing. The

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Maurice Kaya, grandson of founder Kaichi Kaya, waves from the sales counter of K. Kaya Fishing Supply at the corner of Nimitz Highway and Kekaulike Street (April 2001). Photo by Brian Funai.

tournaments also showed that ulua fishing had evolved into a sport — a recreational activity — and that it was no longer only for subsistence. Kaichi Kaya was one of the first to see the potential of fishing stores and the value of clubs and tournaments. Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture on May 1, 1886, Kaya came to Hawai‘i in June 1899. After working at several jobs, he established one of first fishing stores in Hawai‘i when he opened K. Kaya Fishing Supplies in downtown Honolulu in 1911. He located his store near the edge of Honolulu Harbor where he could serve a large segment of the fishing community on O‘ahu, including the commercial sampan fishing fleet in the harbor. In 1978, Honolulu Star-Bulletin columnist Jack Wyatt interviewed Jack Kaya, Kaichi Kaya’s son. Jack Kaya recalled, “When my father was alive, what we had was a general store. We sold everything for the seaman — dry goods, canned foods, plus nets and all fishing gear. My parents used to push a cart laden with fish cakes, cracked seed, and bottled soda around to all the piers. My father also made Hawaii’s first shaved ice.” Kaichi Kaya recognized the promotional value of organized fishing tournaments, supporting and sponsoring many of them. In 1962, Honolulu Advertiser writer Bruce Carter wrote a story about the Kaya family entitled “Kaya Dynasty in Island Fishing” and noted that “in 1929, Kaya helped to found the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, a group of fishermen who pioneered ulua fishing along the Koko Head sea cliffs, especially at the Blowhole and Bamboo Ridge. He sponsored fishing tournaments there, again


All-O‘ahu fishing tournament at Ka‘ena Point, mid-1920s. Kaichi Kaya and his contestants loaded their families, food, equipment, and trophies into the OR&L passenger cars and spent the day fishing at the point. Photo courtesy of Maurice Kaya.

providing trophies and prizes for the winners.” Kaya also made use of the Oahu Railway & Land Company (OR&L) railroad, which ran from Honolulu to Hale‘iwa by way of Ka‘ena Point, the westernmost point on O‘ahu and an excellent ulua fishing grounds. He organized tournaments and fishing expeditions to Ka‘ena Point, using the railroad to transport participants and their gear. Columnist Brian Funai wrote a story called “The History of Hawaii’s Shorecasting Clubs” that appeared in the December 1999 issue of Hawaii Fishing News. An avid ulua fisherman himself, Funai noted that “I did not find clubs organized prior to the mid-1920s, [but] two more prominent organizations whose mid-to-late 1920s beginnings are well known and often documented include the oldest fishing club in the state, the Atlapac Fishing Club, established in 1926, and the second oldest club, the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, which had its beginnings in 1929.” From the beginning, the clubs organized fishing tournaments, an activity they still continue today. The Nippu Jiji, which billed itself as the “leading Japanese daily newspaper in Hawaii,” also saw the promotional value of organized fishing tournaments and supported them with prizes and newspaper coverage. The following story entitled “Circle X Casting Club Tournament” appeared in the July 12, 1939, edition of the paper:

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The Circle X Casting Club was established by employees of Oahu Junk, Inc. Last Saturday the 8th, the Second Grand Fishing Competition began at 5 pm and continued on until 5 pm of the next day. Mr. Masaichi Hori of Palama Street won the Nippu Jiji fishing silver cup by catching a 98.8 pound ulua. The second prize, a fishing rod and reel donated by Mr. Murakami, was won by Mr. Masao Tsutsumi. There were about a dozen participants in this contest, and the competition was rather lively. The photograph is of Mr. Hori and his catch. Furthermore, it should be noted that Mr. Hori caught his 98.8 pound giant ulua by using the Pflueger Reel that was obtained by special order through his Oahu Junk company’s tool division. What he used was the 300 yard line sized Pflueger Reel Number 20, and he reports that reeling in this great catch was effortless, a special feature of this product. Mr. Hori swears by it and reports that other fishing enthusiasts are special ordering it from the mainland at his company all the time. He also reports that his company has ordered quite a few India Ball fishing poles that have wide grips that make them easier to handle. These superlative products sell for only $1.25 each.

After reading the Circle X Casting Club article, Brian Funai, also an antique reel collector, made the following comments: This article, which reads like a commercial advertisement, is probably referring to the Pflueger Templar 1420 1/2 reel. These were less expensive at the 1939 catalog retail price of $36.75 than the Atlapac (for which the casting club was named) at $65.00. The Templar was “the reel” to have if you were serious about going for ulua, and its reputation lived well into the 1980s even though they stopped making them in 1950 or so. They were very valuable to Hawai‘i fishermen, and considering the average income back then, they spent some serious money to get them. Pflueger probably did the most marketing here between the 1920s and the 1950s, judging from the familiarity of their products to local fishermen and the number of their reels that I find. On Oahu Pflueger reels were sold by most of the tackle stores like Waipahu Bicycle, Ebisuzaki, K. Kaya Fishing Supply, K. Kida Fishing Supply, and Fuji Fishing Supply, and some hardware stores like Kiso Store in Waipahu. It sounds like Mr. Hori also carried Pflueger reels at Oahu Junk, Inc. The “India Ball” pole probably refers to the popular Calcutta or “Indian bamboo,” which the stores imported to make poles. This style of rod was much heavier, denser, and more flexible than the ones made from “Japan bamboo”


or bamboo from our local forests. These rods were also used by commercial aku fishermen for a long time because of their durability.

Stores, clubs, and tournaments still support ulua fishing and promote the fishing industry in Hawai‘i. The yellow pages in the O‘ahu telephone directory list many wholesale and retail stores that specialize in fishing supplies, including K. Kaya Fishing Supply on Kekaulike Street in downtown Honolulu, one of the original stores in the Islands. While the venerable Honolulu Japanese Casting Club disbanded in the 1950s, fishermen have organized dozens of other fishing clubs on O‘ahu and the neighbor islands. Atlapac, founded in 1926, is the oldest casting club in Hawai‘i and its members still fish for ulua at Bamboo Ridge on the Koko Head sea cliffs. Fishing tournaments continue to provide recreation and social functions for club members, although with conservation now a concern, many clubs also include catch-and-release activities.

chapter three

Jizo the Protector

the hawaiian isl ands are among the most isolated islands in the world. With North America, the nearest continental land mass, some 2,500 miles away, this geographical anomaly means that high surf strikes the islands from every direction of the compass all year long. Waves 20 feet high commonly pound the north shores of the Hawaiian Islands every winter, while waves 10 feet high routinely strike the south shores during the summer. These are the waves that have made Hawai‘i famous as an international surfing destination, but they are also the waves that have had a devastating impact on shoreline fishermen. The beaches and sea cliffs that attract the biggest ulua are also the beaches and sea cliffs that are exposed to the biggest waves. This dangerous combination of surf and fish proved deadly to the early Japanese fishermen from the beginning, and as soon as the issei began fishing for ulua, they began losing their lives. Caught by powerful waves sweeping across sandy beaches, they were dragged into pounding shorebreaks and swift-flowing rip currents. Trapped by powerful waves sweeping across rocky ledges, they were dragged into the terrible turmoil of surf pounding against sea cliffs. Although the issei were an island people, they were not strong swimmers as a rule, and the few good swimmers were not experienced in ocean swimming. They could not handle themselves in raging waves. When high surf swept them into the ocean, more often than not, they drowned. The actual number of Japanese fishermen who drowned on Hawai‘i’s shores in the twentieth century will probably never be known, but anecdotal information suggests that there were many every year. When the situation on O‘ahu became intolerable, it triggered an unusual response. The issei fishermen, most of them Buddhists, erected three statues of Jizo, a Buddhist bodhisattva (enlightened being), to protect them from danger and to serve as a guardian of the sea. They placed two statues on the North Shore,


one in Kawaihāpai in 1913 and one in Kawailoa in 1922, and then erected a third statue on the south shore at Koko Head in 1932. The issei fishermen also undertook an ambitious community service project to place warning signs in the form of obelisks at every site where fishermen had drowned on the shoreline of O‘ahu. That project, which began in 1931 and ended ten years later, resulted in over fifty 6-foot-high, 4 × 4-inch wooden posts set in concrete on all of O‘ahu’s rocky shores, stark testament to the number of fishermen who had drowned in the ocean in such a relatively short period. A bodhisattva, or bosatsu in Japanese, is a compasionate person who has reached a state of spiritual perfection, but who has decided to remain in this world to protect others and help them attain enlightenment. Who is Jizo Bodhisattva? Why was he chosen to be a guardian of the sea in Hawai‘i, standing watch over Japanese fishermen and everyone else who came to the shore? In Jizo Bodhisattva: Modern Healing and Traditional Buddhist Practice, Jan Chozen Bays details some of the early history of Jizo. The travels of Jizo parallel the history and spread of Buddhism in Asia. He was born in India in the first or second century [A.D.], about six hundred years after the Buddha had died. His name, in Sanskrit, was Kshitigarbha. This name comes from ksiti (earth) and gharba (womb). It has been translated as Earth Store Bodhisattva, Earth Womb Bodhisattva, or the Bodhisattva of the Mysteries of the Earth. He came to life within a family of bodhisattvas as the Mahayana school emerged from the original teachings of the Buddha and the elder monks. In the Mahayana school the ideal practitioner was a bodhisattva, [someone] who sought not only personal enlightenment but the welfare and spiritual liberation of all beings.

As Buddhism spread to Central Asia, Jizo followed, and whenever he entered a new country, he was assimilated into the culture. He took on new names, new forms, and new dress. In India he is Kshitigarbha Bodhisattva, in China Ti-tsang Pusa, in Korea Ji-jang Bosal, in Tibet Sati-snin Po, and as he traveled east, he assumed new powers and functions. When Buddhism reached Japan during the fourth or fifth centuries A.D., Jizo arrived too and rapidly became popular, first among the nobility and later among the common people. Statues of Jizo preserved in Nara and Kyoto date from the 800s. Pilgrimages to statues of Jizo were practiced from the late Heian period on, becoming very popular in the Tokugawa period. He was incorporated into the indigenous Shinto religion and eventually adopted by many of the schools of Japanese Buddhism, such as Jodo, Shingon, Soto, and Tendai.

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Easily recognized in Japanese art and artwork, Jizo has the shaved head of a monk, wears a monk’s robe and sandals, and usually stands with bare feet and his eyes lowered. Whether standing or sitting, his pedestal is always a lotus flower, a Buddhist symbol of purity. He often holds a nyoihoju, or jewel of enlightenment, in his left hand and a shakujo, or staff with six rings, in his right hand. The nyoihoju, which is also called a nyoishu, is known as a cintamani in Sanskrit. The six rings on the shakujo represent the six realms of existence and signify that Jizo moves freely through all of them to assist those who are suffering. Six statues of Jizo, or Roku Jizo, often stand at the entrances to cemeteries — one statue for each realm of existence. Bays explains in her book Jizo Bodhisattva that Jizo is a universal protector. In Japan Jizo Bodhisattva is found everywhere. This means Jizo is never far from someone who needs help. [He is] the protector and savior who intervenes and helps those caught in places of suffering. Stone figures of Jizo are frequently found along pathways between rice paddies in the country, beside city streets and busy highways, and particularly at crossroads. Jizo is there to help travelers on both the physical and spiritual plane, especially those who face a difficult decision about which path to take in life. Jizo is regarded as the especial guardian of those in difficult or potentially dangerous transitions such as pregnant women and young children. In the last three hundred years he has come to be seen as a particular caretaker of infants and children who have died. This transformation in Jizo’s function to meet the needs of the time is not uncommon. In ancient times Jizo’s protection was invoked for floods, fires, and epidemics. In modern times people have gained relative freedom from large-scale disasters and ask Jizo for help with individual needs. Some prayers to Jizo, like those for successful conception and easy childbirth, are timeless. Statues of Jizo in temples often have one or more miracle stories associated with them. These stories can be divided into several general types: Jizo aids the weak, children, women, or poor peasants; Jizo helps a person with physical labor; Jizo warns of and averts a disaster; Jizo intervenes and rescues from hell someone who has died; Jizo substitutes his body for someone and prevents his or her death; Jizo assists warriors; and Jizo heals illness.

Bays summarizes her thoughts on Jizo by saying,

This wooden figure of Jizo in the Honolulu Academy of Arts is from the late Heian–early Kamakura period (twelfth to thirteenth centuries) and shows Jizo holding a shakujo, or staff, in his right hand and a nyoishu, or wish-granting jewel, in his left hand. The figure stands in the PanAsian Buddhism Gallery. Honolulu Academy of Arts. Gift of Mrs. Theodore A. Cooke in memory of Arthur Hyde Rice III, 1959 (2565.1).

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The mantra of Jizo from India is “Om ha ha ha, vismaye svaha,” or “On ka ka ka, bi san maei sowaka” in Japanese. “Vismaye” means the power and majesty of Jizo, so the translation of the mantra is, “Om ha ha ha, hail to him in his majesty.” From right to left the mantra is written in kanji, katakana, and siddham, an old style of Sanskrit. Calligraphy by Reverend Hirotaka Sato.

There are many unusual Jizos and customs surrounding these Jizos in Japan. The early Japanese wanted a Jizo who could avert floods, help crops grow, ease the pain of childbirth, and cure eye disease. Now we have huge dams engineered to control floods, and medical technology to ease birth pangs and prevent blindness. Some forms of suffering have been softened over the last fourteen hundred years, but what has not changed is the fact that whether we are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or American, we are still humans, and thus can never escape the fundamental suffering that the Buddha described.

As Jizo’s popularity and influence expanded in Japan, he took on many functions and was given many names, including the following: Anzan Jizo: Jizo who protects expectant mothers Amagoi Jizo: Jizo who asks for rain Bokefuuji Jizo: Jizo who protects against senility


Enmei Jizo: Jizo who ensures long life Hara Obi Jizo: Jizo who protects women during pregnancy Hikeshi Jizo: Jizo who protects houses and harvests from fire Kosazuke Jizo: Jizo who is asked for children Kosodate Jizo: Jizo who helps with successful rearing of children Koyasu Jizo: Jizo who ensures that children are born safely Kuro Jizo: “Black” Jizo who absorbs the heat from fire while helping those in the lowest of the six realms of existence Meyami Jizo: Jizo who restores eyesight Migawari Jizo: Jizo who takes the place of someone in danger Mizuhiki Jizo: Jizo who brings water to the rice paddies Mizuko Jizo: Jizo who protects aborted, miscarried, and stillborn babies (children who die prematurely are called mizuko, or “water children”) Omukae Jizo: Jizo who welcomes you to the afterlife Roku Jizo: A group of six statues of Jizo, one for each realm of existence, often placed at a cemetery entrance Sentai Jizo: One thousand bodies of Jizo, sometimes represented as one thousand statues of Jizo Shobo Jizo: Jizo who protects fire fighters who, like Jizo, enter dangerous places to save children and adults Shogun Jizo: Jizo who protects those on the battlefield Togenuki Jizo: Jizo who pulls out thorns, which symbolically removes the cause of suffering

The list of names shows how people in Japan have turned to Jizo to ease their suffering and that over the years he has taken on many roles, including those of guardian, protector, and savior. Today he is most often described as a guardian of children and travelers. As a guardian of children, he protects the little ones, both living and deceased, including stillborns and miscarriages, helping them on their journeys after death. Parents often purchase a small statue of Jizo, dedicate it to their deceased child in a special service, and leave it at their home temple. By the late 1800s, Jizo had been in Japan for over 1,500 years. As a popular and well-established bodhisattva, especially in fishing and farming communities, he immigrated to Hawai‘i with the issei and soon appeared in the first Buddhist temples and Japanese cemeteries that were built in the early 1900s. Almost all of the statues of Jizo in the old cemeteries mark the graves of children of the issei — children who died in their first few years of life.

Jizo is known worldwide as a guardian of children. This Koyasu Jizo, or Jizo who ensures that children are born safely, stands on the grounds of the Liliha Shingonji Mission in Honolulu and holds an infant in his hands. The infant is holding a nyoihoju, a jewel of enlightenment, that was painted gold. Photo by Mike Waggoner.


Lotus plants grow well in Hawai‘i and were once common in Hale‘iwa on O‘ahu’s North Shore. These pink lotus flowers, which are Lotus imperialis, grow in a freshwater spring near the Hale‘iwa Small Boat Harbor. The lotus is sacred to Buddhists, and statues of Jizo always show him sitting or standing on a lotus base. Photo courtesy of Dorothea Ogdemli.

The early 1900s were years when most of the issei were young and raising their families. Child mortality was high during those years, and following traditions they had learned in Japan, parents would ask Jizo to protect the spirits of their children who had died. If they knew a stonemason, they might request a small statue of Jizo for the grave site or ask for a bas-relief of Jizo to be carved into the grave marker. Many of the early images of Jizo in Hawai‘i are carved from local rocks, and while the figures vary widely in design and size, they are all clearly images of Jizo, the only bodhisattva with a shaved head who wears a monk’s robe. The practice of placing statues of Jizo on the grave sites of children ended with the onset of World War II and was never continued after the war. It was a cultural practice of the issei, and when the war ended in 1945, their children, the nisei, who were then raising their own families, did not follow this particular practice of their parents. But families who had lost children still continued to pray to Jizo in their churches, and some parents continued to purchase miniature statues of Jizo and place them at their respective churches, another common practice among the issei that was known as kuyo, or memorialization. Today, statues of Jizo in Hawai‘i are usually found in protected environments: inside Buddhist temples, on temple grounds, in cemeteries, in private collections, or in private homes. While all of the major sects of Buddhism in the Islands recognize Jizo, statues of the deity are found primarily in Jodo,

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Shingon, Soto, and Tendai temples. The following is an island-by-island look at some representative statues of Jizo that are accessible to the public.

Jizo on O‘ahu Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

On October 26, 1976, a group of dignitaries gathered at the Bishop Museum to dedicate the Hawai‘i Immigrant Heritage Preservation Center. The group included Governor and Mrs. George Ariyoshi; Dr. Frank Radovsky, the acting director; John Bellinger, president of the Board of Trustees; Shigeo Nagano, president of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce; and Masayuki Tokioka, president of the Hawai‘i Imin Shiryo Hozon Kan. The center, which is not an exhibit building, was made possible through the efforts of the Bishop Museum and the Hawai‘i Imin Shiryo Hozon Kan (Hawai‘i Immigrant Heritage Preservation Center) group, which formed in 1974 to gather and preserve documentary materials and artifacts relating to the Japanese heritage in Hawai‘i. Completely insulated throughout, the building includes a large air conditioning unit, which controls the temperature and humidity in the work-storage facility. Standing next to the center’s main entrance is a tall, standing statue of Jizo. The Bishop Museum Jizo was donated on March 17, 1981, by George Fujii of Honolulu. Fujii’s grandfather, Soji Fujii, and Fujii’s father, Yoshii Fujii, came to Hawai‘i in the 1890s from Hera-mura, Saeki-gun, Hiroshima ken. George Fujii was born in Honomū on the Big Island but came to Honolulu in 1929 and worked at Musashiya, Fujii Junichi Store, which was owned by his uncle, and Fujii Sake Factory. The statue was carved in 1959 and erected at the Fujii family grave site in the Honomū graveyard. In 1960, when the family left Honomū and moved to Honolulu, they donated the statue to the Bishop Museum. Honolulu Academy of Arts

The Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawai‘i’s premier arts institution and one of the finest museums in the nation, was founded in 1927 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum is especially strong in Asian art and features a unique thirteenth-century statue of Jizo in its Japanese collection that is made of laquered wood with traces of gold. According to the academy’s publication, Honolulu Academy of Arts: Selected Works, the statue, which is a seated

This tall statue of Jizo, donated to the Bishop Museum in 1981 by George Fujii of Honolulu, stands on the museum grounds at the entrance to the Hawai‘i Immigrant Heritage Preservation Center. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

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figure 34 inches high, was a gift from Yozo Nomura on his sixtieth birthday in 1930. The text further notes that “Jizo holds in his left hand the burning jewel (nyoi-shu), which responds to all wishes and illuminates the darkness of hell. The right hand once held a long pilgrim’s staff (shakujo). The figure itself can be dated to the middle Kamakura period, but the metal mandala and lotus base area probably from the Muromachi age (1392–1573). The beautiful image, classically formulated, is imbued with the gentle idealism typical of Kamakura sculpture.” The Japanese collection also features a standing figure of Jizo from the late Heian–early Kamakura period (twelfth to thirteenth centuries) and, like the seated figure, it is made of laquered wood with traces of gold. This is the thirteenthcentury statue of Jizo in the Honolulu Academy of Arts described in the text. Honolulu Academy of Arts. Gift of Mr. Y. Nomura, 1930 (2865).


Makiki Cemetery

Makiki Cemetery in Honolulu contains the oldest Japanese burials in Hawai‘i. Located at the base of Punchbowl Crater at the intersection of Pensacola Street and Wilder Avenue, the Japanese section of the cemetery was established in 1868 when sailors from the Imperial Japanese Navy died in Honolulu and the Japanese consulate arranged to have them buried on O‘ahu. The sailors were visiting the Islands to support the arrival of the first Japanese immigrant workers in Hawai‘i, the Gannen Mono, or “First-year People,” who came in Meiji Gannen, the first year of the rule of Emperor Meiji. The Hawaiian government had arranged their passage to address the labor shortage in the expanding sugar industry. The first and only group of Gannen Mono, 141 men, 6 women, and 1 child, arrived on June 19, 1868, and quickly realized that the hard life of a plantation laborer was not what they The Makiki Cemetery contains several statues of Jizo, including this one that was carved out of local stone to mark the grave of a young boy who died on August 6, 1900. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

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wanted. They protested their harsh working conditions, which resulted in some of them returning to Japan, some traveling on to the United States, and some remaining in Hawai‘i. After this attempt to find a new source of laborers in Japan failed, the Hawaiian government made no further attempts to bring Japanese to Hawai‘i until 1885. A large stone monument, erected in the cemetery in 1927 in memory of the Gannen Mono, includes a plaque in English that tells their story. In addition to graves of the Japanese sailors in Makiki Cemetery, there are now many others. The oldest area of the Japanese section of the cemetery contains several images of Jizo that mark the graves of issei children, boys and girls, who were six years old or younger when they passed away. The years of their deaths range from 1900 to 1907.

Like many cemeteries that were built in undeveloped areas in the early 1900s, Mo¯‘ili‘ili Japanese Cemetery is now surrounded by highways and high-rises. Mo¯‘ili‘ili once supported a large Japanese community, and this statue of Jizo marks the grave of a young child who died in the early 1900s. Photo by Mike Waggoner.


Sun Mission

Sun Mission is a small temple dedicated to Jizo that is located in a private residence in Honolulu. Reverend Jiitsu Yamauchi, the founder and resident minister, retired as a business executive in Tokyo in the mid-1990s. He then trained at Gasanji Temple before entering Enryakyuji Temple on Mount Hiei. After studying Tendai Buddhism at Mount Hiei, Reverend Yamauchi came to Hawai‘i and established Sun Mission in 1998. “My church is dedicated to Ojizosan, who wants to help all people,” he said. “He can come and help anyone, anytime. He represents the essense of religion.” Statues of Jizo stand in his garden and on the altar in his chapel.

Jizo on Kaua‘i Port Allen Jizo

Port Allen, one of two deep-draft harbors on Kaua‘i, is located on the south shore in Hanapēpē Bay. In 1899, when Walter Duncan McBryde and W. A. Kinney established the McBryde Sugar Company near the bay, they set aside a parcel of land adjacent to Port Allen as a cemetery for their employees. Known as the Port Allen/‘Ele‘ele Cemetery, the burial site takes its name from the harbor and from the Hawaiian name of the area, ‘Ele‘ele. During the early 1900s, issei who worked for McBryde Sugar Company erected a statue of Jizo, the Port Allen Jizo, in the cemetery and built a Jizodo, a roofed, three-sided shelter, to protect it. The Jizo-do also served as a small chapel in the cemetery and provided a place for Buddhist priests to conduct burial services. A second statue of Jizo was placed in the cemetery to mark the grave of a young boy who died on February 26, 1917. During the height of McBryde Sugar Company’s productivity, as many as fifteen camps stretched from Kalāheo to Hanapēpē. Wahiawa Camp, the oldest of the plantation villages, consisted of Camps 1, 2, and 3, which were near the shore of Wahiawa Bay. In February 1903, the Soto Zen headquarters in Japan dispatched Reverend Ryoun Kan from Tangen-ji in Nagatani-mura, Toyoda-gun, Hiroshima ken, to Kaua‘i. He took up residence in Camp 3 and founded Zenshuji Soto Zen Temple, providing services, including burial services, for the issei congregation. A year later, Reverend Kan established the Soto Mission Elementary School in a one-room building provided by the sugar company. Zenshuji Temple, completed in 1918, was the center of

Sun Mission, a Tendai Buddhist congregation dedicated to Jizo, holds services in a private home in Honolulu. This statue of Jizo stands in a garden where members make requests to heal the body. The wooden ladle lying on the pedestal is used to wash the statue with water at the end of the request ritual and symbolically washes away the pain. Photo by the author.

The Port Allen Jizo. For many years the statue was housed in a small open-air chapel, but a heavy windstorm in December 2003 destroyed the structure. The statue stood in the open until 2006 when it was moved to Kaua‘i Soto Zen Temple for safekeeping. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

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the community for sixty years and the gathering place for all religious and social activities. In 1932 Reverend Houjun Toyota, the priest at Zenshuji Temple from 1925 to 1936, recorded the stories of seven issei who arrived at McBryde between 1899 and 1901: Masuhei Toyofuku, Kikuji Kimata, Yoshitaro Sonoda, Morihiro Urata, Toyojiro Sakai, Takaharu Hirano, and Shonosuke Yoshimoto. The following is from their interviews in Wahiawa Ko-Yu-Kai-Shi 1932: Thirtieth Anniversary of Wahiawa Language School and describes some of the difficult times they had in early years before the arrival of Buddhist priests on Kaua‘i: Death was practically an everyday affair, some days 5 or 6 at a time. The dead were buried after the day’s work. To bury the dead we were paid 30 cents for 3 dead. The camp police was S. Takeuchi, who took charge of the burial. The dead were pitiful — no services of any kind were held, there being no priests. Friends could not attend them until the end of the day’s work. Darkness used to come too soon. The job of burying had to be done hurriedly, so the dead were usually buried a few feet under the ground. The gravediggers had to rush back to camp before it got too dark lest they be overcome with fear and loneliness in a strange land to which they had only recently arrived.

Adjacent to Glass Beach, the Port Allen/‘Ele‘ele Cemetery served as one of the major burial sites for everyone who died in McBryde plantation camps, especially single bachelors who had no family in Hawai‘i. Although its 3.5 acres would be described today as desirable beachfront property, a hundred years ago it was simply regarded as a marginal parcel with no agricultural value. For the same reason, McBryde established its rubbish dump on the seaward edge of the cemetery. Shigeo Uyeda, who was born in Wahiawa Camp in 1918 and worked for McBryde as an agriculturist, recalled these details: The graveyard goes back to the early 1900s, and it was established by McBryde Sugar for their employees. I had a sister who got sick and died in 1928 when she was three. She’s buried there. Anyone could be buried there, whether you were Buddhist or Christian, but each had their own area. There were a lot of camps in the old days, Camps 1 to 8, and anyone who died in the camps could request to be buried in the graveyard. Burials were full-body, even for the Japanese, because back then they didn’t have funeral parlors. Several times people tried to do their own cremations on


the flat rocks near the beach, but it was too hard, so they did full-body burials. The burials there stopped when the memorial park opened in Kapaia, and almost everyone went there. From the early 1900s, McBryde Sugar had refuse collectors that went to all the camps. At first they used dump trucks, and later they used the same type of compacting trucks that the county used. They used to dump all the garbage on the rocks between the graves and the ocean. When the waves washed the garbage off the rocks, the bottles would float free. Then they would break on the rocks and wash ashore on the beach. That’s where all the glass on Glass Beach came from. McBryde Sugar stopped dumping rubbish next to the cemetery about 1975 when the county opened a transfer station in Hanapēpē. Today the beach is so well known for its glass, there’s hardly any left.

After the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI arrested every Buddhist priest on Kaua‘i and sent them to internment camps on the mainland. No one was left to minister to the Buddhist congregations until a remarkable woman stepped forward: Reverend Yoshiko Shimabukuro. In the July 4, 2003, issue of the Hawai’i Herald, she told her story to columnist Roy Kodani: “When I think about it now, I don’t know how I did it. I didn’t have a car. I couldn’t drive, but I went all over Kaua‘i to conduct Buddhist services. If it was a funeral service, someone would pick me up here in ‘Ele‘ele. But if it was a memorial service, I would have to catch the bus and go to the family’s house.” Born in December 1911, the oldest daughter in a large family, Reverend Shimabukuro was raised in Wahiawa Camp 3. She graduated from Kaua‘i High School in 1931, then attended the Honpa Hongwanji Mission Japanese School in Honolulu from 1931 to 1934. Encouraged to be a minister by Mrs. Imamura, the wife of the bishop of the Honpa Hongwanji Mission, she went to Japan and studied at the Kyoto Chuo Bukkyo Gakuen until 1936. She continued her studies at Kyoto Women’s College from 1936 to 1940 and was ordained a minister on August 15, 1938. When she returned to Hawai‘i, Reverend Shimabukuro became the first nisei Okinawan woman to serve as a Jodo Shinshu priest in Hawai‘i. She returned to Kaua‘i on December 24, 1941, two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The FBI took her to the Kaua‘i County Building to be fingerprinted and photographed. She was questioned and released. “I don’t know why I was not interned,” she said. “Maybe they felt sorry for me

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because I was handicapped. But I don’t know the reason.” A breech baby, Reverend Shimabukuro lost her left arm at birth. Mrs. Ama, the wife of Reverend Takao Ama of the ‘Ele‘ele Hongwanji, asked Reverend Shimabukuro to take up residence at the temple and look after all of the Buddhist temples on Kaua‘i. Reverend Shimabukuro agreed and for the duration of World War II, she conducted all the Buddhist funerals, memorials, weddings, and Obon services on Kaua‘i. “My handicap never bothered me. I did almost everything ordinary people with two hands did. But, I have to tell you, I was pessimistic when I was in grammar school. My father made the difference in my life. He said, ‘Jibun de yarinasai. [Do it yourself.] Don’t think you are handicapped. Always be encouraged.’ ” In December 2004, at the age of ninety-three, Reverend Shimabukuro recalled the statue of Jizo at the Port Allen/‘Ele‘ele Cemetery: I don’t know who put up the statue of Ojizosan in the cemetery, but it was probably the people of Wahiawa, ‘Ele‘ele, and New Mill. I first saw it about 1925. People would go there to pray because he was a disciple of [the] Buddha. I first started holding services there in 1942, and Ojizosan was standing in a Jizo-do. Those days most people were full-body burials. Some were cremated there at the cemetery, and later when the funeral parlor came, there were more services with cremations. So some services had coffins, some had ashes. During the service, I would stand inside the house with Ojizosan, and everyone else would stand outside. During World War II there were marines stationed at Port Allen in Hanapēpē. They were camped near the cemetery. They used the statue for target practice and broke off its head. One of the members of the Zenshuji congregation, Tetsutaro Enoki, was a stonemason. He cemented the head back on.

Reverend Shimabukuro retired as the resident minister of ‘Ele‘ele Hongwanji in 1953 and taught at Hānapēpē Gakuen, the Japanese school, until 1969. Zenshuji Temple moved to its present location in Hanapēpē in 1978, Wahiawa Camp was torn down in the 1980s, and McBryde Sugar processed its last load of sugarcane in 1996. The cemetery for Wahiawa Camp residents, left unattended after the plantation closed, is maintained today by the Port Allen/‘Ele‘ele Cemetery Association, a group of former camp residents. The founders of the association included Milton Amaki, Seichi Hoashi, Alan Horikawa, Wayne Noda, and Dennis Yamaguchi. They incorporated in 1998 and in the same year received


written approval from McBryde Sugar Company, Ltd., to preserve and maintain the 3.5-acre cemetery for one dollar a year. The Port Allen Jizo stood in the cemetery overlooking the ocean and Glass Beach until 2006 when members of the cemetry association moved it to Kaua‘i Soto Zen Temple in Hanapepe for safekeeping. The Jizo-do, the aging structure that protected the statue, collapsed earlier in a powerful windstorm.

Jizo on Maui During the late 1930s, Reverend Sokan Ueoka of the Pā‘ia Mantokuji Soto Mission on Maui’s north shore made two unique pairs of statues of Jizo. One pair stands outside the church near the front steps, and the second pair is inside the church near the altar. Reverend Sokan Ueoka was the son of Reverend Sokyo Ueoka, the founder and first minister of the mission. In 2005, Clara Sodetani, Reverend Sokan Ueoka’s sister, recalled the early days of her family at the mission. In 1912, my father and the church members bought 8 acres of land on Mantokuji Bay. At that time there was a beautiful beach in front of the property. There was a huge sand hill behind the church, and the sand went out over 50 yards from where it is today. The water was very clean, and that was our playground where we swam and went fishing. I was born on February 7, 1923, and I had six brothers above me and three sisters below me. All of us went to the beach there with the other families from our congregation.

Reverend Sokyo Ueoka arrived in Hawai‘i on July 9, 1904, as one of four priests sent to the Islands by the headquarters of the Soto Sect in Japan. The first two Soto priests in Hawai‘i had arrived a year earlier. Reverend Ueoka, who was the minister of Tokujuan Temple, Honichi, Nuta Higashi Village, Toyota-gun (now Mihara City), Hiroshima Prefecture, went first to ‘Aiea Sugar Plantation on O‘ahu, where he opened a branch mission. Then in November 1906, at the request of Japanese plantation workers on Maui for a priest, the Soto Mission of Hawai‘i in Honolulu transferred Reverend Ueoka to Pā‘ia to open a branch mission. He leased a half acre of land behind the former Maui County Courthouse on the Hāna Highway, which is now the Pā‘ia Fire Station. In March 1907, he began construction of a chapel, and eight months later on November 3, he held the dedication ceremonies to enshrine the Honzon, or the Buddha’s image. The Soto Sect headquarters in Japan named the mission Machozan Mantokuji.

Shortly after the end of World War II, members of Waimea Shingon Mission on Kaua‘i decided to establish a unique memorial for their sons who had died during the war: eighty-eight bullet-shaped shrines. They wanted the bullet shape of the shrines to remind everyone that we should seek peace in our lives and not war. The number 88 corresponds to the eighty-eight temples in the Shikoku Henro, a famous pilgrimage on the island of Shikoku in Japan, so the shrines are a memorial and a miniature pilgrimage site. Photo by the author.


The Pa¯‘ia Mantokuji Soto Mission temple was built in 1921. The Jizo-do shelter at left houses two unique statues of Jizo that were made in the 1930s by Reverend Sokan Ueoka. Photo by Ed Ikuta.

In 1912, when the church purchased the property on the ocean, they renamed the church the Pā‘ia Mantokuji Soto Mission and established a Japanese cemetery on 3 acres of their property. Today there are over 600 graves in the cemetery, which has been subjected to severe erosion from the ocean. In 1919, the Mantokuji congregation moved the chapel to their shoreline property and remodeled the building to also serve as the minister’s residence. Early in 1921, they began construction of the present temple and completed it in July of the same year. Zen Master Abbot Sekizen Arai of Japan presided over the dedication of the temple and the installation of the Buddha. In 1925, the church sold 3 acres on the north side of their property to meet financial obligations. In 1935, Reverend Sokan Ueoka and the church members decided to build a crematorium to serve the needs of the Japanese community. After several years of fund-raising, they built it on the shore between the temple and the cemetery and began operations in January 1938. It was this building that

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Clara Sodetani, daughter of Pa¯‘ia Mantokuji Soto Mission founder Reverend Sokyo Ueoka, stands at the Jizo-do with two statues of Jizo made by her brother, Reverend Sokan Ueoka, who succeeded her father. Another pair of identical statues stands inside the temple near the altar. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

led to the four unique statues of Jizo. “My brother made the statues before World War II,” recalled Clara Sodetani. “In those days after they cremated a body, the ashes were put in a special container. But sometimes not all the ashes would fit in the container, so the families would leave the remaining ashes with my brother. Ashes are sacred, so my brother saved them. After a while he combined them with clay and made the four statues of Ojizosan. They have no other name other than Ojizosan because so many people’s ashes are combined.” Reverend Ueoka painted the statues white and placed two of them in a Jizo-do outside the church. The remaining two he placed inside the church near the altar. The crematory survived the tsunamis of 1946 and 1960, operated until 1965, and was eventually torn down. Today, some concrete steps at the vegetation line on the beach are all that is left of the building. Also gone is the


beautiful white sand beach with its high dunes that once extended over 50 yards offshore. “After World War II, the government came and hauled away tons and tons of sand from our beach,” Clara Sodetani recalled. “They were building the Kula Sanitorium and Maui Memorial Hospital, and they needed the sand for construction. I still can’t believe that the sand hill I used to see as a child is all gone.” The sand-mining project at Mantokuji Bay destroyed the former beach and accelerated the natural erosion of the shoreline, which is severe on that side of the island. The ocean now undermines the cemetery, and gravestones continue to fall on the beach as waves cut the property, especially during the winter high-surf season. The Ueoka line of ministers at Pā‘ia Mantokuji Soto Mission, the only Soto mission on Maui, began in 1906 with Reverend Sokyo Ueoka, continued with his son, Reverend Sokan Ueoka, and ended in 1990 when Reverend Shuko Ueoka, Sokyo’s son, passed away. Members of the Ueoka family, however, still belong to the Mantokuji congregation and continue to support the church.

Jizo on Moloka‘i In the mid-1920s, Bishop Zenkyo Komagata, the head of the Soto Mission in Hawai‘i, sent a visiting minister, Reverend Hozui Nakayama, to the island of Moloka‘i. Reverend Nakayama determined that a permanent church was needed and agreed to become the resident minister, so Bishop Komagata gave him a statue of Kannon, a complete set of Buddhist implements, and a temple sign. Moloka‘i businessman Tatsukichi Kanemitsu offered him a room in his home to use as a temporary chapel. Reverend Nakayama placed the statue in the room and put up the temple sign on November 14, 1926. In June 1927, the Guzeiji Soto Mission of Moloka‘i filed articles of incorporation with the territorial treasurer and obtained a charter permitting it to own property valued up to $100,000. The church bought some land behind Kanemitsu Bakery in Kaunakakai and built a temple. On April 25, 1928, Bishop Komagata from O‘ahu and Reverend Sokyo Ueoka from Mantokuji Mission on Maui officiated at the temple’s opening ceremony. The Guzeiji Soto Mission of Moloka‘i served the Buddhist community with a full-time minister until the Dole and Del Monte pineapple operations came to an end. Pineapple was the island’s biggest industry from 1923 to 1985, and when cultivation stopped, many laborers, including members of Guzeiji’s congregation, left the island.

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Today, the Guzeiji Soto Mission is the only Buddhist church on Moloka‘i and is still located behind Kanemitsu Bakery, the home of Moloka‘i Bread, one of the island’s most famous exports. Reverend Shugen Komagata of the Soto Mission of Hawai‘i, the grandson of Bishop Zenkyo Komagata who helped to establish the temple, ministers to the congregation, flying to Moloka‘i from O‘ahu to hold services. One statue of Jizo stands on the grounds of the Guzeiji Soto Mission of Moloka‘i, a memorial to Michael Torres, a young man who died at sea off the southwest end of the island. On Friday, September 28, 1984, Torres, twenty-three, a student pilot from Pearl City, rented a single-engine Grumann American plane from Hawai‘i Country Club of the Air at Honolulu International Airport. He filed a flight plan with the Federal Aviation Administration and flew to Moloka‘i to practice touch-and-go landings. At 1:14 p.m., Torres reported engine problems and two minutes later said the plane was going into the water. He reported his position as 10 nautical miles west of Lā‘au Point on Moloka‘i. A Coast Guard C-130 and H-52 helicopter, a Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter, two Civil Air Patrol planes, and two Coast Guard patrol boats all took part in the search, but at the end of the day Coast Guard spokeman Brice Kenny reported that “absolutely no sign of the plane” had been found. According to Kenny, it was unusual that not even an oil slick was spotted. Richard and Itsue Torres, Michael’s parents, held a memorial mass for him two weeks later at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Pearl City. While Michael’s father’s side of the family was Catholic, his mother’s side was Buddhist, members of the Soto sect. Itsue Hiramatsu Torres, who was born in Japan, wanted to memorialize her son with a statue of Jizo and received permission to erect one on the grounds of the Guzeiji Soto Mission of Moloka‘i.

Jizo on La¯na‘i Today, Lāna‘i has only one Buddhist church, the Lāna‘i Hongwanji Mission. While no statues of Jizo are found on its grounds, one statue that looks like Jizo is located in a plantation cemetery, where it marks a burial that took place in 1928. This stone image, however, is Odaishisama, or Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, and shows him sitting and holding a vajra, or kongosho in Japanese, a pounding weapon in ancient India. “Vajra” means “diamond,” and it is an esoteric Buddhist symbol of the bodhi mind


The memorial to Michael Torres on the grounds of the Guzeiji Soto Mission of Moloka‘i, Kaunakakai, includes a statue of Jizo donated by his parents. Photo by Gayla Mowat.

that can destroy any type of defilement, as well as a symbol of the power of knowledge over ignorance. In Odaishisama’s hand, this goko, or fivepronged vajra, is intended to help protect the spirit of a young woman who died in Lāna‘i City at the age of twenty-two. While there is no Shingon church on Lāna‘i today, Lāna‘i City was the site of the Lāna‘i Shingon Mission until the 1990s.

This statue of Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, marks the grave of a young woman who died on La¯na‘i in 1928. Statues of Kobo Daishi are sometimes mistaken by non-Buddhists for statues of Jizo. Kobo Daishi holds a vajra, or kongosho in Japanese, an important Buddhist symbol of the power of knowledge over ignorance. Photo by Robin Kaye.


Jizo on Hawai‘i (the Big Island) Statues of Jizo on the Big Island are found primarily in former plantation graveyards, on the grounds of Buddhist temples, or on private property. In West Hawai‘i, a statue of Jizo that can be seen from Māmalahoa Highway in Honalo is on the grounds of the Daifukuji Soto Mission, where it sits in a Jizo-do next to the steps leading into the main temple. The sign on the Jizodo identifies this statue as the Enmei Koyasu Jizo, or the “life extension-easy birth” Jizo. The Enmei Koyasu Jizo and the Jizo-do were donated to the church on May 25, 1961, by Mr. and Mrs. Suehiko Ota, the parents of Masuye Matsuura, the wife of Reverend Gyokei Matsuura, the sixth minister of the church. The stonemason who sculpted the statue was Isegoro Yamane, and the carpenter who built the Jizo-do was Yoshisuke Sasaki. Reverend Matsuura and his family arrived in February 1946. He was sent to Kona to assist Reverend Hozui Nakayama with the reopening of the Daifukuji Soto Mission after the end of World War II. At the beginning of the war in 1941, all activities at the temple had ceased when Reverend Nakayama was arrested and sent to an internment camp on the mainland. Although the U.S. Army occupied the site, the Reverend Shuko Takashiba, a lay member of the Kona Hongwanji Mission, was allowed to conduct funeral and memorial services at Daifukuji. In June 1965, Reverend Matsuura left for Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission on O‘ahu. In East Hawai‘i, a prominent statue of Jizo on private property is the Hakalau Jizo that stands on the grounds of Akiko’s Buddhist Bed and Breakfast in the town of Wailea. This concrete statue originally stood on the grounds of a Buddhist temple in Hakalau. Erected in the early 1900s, the statue was donated to the County of Hawai‘i and placed in Lili‘uokalani Gardens on Waiākea Peninsula in Hilo after the temple in Hakalau closed permanently. In the gardens it was vandalized twice, and the second time vandals broke off its head. Hilo resident and stone sculptor Fred Soriano repaired the statue and moved it to Akiko’s. Then Soriano painstakingly fashioned a new statue of Jizo for Lili‘uokalani Gardens out of blue stone, a hard Hawaiian volcanic basalt, with the hope that it would withstand any attempts at vandalism in the future. “I had to use diamond cutters to shape the blue stone,” he explained. “I hope this statue will be vandal-proof.” The blue stone statue was dedicated on June 24, 2005, a festival day for Jizo in Hawai‘i. Reverend Earl Ikeda of the Puna Hongwanji Mission conducted the kaigen, or eye-opening ceremony. “The place we selected for the

The Hakalau Jizo at the entrance to Akiko’s Buddhist Bed and Breakfast in Wailea on the Big Island overlooks the highway and protects travelers. Visitors often stop to place offerings of coins and lei before continuing their journey around the island. Photo by Mike Waggoner.


Jizo was the gateway to the former Shinmachi Village on Waiākea Peninsula,” Soriano said. “The original pōhaku [stone] steps leading up the hill to the village are still there. We set the Jizo in place just before 11:00 a.m., and then it started raining, but we decided to go ahead with the kaigen ceremony anyway. The rain came in from the northeast and completely engulfed the statue.” According to tradition in Hawai‘i, rain during a ceremony is considered a blessing. Shinmachi Village was a large Japanese community on the shore of Hilo Bay until April 1, 1946, when one of the most destructive tsunamis ever to strike the Hawaiian Islands swept into the bay. In the aftermath, 159 people lost their lives in the Islands and the entire Hilo waterfront was left in ruins, including Shinmachi Village. Today the shore of Hilo Bay is a greenbelt tsunami buffer zone of parks, ponds, and gardens. Wailoa Center in the middle of the buffer has a permanent tsunami photo exhibit and a memorial to all those who have died during tsunamis — the Shinmachi Tsunami Memorial. On Saturday, September 3, 2005, Fred Soriano received a call from a friend who had gone for a walk in Lili‘uokalani Gardens just before dark. His friend told him that the statue had been vandalized, its right hand broken off. “I went to the park first thing in the morning,” Fred related. “When I walked up to the statue, I saw that the right ear had also been struck. There was a big blue stone on the ground, and it had marks on it like it had been used to hit the statue. When I looked carefully, I saw a hairline crack in the neck, and the statue was hit so hard that it cracked at the lotus base, too. I called the police and notified the park supervisor, and then I put the statue in my truck. After I made my report, I took it home to repair it. One thing I know for sure is that it can’t go back in the park again.” After Soriano repaired the statue, Pat Engelhard, the director of Hawai‘i County Parks and Recreation, suggested they place it in a Japanese Zen garden at the Hilo Senior Center, which is also known as the Kamana Senior Center. Soriano wanted a name for the statue that would speak to the compassion of Buddhism, a name that would forgive those who had damaged this statue of Jizo and the one that stood in Lili‘uokalani Gardens before it. Reverend Hirotaka Sato of Honolulu suggested the name Tsumi Yurushi Jizo, or “Jizo who forgives wrongdoings.” Soriano carved this name into the bottom of the statue and on November 16, 2005, he installed the Tsumi Yurushi Jizo in its new home.

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Jizo and Ebisu Most statues of Jizo in Hawai‘i are traditional in function and closely mirror those that are found throughout Japan. During the early 1900s on the island of O‘ahu, however, the issei erected four statues of Jizo as a guardian of the sea, an unusual role for Jizo and one that is usually associated with the Shinto god Ebisu. In Hawai‘i, a statue of Ebisu is found in the Mā‘alaea Ebisu Kotohira Jinsha on the island of Maui. Ebisu is one of the seven lucky deities and the guardian god of fishermen and merchants; kotohira means “fishermen”; and jinsha means “shrine.” This traditional Shinto fishing shrine on the shore of Mā‘alaea Small Boat Harbor was originally located on the site of the Maui Ocean Center. The present jinsha was completed in 1999 and is a replica of the original shrine built in 1914 by Reverend Masaho Matsumura. Reverend Torako Arine, the caretaker of the Mā‘alaea Ebisu Kotohira Jinsha and the Maui Jinsha in Wailuku, conducted the first service at the new shrine in January

Wood Valley Cemetery on the Big Island is located near the town of Pa¯hala. The open-air chapel with its corrugated iron roof, once common in many Japanese cemeteries in Hawai‘i, is one of the few examples of these historic buildings that is still standing. Photo by Mike Waggoner.


2000. Fishermen believe that by honoring Ebisu they will have good luck at sea and a safe return home. Although the shrine is Shinto, the congregation is now multicultural and includes commercial and recreational fishermen, surfers, and other people of the sea. On O‘ahu, a statue of Ebisu is found at the Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission, one of the two Buddhist churches in the town of Hale‘iwa. The following information is from a church pamphlet called “Great Ebisu Reijyo”: The Haleiwa beaches and parks are the favorite for many people from all over the island for their weekend and holiday relaxation and enjoyment. Swimming is ideal with lots of sandy beach areas, and surfing has become famous in the beach area with high surf, and more and more international surf competitions are being held in the Haleiwa beach area. The Haleiwa boat harbor, anchored with many fishing boats, both large and small, is the center of attraction for boat and fishing lovers. Pole fishing near the boat harbor and the nearby beach area attracts hundreds of people from all over the island during the fishing season. Also, the nearby beaches are abundant with seaweed, and during the season many people help themselves to this product of the sea. It is particularly appropriate that the great Ebisu is enshrined at the Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission for he is the god who protects and promotes safe and pleasant swimming, fishing, and sailing. In addition, Ebisu is a god of happiness and good fortune who insures traffic safety and prosperity in business.

Another statue of Ebisu, the ‘Aiea Ebisu Jinja, once stood on the shore of Pearl Harbor. It is now enshrined at Izumo Taishakyu Mission of Hawai‘i, a Shinto church in downtown Honolulu, where Reverend Daiya Amano explained that over the years, as many of the older shrines on O‘ahu have closed, they have given their religious implements and objects to Izumo Taisha. The ‘Aiea Ebisu Jinja was originally erected at the home of Katsutaro Chagami, who lived on ‘Aiea Bay in Pearl Harbor between McGrew Point and Richardson Center in the 1930s. Chagami, his wife Kawayo, and their eleven children were residents of a small community of Japanese fishermen. Betty Koizumi, one of Chagami’s daughters, explained that the ‘Aiea Ebisu Jinja was erected to ensure productive fishing and safety at sea. “My dad owned a sampan at Kewalo Basin,” she said, “and he was often gone fishing for two to three weeks at a time. He was the caretaker of the shrine and often prayed there. Once a year the priest from Izumo Taisha would come to our home and conduct a ceremony at the shrine. All of the families in the community would come and then hold a party after the service.”

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About a year before the start of World War II, the U.S. Navy asked all of the Japanese fishing families to move. “My dad bought a lot in Cooper Tract in ‘Aiea,” Koizumi continued, “at the corner of Kamehameha Highway and Honomanū Street, where we built the Forty Niner, our family restaurant. We moved the ‘Aiea Ebisu Jinja into our yard behind the restaurant.” The shrine eventually fell into disuse, and in 1970 the Chagami family gave the statue of Ebisu to Izumo Taisha. Betty Koizumi also recalled that her mother had spoken of a statue of Jizo that stood not in ‘Aiea but to the west in Waipahu. “My mother was very religious, and she used to speak of a statue of Ojizosan on Kapakahi Stream in Waipahu. It was on the stream bank at the corner of Farrington Highway and Waipahu Depot Road, where Bank of Hawai‘i is today. Apparently, people had drowned there when the stream flooded.” This statue of Jizo, a kawamori or “river protector” Jizo, was placed on the stream bank in 1928 to honor the memory of a child who died in the stream and to protect the children who continued to swim and fish there. Goro Arakawa and Tom Tanji, two longtime Waipahu residents born in the 1920s, recalled the statue of Jizo in Waipahu. “In the early days of Waipahu, the parking lot behind Bank of Hawai‘i was a wetland next to Kapakahi Stream,” Arakawa said. “People who lived near the stream grew rice and watercress and had truck gardens. All of us kids used to swim in the stream and fish for dojo, funa, and goby. The statue of Ojizosan was put up after a young boy, one of the Murakoshi boys, drowned.” Tanji continued, “The statue stood between the stream and Waipahu Depot Road in a three-sided shelter with a lattice door. The Japanese merchants in the area took care of the shrine, and ceremonies were conducted by a priest. The statue was removed after World War II when Depot Road was realigned.” Today, the Waipahu Kawamori Jizo stands on the grounds of the Waipahu Soto Zen Temple Taiyoji, where it protects children and overlooks a former cemetery that is now a parking lot.

Jizo in Japan as a Guardian of the Sea Although Ebisu is widely recognized as an ocean protector in many coastal areas of Japan, Jizo is also known as a guardian of the sea, an extension of his role as a protector of travelers. In Japan, a country of islands, people travel through dangerous areas on the shoreline as well as through dangerous areas inland, so lone statues of Jizo are found in many remote places, including on the shore or near it. Of all the bodhisattvas, Jizo is one of the


most versatile and accessible, and people have always turned to him for help with a wide variety of problems. Residents of coastal villages naturally looked to Jizo to protect them during their activities on the shore and in the ocean, activities such as diving, swimming, and fishing, and today they ask for protection during modern ocean sports such as sailing and surfing. One well-known example of Jizo as a guardian of the sea in Japan is the Harahoge Jizo, which is located on the island of Iki off the northern coast of Kyushu. Situated amid the rough waves of the Genkai-nada Sea, Iki is a hexagonal, moderately hilly island that has four towns. Known for its hot springs, its ocean activities include swimming, surfing, yachting, and fishing. The Harahoge Jizo at Yahata Ura, or Yahata Bay, is connected with the ama, the famous women divers of Japan. One of the first non-Japanese to write about the ama was Italian writer Fosco Maraini, the author of Hekura: The Diving Girls’ Island. When Maraini’s book was translated from Italian to English in 1962, it gave the English-speaking world one of its first indepth looks at the ama. Outside of Japan the ama are usually thought of as pearl divers, but Maraini wrote “fishing up oysters and pearls is a prevalently modern development due to the ingenious Mikimoto. The real ama diving girls dive for the delicacy known as awabi, a kind of shell fish, also known by its Spanish name of abalone, or for edible seaweed.” Maraini went off in search of the amaburaku, or ama villages, to find the traditional divers who “do not wear the appalling white bathing-costumes inflicted on their colleagues at Toba by the management of the Mikimoto concern, but still dive in magnificent nudity, as they did when the painter Utamaro saw them two centuries ago.” Maraini concentrated his research on Hekura Island off the northern coast of the Noto Peninsula on Honshu, but his map of Japan shows twentyfour ama village sites. One of those was on Iki Island in the Sea of Japan off the northern coast of Kyushu. In 2003, Iki Island resident Akira Nagaoka reported, “Today, there are around 100 ama in Iki, and they dive mainly for sea urchin and abalone during spring to autumn. You can enjoy sea urchin and abalone at Harahoge Restaurant nearby. Most of the ama are over fifty years old, and there are no young ama to take their place.” Harahoge Jizo is a Roku Jizo, a set of six (roku) statues that stands on a low concrete platform at the water’s edge. Jizo is believed to save the souls of those who are suffering in each of the six realms of existence, and each Jizo is assigned to one of the realms to save the souls wandering there. “Hara” means “stomach” and “hoge” means “hole.” The word “hoge” comes

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from “hogeteru” or “open hole” in the dialect of northern Kyushu. One of the statues has a hole in its stomach where offerings are placed. The offerings are usually coins because the statues are partially submerged at high tide. The ama of Iki Island are the caretakers of the Harahoge Jizo, which was placed on the ocean to protect them and to console the spirits of other ama who died in diving accidents. The ama come daily to clean the statues with seawater, to straighten out the bibs, and to offer prayers. There is another story that the Harahoge Jizo also consoles the spirits of whales who were killed during commercial whaling operations that were formerly practiced in Iki. Every year on October 24, the reverend of Ryusenji Soto Temple coordinates an annual service at Yahata Ura, where the Harahoge Jizo stands. Six priests from Ryusenji and three other Soto sect temples — Ryuzoji, Tentokuji, and Chotokuji — participate in the rituals. The osaisen, or offerings, left for the Harahoge Jizo, pay for the service. Another example of Jizo as a guardian of the sea in Japan is the Wareishi Jizo on Sagi Island near Mihara City, Hiroshima Prefecture. This image is not a statue, but a relief carved into a huge boulder that stands in the ocean. The entire image is visible only at low tide, as high tide covers most of the lower body. This unusual Jizo is an example of magaibutsu — a Buddhist figure carved in a cliff or natural rock face — a tradition that originated in India and traveled with Buddhism as it spread through China and Korea. When Buddhism arrived in Japan, stone relief carving found a home in Oita Prefecture on Kyushu; suitable rocks for carving, such as lava and sandstone, are found throughout the prefecture. Some of the most famous Buddhist figures carved into Oita’s mountainsides include the Usuki Magaibutsu, seventy-five figures in the mountainside of Usuki City that are designated as a National Treasure, the immense Kumano Magaibutsu at Kitsuki, and the 3,770 stone images at the Rakan-ji temple (Nakatsu). Magaibutsu, however, are also found in other prefectures, and the Wareishi Jizo is a good example. Located in Hiroshima Prefecture, it stands on the shore of Sagi Island and looks across the water at Wareishi Island. “Wareishi” means “cracked rock,” so the name of the image means “Jizo carved in a cracked rock.” “Wareishi” also means “spirit of peace,” a play on the words in the name. A unique function of the Wareishi Jizo is that it protects the animals on land and the creatures in the sea around it. According to the inscription on the boulder, “In this special area, there should be no killing, including catching fish. Killing animals is part of life and is what we do, but in this


Worshippers wait for low tide to pray in front of the Wareishi Jizo on Sagi Island. They bow, clap twice, bow again, and throw a pebble or coin on top of the rock for good fortune. Photos by the Mihara Tourism Association.

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special area it is prohibited. We courteously ask this of you and by doing this, you will be able to be enlightened and not fall into evil practices.” The idea for the Jizo came from Saidaiji Temple, a famous temple in Nara. Shigemori Hojo was the patron who erected the monument in 1300 A.D., and Nenshin, a famous stone sculptor, carved the images on the boulder’s face. Hiroshima Prefecture designated the monument as a cultural treasure on May 28, 1962. Other examples of Jizo as a guardian of the sea are found throughout Japan, including the Heiroku Jizo in Shizuoka Prefecture, the Kajitori Jizo in Kochi Prefecture, and the Sora no Koen Jizo in Oita Prefecture. The Heiroku Jizo is located in Isibu hot spring, Matsuzaki-cho, Kamogun, Shizuoka-ken. Isibu hot spring is an open-air bath on a swimming beach in the fishing port of Nishi Izu, Matsusaki-cho. The Heiroku Jizo sits on a big rock behind the bath. Villager lore says it was named after a man named Heiroku who had one child, a son, whom he loved very much. One autumn day Heiroku’s son was playing on the beach and drowned when he was caught by an unexpectedly big wave. In his grief, Heiroku went to the beach every day, sat on a rock, and watched the waves, but he would not eat and eventually died. Villagers placed a Jizo on the rock where Heiroku sat, prayed for Heiroku and his child, and asked that such a tragedy never happen again. Today, this Jizo serves as a guardian against accidents in the ocean and helps to ensure productive catches for fishermen. The Kajitori Jizo, located in Shinshoji Temple, Murotsu, Muroto City, Kochi-ken, is described in A Henro Pilgrimage Guide to the 88 Temples of Shikoku Island Japan by Bishop Taisen Miyata as follows: “Shinshoji Temple (‘temple of the illuminating seaport’) is locally known as Tsu-dera, the ‘temple of the seaport,’ and its Honzon is called Kaji-tori Jizo, ‘Jizo of rowing a boat,’ by local fishermen. The temple was established by Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, and the sacred Honzon Jizo is the work of the Daishi in the ninth century. He is a particular favorite with fishermen who pray for safety at sea here.” The Sora no Koen Jizo is located in Sora no Koen, or Sky Park, in Yonozumura Village, Minami-amabe gun, Oita Prefecture. The statue stands nearly 900 feet above sea level and watches over the safety of the fishermen below. The origin of Jizo as a protector goes back to India and the origins of Buddhism, and as Buddhism traveled from country to country over several thousand years, Jizo traveled with it. As Jizo moved from one country to the


next, he took on many roles, especially as a protector of children and travelers, but his role as a guardian of the sea evolved when he reached Japan. Villagers who lived on the ocean and those who made their living from the sea looked to him for protection, and it was this knowledge that the issei brought with them to Hawai‘i.

chapter four

Jizo on the North Shore

when the issei arrived in Hawai‘i, many of them were assigned to one

of seven plantations on O‘ahu, including the Waialua Agriculture Company on the North Shore. Established in 1898 by Castle and Cooke, the plantation was named for one of seven large districts, or moku, that make up the island of O‘ahu. On the shore, the district of Waialua begins at Waimea Point and ends at Ka‘ena Point. In traditional Hawaiian geography, moku were further divided into smaller sections called ahupua‘a — tracts of land that often extended from the top of the mountains to the ocean. In the district of Waialua, Hawaiians recognized nine ahupua‘a: Waimea, Kawailoa, Pa‘ala‘a, Kamananui, Mokulē‘ia, Kawaipāhai, Keālia, Kuaokalā, and Ka‘ena. When Castle and Cooke established the Waialua Agriculture Company, they moved quickly to expand, hiring sugar industry veteran William Warren Goodale as the plantation manager. Born in Hawai‘i, Goodale began his career in the sugar industry in 1878 on the Big Island. He was the plantation manager at Onomea Sugar Company before he became Waialua’s first plantation manager. When he retired in 1923, he summarized his accomplishments in the company’s Twenty-Fifth Annual Report: At the time Waialua Agricultural Co., Ltd., was organized in October, 1898, it took over the old Halstead Plantation with about 600 acres of cane, certain leases of large tracts of unimproved land covered with lantana and stones, several hundred acres of rice and ranch land, a small mill, one five million gallon pumping station, no reservoirs or railroads, one small set of steam plows and other equipment of a small plantation. We now have 70 million gallons per day pumping capacity, 30 miles of permanent railway, the Wahiawa reservoir, capacity 2,540,000 gallons, and 33 other reservoirs, ditches to bring out the water of the Poamoho, Helemano, Opaeula, Kawaiiki, Kamananui and Waimea gulches, a good mill, six locomotives, cane cars, six


steam plow engines and plows, tractors, trucks, buildings and about 9,000 acres of cane.

Goodale died on April 23, 1929, six years after he retired. Under his direction, the Waialua Agriculture Company saw tremendous growth, which demanded large numbers of workers, so the company’s expansion included hiring hundreds of Japanese immigrants and building housing for them. At the height of its production, the Waialua Agriculture Company, later renamed the Waialua Sugar Company, employed over 2,000 workers. When the company started operations, transportation was limited; automobiles had not been introduced. Plantation villages, or camps, were spread out across the plantation’s 9,000 acres, which allowed workers to walk to work in the fields. In keeping with the use of traditional Hawaiian place names, the plantation named several of its camps after the ahupua‘a in which the camps were located. Two of these were Kawaihāpai Camp, which was at the east end of Dillingham Airfield, and Kawailoa Camp, which was near the town of Hale‘iwa at the upper end of Kawailoa Road. Both camps housed Japanese workers, most of them Buddhists. In addition to providing housing for the workers, the plantation also recognized the value of religion in the camps and encouraged its development. A History of Japanese in Hawaii, edited by James Okahata, explains: “The plantations realized [Buddhism’s] stabilizing influence and encouraged and subsidized the Buddhist sects by donating land for temples and language schools. In 1901 the Waipahu and Kahuku plantations started subsidizing Buddhist temples and schools; Ewa, Aiea, Waialua, and Waianae plantations followed in 1903 and Waimanalo plantation in 1904. All major plantations on the other islands also rendered similar assistance, either through the grant of rent-free lands or monetary subsidies.” By 1918, Buddhist missionaries from Japan had established four temples in the district of Waialua to minister to the needs of the Japanese plantation workers and their families. Waialua Hongwanji Mission was constructed in Mill Camp in 1902, and the Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission was established in Kawailoa Camp in 1904. Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission and Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission were opened in the town of Hale‘iwa in 1912 and 1918, respectively. And it was here on the North Shore that members of Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission erected the first two statues of Jizo in Hawai‘i as guardians of the sea. They placed the first on the sand dunes opposite Kawaihāpai Camp in 1913 and the second on the shore near Kawailoa Camp in 1922.

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Kawaiha¯pai Jizo Waialua Sugar Company’s Kawaihāpai Camp was located in the ahupua‘a of the same name. Kawaihāpai means “the carried water”: ka or “the,” wai or “fresh water,” and hāpai or “carry.” The name comes from a legend of the area that was recalled by Hawaiian language authority Mary Kawena Pukui on July 16, 1953, and recorded in the Bishop Museum’s publication Sites of Oahu by Elspeth Sterling and Catherine Summers: After the land became dry and there appeared to be no more water, the inhabitants started to move away, all except two old men. They offered prayers for water and suddenly a cloud came over the land and moved over the cliff where it stopped. When the two old men heard the splashing of water, they looked and found it coming out of the cliff at the place called Waikumuole (water

A 1908 map of Kawaiha¯pai and Mokule¯‘ia shows the train tracks of the former OR&L railway, which ran around Ka‘ena Point to Hale‘iwa until 1947. Tom Hirayama, a former resident of Kawaiha¯pai Camp, identified the location of the camp and the location of the Kawaiha¯pai Jizo (see arrow) that were on the shore of Kawaiha¯pai Bay. Map courtesy Library of Congress.


without a source). It was called this because the men could not see where the water began. It simply came through the rock (as a spring). Kawaihāpai refers to the water which was, in answer to the men’s prayers, carried in by a cloud and deposited over the cliff to come out in a spring at Waikumuole.

Kawaihāpai Camp, built in the early 1900s, bordered Farrington Highway on a site that today is vacant land covered with scrub brush at the east end of Dillingham Airfield. The Kawaihāpai Jizo stood on the shore of the bay opposite the camp, placed on the beach in 1913 by a stonemason named Shunkichi Yamaguchi, a plantation worker from Niigata Prefecture. Yamaguchi immigrated to Hawai‘i in 1899, one of many immigrants from Niigata who worked for the Waipahu and Waialua plantations. He first lived in Waipahu for seven years before moving to Waialua and Kawaihāpai Camp. Located on the idyllic shore of Kawaihāpai Bay, a small bay bordered by a beautiful crescent of white sand, the camp was separated from the ocean only by the road, Farrington Highway, and the railroad tracks of the OR&L train line. When Yamaguchi arrived in the camp, he learned that many fishermen and swimmers of all nationalities had drowned on this coast, especially in Kawaihāpai Bay. One of the early issei victims was Kinsaku Yamamoto, who drowned on November 23, 1908. As Tommy Yamamoto recalled in 2004, Kinsaku Yamamoto was my uncle, my father’s brother. He was the first boy in the family and my dad was the second. He died about six months before my dad came to Hawai‘i, so we never really knew what happened to him. But we knew that he drowned in the ocean at Kawaihāpai. We lived in Mokulē‘ia Camp 4, which was about a mile and a half or more mauka of Farrington Highway and approximately a mile east of the old Dillingham family property in Mokulē‘ia. In those days, we didn’t have a lot of money to buy food, so we caught a lot of fish and lobster in the ocean. We usually went fishing and diving at Kai‘ahulu, but Kawaihāpai was one of the places that had a lot of fish, too. The Kawaihāpai Camp residents were known as good divers.

When Shunkichi Yamaguchi learned of Kinsaku Yamamoto’s death and about all the other drownings that had occurred in the area, he decided to carve a guardian statue of Jizo. Support to erect the statue came from the Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Temple near Hale‘iwa and from an unexpected ally, Dr. Hubert Wood, the Waialua Sugar Company plantation doctor. Wood’s role in the project was mentioned briefly in his obituary published in the


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In this 2005 aerial photo of Kawaiha¯pai Bay, the point at the west end of the bay fronting Camp Mokule¯‘ia projects prominently into the ocean. During the early 1900s, issei fishermen who waded out on the point to cast their fishing lines into the bay were often swept off their feet by powerful winter waves and drowned. The Kawaiha¯pai Jizo was erected in 1913 to protect them and swimmers on this coast. Photo by Brian Daniel.

May 14, 1927, issue of the Honolulu Advertiser. Alexander Hume Ford, the founder of the Outrigger Canoe Club and a friend of Dr. Wood’s, wrote the following eulogy: Dr. Wood spent more than a quarter of a century at Waialua. Perhaps no one has ever lived in that region who was more beloved. Certainly, no one knew the traditions of the Hawaiians who lived there as did Dr. Wood. There were those of his friends whom he sometimes took with him on his rides through the plantation, calling on his patients. He knew the lives and family history of each and every one. If a Hawaiian were sick, the whole family was awaiting Dr. Wood and he would tell them things that would make them beam with eager anticipation. He would then sit and listen to them pour out to him the story of their lives. In this way he accumulated a vast fund of Hawaiian legends.


There was scarcely an area that he did not know and on which there was something reminiscent of old Hawai‘i that he could not stop and talk about. It was not only Hawaiians who loved him. The Japanese also trusted this man who brought their children into the world. Whenever a shrine was to be erected on the beach to some fisherman who had gone down, the assistance of Dr. Wood was first asked in getting the necessary site and permission.

After Yamaguchi received permission to install the statue, he placed it on the beach opposite the camp, but the story of the Kawaihāpai Jizo went unrecorded for many years until an unusual incident occurred in 1978. It happened at a convention in Brazil for Japanese newspapers published outside of Japan. On the evening of June 18, Seizo Hagino, the chief editor of a Japanese newspaper in Mexico, approached a Hawaii Hochi staff member and asked if a statue of Jizo still stood in Kawaihāpai on O‘ahu. Hagino explained that a man from Niigata Prefecture in Japan had erected the statue

Wilfred Toki, who was born and raised in Kawaiha¯pai, is a master stone sculptor who learned the art of stone carving from his father. In 2004, using his father’s tools, Toki demonstrated the carving techniques that were used by stonemason Shunkichi Yamaguchi, the plantation worker from Niigata Prefecture who carved the Kawaiha¯pai Jizo. Photo by Mike Waggoner.


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and that some of his relatives who were living in Mexico had asked Hagino to inquire if this statue still existed or not. Hagino then showed the Hawaii Hochi reporter a written history of the statue. When the Hawaii Hochi reporter returned home, he described his meeting in the July 1, 1978, issue of the paper in an article entitled, “The Jizo at Kawaihapai That Prevents Drownings: We Discover the Origin of This Statue That was Erected 65 Years Ago,” and included the text of the manuscript from the Mexican newspaper editor (translated from the Japanese): Mr. Shunkichi Yamaguchi was born in 1864 in Honda Village in Kita Kambara County, Japan, and at age twenty was adopted by marriage to be the male heir to the family of Jinzaemon Yamaguchi. In 1899, leaving his wife and children in Japan, he came to Oahu Island in Hawaii working as a farm laborer in Waipahu for seven years until he moved on to Kawaihapai in Waialua raising millet until the present time. Hearing that the shoreline of this area had a reputation for being a sort of “Devil’s Ocean” as there had been more than fift y drownings of Japanese, Hawaiian, and Caucasian people along these shores, this deeply religious man waited for an auspicious day in February 1913 to erect a protective Jizo statue on this shoreline weighing 1,320 lb. Strangely enough, there have been no drownings in this area since, and as a result it came to be that the Hawaiians and the Japanese and other nationalities of this area began to honor the Jizo with a festival three to four times yearly. Last year, when the manager of the Soto Sect, Reverend Mokusen Hioki, sailed to the islands to make a pilgrimage to visit temples in this area, he presented Mr. Yamaguchi with a badge that contained the famous Japanese Imperial Rescript on Education. Not only that, he was awarded the Badge of Heavenly Merit from the Daijinguu Headquarters for his work as an official member of the Japanese Red Cross.

When the Hawaii Hochi reporter returned from Brazil, he called Toshiro Koga, the paper’s representative in Waialua, and asked him what he knew about the Kawaihāpai Jizo. Koga offered the following comments, which the reporter included in his article: The Jizo was all right before the war [World War II] and even after the war. There was a “Jizo Day” on June 24 of each year where the statue was memorialized. As there were many immigrants in this area from both Niigata and Fukushima Prefectures, it was Ryusenji Temple of the Soto sect that oversaw this function.


This particular area is rich in fishes, and it is possible for one to make one’s way along the rocks to a thousand feet offshore to either fish or dive, and I heard of many drownings taking place here in the past, but since I discovered this fishing spot I haven’t heard of any — perhaps thanks to the Jizo statue! This Jizo statue stands six feet tall and has a width of more than three feet; its weight approaches a ton. [In addition to] this Jizo statue in Kawaihapai, there is one more at Kawailoa and another at the Jodo Temple that are regularly being worshipped.

The July 1, 1978, Hawaii Hochi article mentions the visit of Bishop Mokusen Hioki, a zenji, or Zen master, and the head of the Soto sect in Japan. Bishop Hioki arrived in Honolulu on September 9, 1915, and spent a month in Hawai‘i on his way home from the World Buddhist Conference that was held in San Francisco at the Pan-Pacific International Exposition. The exposition, which ran from February to December, celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal. Bishop Hioki’s visit to Honolulu was a big event in the Japanese community, and the two major Japanese-language newspapers, the Nippu Jiji and the Hawaii Hochi, covered his visits and lectures until he left on October 8, 1915. During his stay on O‘ahu, he spent two days at Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission on the North Shore. The September 14, 1915, issue of the Nippu Jiji provided his itinerary: There will be Buddhist meetings on the 18th and 19th of this month at the Kawailoa Soto Buddhist Center. On both days, the keynote speakers will be the Reverend Mokusen Hioki, who recently participated in the World Buddhist Conference held in San Francisco, and Reverend Sogen Yamagami, who lectured at Calcutta University in India and more recently at the Soto Sect College in Japan. He currently represents the Japan Young Buddhist Association as he accompanies Reverend Hioki. These two ministers have set up the following schedule for their talks: September 18. They will reach the Buddhist Hall at 6 pm. They will preside over prayers for the deceased at 7 pm, after which Reverend Mokusen Hioki will give a sermon. September 19. 8 am. Reverend Satoyu from the Daihonzan Eiheiji Temple in Japan will perform a Buddhist ceremony for the repose of the dead. This will be followed by a lecture and discussion group by the Kawailoa Young Buddhist Association at 10 am. At 1 pm of this same day, the priests will offer prayers to prevent disasters and calamities.

On August 17, 2004, members of the Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji Soto Mission removed the Jizo-do that sheltered the Kawaiha¯pai Jizo and transported the statue to their temple grounds in Wahiawa¯. Before the relocation began, members of the congregation placed flowers at the foot of the statue and held a brief ceremony. Photo by Reverend Shugen Komagata.


During Reverend Hioki’s visit to Kawailoa, he presented Shunkichi Yamaguchi, the stonemason who carved the Kawaihāpai Jizo, with the awards that are mentioned in the Hawaii Hochi article. The reputation of the Kawaihāpai Jizo as a guardian of the sea spread across the North Shore and eventually across the island of O‘ahu. On Sunday, June 23, 1940, the Nippu Jiji organized an all-day excursion to Hale‘iwa for a thousand people from Honolulu. Reporter Harry Shiramazu fi led a story the day after the OR&L train trip that went from Honolulu around Ka‘ena Point to Hale‘iwa and back. Shiramazu mentions the Kawaihāpai Jizo, calling it the “Jizo Sama at Mokuleia,” and says that the train slowed down for almost five minutes as it passed the statue to allow everyone onboard enough time to pay their respects. This moment of tribute by hundreds of people during an otherwise festive outing shows the high regard that they had for Jizo. About 1,000 camera fans, fishing enthusiasts and picknickers — men, women, boys and girls, young and old, married and unmarried — enjoyed yesterday’s all day train excursion sponsored by The Nippu Jiji. The picnic featured fun, frolic, and feasting, in addition to picture-taking, softball games, swimming and other health-giving and body-building activities. The program also highlighted the sleight-of-hand performances by “Hats” McKay, comedian and king of jugglers. With all aboard and accounted for, the Haleiwa Express of the ORL Shore Line left the Honolulu Grand Central Station at 7:30 a.m. Whizzing past pineapple factories and Pearl Harbor to the left and waving cane fields to the right, the train cavalcade of an engine, one freight car, and thirteen coaches sped past Puuloa, Aiea, Waiau, Pearl City and Pearl Lochs for Waipahu where it paused for five minutes. Passing Honouliuli, Ewa, Sisal, Gilbert and Nanakuli, the “Iron Horse” hugged the shoreline and headed for Waianae where it stopped for 25 minutes to allow the camera fans to “shoot” pictures and give men and machine ample time for refueling and inhaling “fresh air.” Enroute to Waianae, the excursionists were treated to the sights of beautiful seascape to the left and of exquisite landscape to the right. The seascape, dotted with a fleet of islands, resembled Japan’s Matsushima, Itsukushima and Ama-no-Hashidate — the main difference being that the islands are punctuated with kiawe or algarroba trees instead of shapely pine trees. The mechanized cavalcade then made a five-minute stop at Yokohama and


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paused for 25 minutes at Arch Rock for the benefit of the camera enthusiasts. Executing a hairpin turn around Kaena Point, the train stopped at White Rock where followers of Isaac Walton detrained to answer the call of the wild seas and engage in an endurance contest with the denizens of the deep. Then gone with the wind, the “Iron Horse” sped toward its objective, but enroute slowed down for about five minutes to pay a train tribute to “Jizo Sama” at Mokuleia, the guardian deity of children. Following the pass in review and march past Puuiki and Waialua, the excusionists arrived at Haleiwa, the “House Beautiful,” at 11:00 a.m. The picnickers then detrained and pedaled to the beautiful five-acre beach home of Manager Tomitaro Konno of the Haleiwa theater. Luncheon over, the excursionists indulged in picture-taking, swimming, softball games and other recreational activities. At 3:30 p.m. the picnickers started entraining and at 4:00 p.m. the train cavalcade left Haleiwa on its home-bound trip. Distribution of many prizes donated by local merchants was made aboard the train. At White Rock, the Isaac Waltonites were picked up. From then on, the homebound trip was just a reverse gearing of the outbound journey, the difference being that the picnickers appeared merrier, happier and healthier. The train reached Honolulu’s Grand Central a little before sunset at 6 p.m., thus consummating the sunup to sundown outing — a train “Hoolaulea.”

Former Hawai‘i resident Yujiro Honmyo, who was born in Wahiawā in 1925, used to fish during the late 1930s with his teen-aged friends in Kawaihāpai Bay. Most of my fishing was done when I was fourteen or fifteen. When the war started in ’41, I was sixteen, so I must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time. We fished all day and usually left at dusk. I remember the Kawaihāpai Jizo particularly because someone used to light candles for it at dusk. I remember seeing candles lighted several times. We fished for anything that would take the bait. We all wanted pāpio, small ulua under 10 pounds, but we fished for anything. One day my friend hooked into what seemed like a big one. After a struggle, he brought up a fish we had never seen. It was about two feet long, obviously a shark, but we had never seen one like it. Some men walking along the shore came over and identified it as a hammerhead shark. Then I got one, and we caught about three more. We didn’t know what to do with them and were thinking about throwing them back, when some other people showed up and said they wanted them.


We asked them what they wanted them for, and they said the sharks made good fish cakes, so we gave them the whole catch.

Clara Yasutake, who lived in Shiken Camp in Waialua as a child, always remembered the Kawaihāpai Jizo from a story her mother used to tell her. Clara recalled in April 2006, I was born in 1914, so I made ninety-two this month, and I lived in Waialua until 1930. My mother would always go to the Kawaihāpai Jizo. The old folks believed in Ojizosan, and we all knew he was there to protect fishermen and swimmers, but he also helped in other ways, too. If something was wrong, one of the things they did was touch the spot on the statue and then rub the same spot on themselves where it hurt or where something was wrong. When I was small, I used to drool, so my mother would take me to the Kawaihāpai Jizo. We walked everywhere, so we would walk to Kawaihāpai to visit the statue. My mother would make a small bib, put it on the statue, then she would touch the statue and then my face. I was pretty small, so I don’t really remember, but my mother always used to tell me the story and remind me that Ojizosan helped me stop drooling.

When Waialua Sugar Company closed on October 4, 1996, the last of the sugar plantations on O‘ahu, North Shore resident Thomas Hirayama recalled his childhood in Kawaihāpai Camp. His reminiscences offer a look at everyday life for a Japanese family in a plantation camp and include his family’s religious connections to the Kawaihāpai Jizo. My father, Hirozo Hirayama, left Shibata, Niigata-ken, Japan, on August 7, 1907, to work in Hawai‘i to seek a better life. Upon arrival, he was assigned to Waialua Agricultural Co., Ltd. (later changed to Waialua Sugar Co., Ltd.) to work in the sugarcane fields and sent to live in Waimea Camp along with others from Niigata. When they were forced to move out of their plantation home during the sugar workers’ strike of 1920, my parents moved in with friends in Waipi‘o, where my oldest brother, Hiroshi, was born. After the strike they were relocated to Kawaihāpai Camp where the rest of my siblings and I were born and raised. Before the outbreak of World War II, there were several sugar plantation camps scattered in the area between Waialua and Ka‘ena Point, such as Gay Camp, Mokulē‘ia Camp, and Kawaihāpai Camp. I have many fond memories of growing up in this easygoing, uncomplicated lifestyle in rural Kawaihāpai. Our camp was located directly across the Jizo-sama, on the mauka (mountain) side of Farrington Highway, just before


Dillingham Airfield. There were about twenty-five houses in our camp occupied by several Japanese families and quite a number of Filipino bachelors. As a child I didn’t realize how difficult it was for my parents to support their six sons (Hiroshi, Robert Takashi, Thomas Kiyoshi, Shigeru, Ted Tadashi, and Isao) and one daughter (Harriet Teruko). My mother, Haru, who also came to Hawai‘i from Niigata as a picture bride, did laundry for several of the bachelors to supplement my father’s meager plantation wages. As a contract laborer, my father was assigned to take care of a certain cane field in Kawaihāpai. He received a bonus, depending on the amount of sugar his field produced after the cane was harvested every two years, so he worked very hard to keep his field in good shape. With this bonus he would pay off his debt to the plantation store, which permitted its employees to make purchases on credit. My father had a small vegetable garden alongside a ditch, so my brothers and I took turns helping him irrigate with pails of water drawn from the ditch with a long stick. We also helped him harvest the vegetables and feed the chickens and pigs, which were raised for our meals and for sharing with friends and neighbors. Our family and several other families took turns cleaning the community bathhouse and burning firewood to heat the water in the afternoons when everyone went to take a bath. We were paid a small stipend for doing this job. The firewood, supplied by the plantation, was later replaced with an oil burner. There were no bathrooms in any of the homes, so everyone went to this large bathhouse, with a partition separating the men’s side from the women’s side. The concrete furo (bathtub) was large enough for the children to swim in. Since boys will be boys, there were always some rascals who would dive under the partition where there was a small opening, just to tease the girls on the other side. Each home had an outhouse for a toilet. Mr. Tokuhei Kimura, who lived in our camp and worked part-time for the plantation, picked up the schoolchildren on a canvas-covered truck furnished with four rows of wooden benches. This truck was affectionately called “Kimura Bus.” The canvas on the sides were rolled up during good weather and rolled down when it rained. Since we were the first ones to be picked up, it was still dark when we boarded the bus to Waialua Elementary School (the present Hale‘iwa Elementary School). After English classes ended, we walked to Japanese school (Taisho Gakko), which was located at the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. Reverend Buntetsu Miyamoto, who later became bishop of Jodo Mission Hawai‘i, was the principal, and Mrs. Miyamoto, his wife, was one of the teachers. Mr. Kimura picked us up again after Japanese school, and since

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we were always the last load, it was almost dark when we got home. Japanese school on Saturdays was a half-day affair with stretching exercise first thing in the morning. All the students lined up in rows out in the schoolyard and followed the movements of the teachers with instructions blaring from a megaphone. We went to our respective classrooms after that. My parents were both members of Kawailoa Ryusenji for many years. Every year before the Bon service, our family was invited to have dinner at Mr. Tamitaro Suzuki’s house, which was located at Pump 4 Camp just below Kawailoa Camp. After dinner we would all attend the Bon service and dance afterwards at the church. It was a very festive and joyful occasion, which we all looked forward to. Since our camp was located near the ocean, we spent most of our spare time going swimming or fishing. Fish were plentiful, so our meals consisted mostly of fish and vegetables. Although fishing was good, many fishermen drowned. I was very young at the time, but over the years, my parents told me that after many drowning incidents, the people in the community got together and with the help of the minister at Kawailoa Ryusenji decided to have a Jizo-sama erected. Incredibly, as the story goes, there were no drownings after that. The minister conducted a service at the Jizo-sama on the [24th] of each month, but the big event every year was on June [24th], when the area was decorated with chochin (paper lanterns) and flowers. After the service a very special dinner was served at our house for the minister and friends. It was a day we all looked forward to because after dinner that night, an outdoor screen was set up near the Jizo-sama and Japanese movies were shown. People from Waialua and nearby camps also attended and senbei (Japanese cookies) were passed out during intermission. Although the Jizo-sama had to be relocated closer to the highway due to sand erosion, it still sits near the original site, serenely watching over its domain. When World War II ended and Reverend Tanaka returned after being interned on the mainland during the war, he picked up my parents and several others in our area for Jizo-sama mairi on or about the [24th] of each month. Kawaihāpai Camp and the other camps in the vicinity had been demolished in early 1942 to make way for the construction of Dillingham Airfield for use by the army, and we were relocated to Mill Camp 8 in Waialua. After Reverend Tanaka left, Reverend Yoshinami, then Reverend Matsuura, continued this ritual until the temple was relocated to Wahiawā. Ever since I can remember, my parents made a monthly pilgrimage to Jizo-sama


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on the [24th] day, as long as they were able to. Every New Year’s Eve they would take pine and bamboo branches (kado-matsu) to put up on each side of the entrance, and mochi (okasane) topped with a tangerine and flowers for the altar. Now that both of my parents are gone, I am trying to continue this tradition. My father passed away in the year 1958 and my mother in 1984. Since most of my siblings reside on the mainland, I am trying my best to carry on the obligation of supporting Ryusenji in memory of my parents.

The Kawaihāpai Jizo stood on O‘ahu’s North Shore from February 1913 to August 2004, when it was relocated to the grounds of the Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission. The beach at Kawaihāpai Bay suffered severe erosion after World War II, and members of Wahiawā Ryusenji had to move the statue inland near the highway. When the beach finally disappeared, area residents built a high, vertical seawall to protect their shoreline homes, and the Kawaihāpai Jizo ended up on the property line between two homes on Farrington Highway. Former residents of Kawaihāpai Camp such as Thomas Hirayama continued to visit the shrine to pay their respects, and Reverend Shugen Komagata of Wahiawā Ryusenji held a ceremony there once a year. In 2003, during discussions of the events that would commemorate Wahiawā Ryusenji’s hundredth anniversary celebrations in 2004, members of the congregation decided to relocate the Kawaihāpai Jizo to their temple grounds. They moved the Kawaihāpai Jizo on August 17, 2004.

Kawailoa Jizo The largest of Waialua Sugar Company’s plantation villages was Kawailoa Camp, which was located in the ahupua‘a of Kawailoa, the land division between Pua‘ena Point and Waimea Bay. “Kawailoa” literally means “the long water”: ka or “the,” wai or “fresh water,” and loa or “long.” The name comes from Kawailoa Stream, one of the longest streams on O‘ahu, which originates in the Ko‘olau Range and merges with the Anahulu River at sea level. Situated on a hill overlooking the ocean and the town of Hale‘iwa, Kawailoa Camp was actually a town of its own, with over five hundred homes, an elementary school, a gym, a swimming pool, a theater, two stores, and two barber shops. The majority of the residents were Japanese, so the town also included three community furo, a Japanese-language school, and a Buddhist temple, the Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission. In 1904 the Sotoshu headquarters in Japan sent Reverend Ryuki Hirai to


When the Kawaiha¯pai Jizo was relocated, two members of the congregation broke the concrete base that held the statue upright, and they uncovered some calligraphy on the side of the statue that had been hidden for many years. Photo by Reverend Shugen Komagata.

Hawai‘i to establish a mission for Japanese immigrant plantation workers. When Reverend Hirai arrived on O‘ahu, he approached W. W. Goodale, Waialua Sugar Company’s plantation manager, and asked if he could build a temple in Waialua. Goodale agreed, provided a parcel of land in Kawailoa Camp, and donated the construction materials for the temple and a Japanese school. Reverend Hirai established the school and the temple on October 31, 1904, and Japanese plantation carpenters completed construction of both buildings in July 1906. In 1914, Goodale increased the size of the Kawailoa Ryusenji lot to 5 acres at a cost of one dollar a year lease rent. Reverend Hirai served at Kawailoa Ryusenji until 1915, so the Kawaihāpai Jizo, erected in 1913, was dedicated under his ministry. News of the Kawaihāpai Jizo’s success in preventing drownings in the west end of the Waialua District quickly spread throughout the Japanese community on the North Shore. Fishermen were still drowning in the turbulent winter surf at the east end of the district, especially at Kawailoa Beach, the former name of the long, white sand beach between Pua‘ena Point and Pōhaku Loa Way. Under the direction of Reverend Horyu Ishiguro, members of Kawailoa Ryu-


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senji decided to install a second statue of Jizo, this one at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Kawailoa Road. The Kawailoa Ryusenji congregation ordered their statue from Japan — specifically from Aoyama, which, like the Ginza, is a well-known district in Tokyo. The few facts known today about the statue’s origin come from the calligraphy on its base. One side of the base is printed in English, with the year 1922 and the name William Harphan, a Waialua Sugar Company administrator who was recognized for his help with the project. Carved on the opposite side of the base are the names of the committee members who oversaw the project: Kasuke Tamura, Kojiro Sonobe, Torajiro Nekoishi, Yaichi Naito, Yasuji Nonaka, Hisaichi Kunimoto, Tota Fujino, Juntaro Fuuchi, and Ichiro Kihara. Additional names carved on the base are the names of the men who financed the project: Tsunejiro Horie, Tozo Hirokawa, and Daizo Aono. The last name on the base is that of the stonemason in Japan who carved the statue, Ishikatsu, and the final piece of information is the month and year it was erected, March 1922. During an interview in 2004, retired reverend Gyokuei Matsuura — the last minister at Kawailoa Ryusenji and former bishop of the Soto Mission in Hawai‘i — reminisced about the Kawailoa Jizo. The Ojizosama at Kawailoa was put up to protect people from ocean accidents and also to protect travelers from automobile accidents. That is why it was located near the beach and alongside the road. I came to O‘ahu in 1965 from Daifukuji in Honalo on the Big Island. Immediately after I arrived at Kawailoa Ryusenji, I repaired the Jizo-do at Kawaihāpai and began conducting monthly services there and at the Kawailoa Jizo. I chanted two sutras at each service. I held the services at Kawailoa on the second Sunday of the month and the services at Kawaihāpai on the third Sunday of the month. I did that because I believed that each Ojizosama was entitled to its own service. Many people attended both services, almost all of them members of Kawailoa Ryusenji, but a few fishermen who were not members also attended. I conducted the services on Sunday afternoons, so people could have the mornings to themselves, and when the services were over everyone would stay and have dinner. During the time that I was the minister at Kawailoa Ryusenji, there were no accidents. I believe that many people were saved from accidents because of these Ojizosama.

Ethel Saito, a member of the former Kawailoa Ryusenji Baikako, or women’s choir, recalled visiting both statues in the 1960s while her group was still


active. “The Baikako members went to Mokulē‘ia [Kawaihāpai] Ojizosan for monthly services during the day, but since I was working at that time, I was unable to attend. However, I was able to attend the Memorial Day service held each year at the Mokulē‘ia Ojizosan, Hale‘iwa Memorial at Hale‘iwa Park, and Kawailoa Ojizosan. At Kawailoa Ojizosan, members laid mats on the ground and sat down and ate lunch, which was prepared and served by Mrs. Matsuura.” Although the Kawailoa Jizo was erected originally to protect people from ocean and automobile accidents, residents of Kawailoa Camp visited the statue for other reasons. Bessie Yoneko Ibrao Fooks remembered one of her neighbors, a young Japanese wife, who wanted to have children. “The Inouye family lived up the hill from us in the camp, and Mrs. Inouye — we called her Inouye obasan — would always walk down to Jizosama. When she passed our house, she would say to me and my sister, ‘I’m going to Jizosama, let’s go,’ and we would go with her. She would clean up, sweep, and place some offerings of food such as fruit or mochi in front of the statue. She would put a clean set of clothes on Jizosama and take the dirty ones home to wash. She was infertile and prayed for a child. She eventually adopted a son.” Galen Kawashima, the son of longtime Kawailoa schoolteacher Flora Kawashima, recalled the days of his youth in the camp. We lived in the schoolyard next to the Sinclair house. Mr. Sinclair was the head luna, the camp supervisor, and his house had a great view of the shore below. There were two stores in the camp, the plantation store where everyone could charge against their pay, and Tojo Store, a store privately owned by the Tojo family. They also owned a bus service. There was also a gym, swimming pool, tennis courts, movie theater, and baseball field. My mother taught in the school, and Mr. Awai was the principal. He had fishing nets and liked to hukilau on different beaches like the Banzai Pipeline and Kawailoa Beach. Kawailoa Beach had lots of sand in those days and used to go way out. The Jizo statue was for people who died in the ocean. That’s what the older residents in the camp always told us. The statue was in the pine trees close to Kamehameha Highway, and there was a graveyard near it. We never really paid much attention to it, but people always said that it was for those who had died in some kind of ocean incident.

One of the common beliefs about statues of Jizo is that if people with an ailment rub the statue at the location of their ailment and then rub the loca-


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tion of the ailment on themselves, they will be cured. Gladys Miya, born in Kawailoa Camp in 1927, was one of five daughters and one son of Torakichi and Chii Go. She recalled the following story: We went to Ojizosan every year during Bon season to clean the statue and put on a new apron, but we would also visit on other occasions, too. When we needed flowers for special occasions like for our May Day program at school or for Osakasama, Bodhi Day, at the temple, we would walk down the hill, cross the highway, and pick the beach flowers that grew along the airfield. In those days we had no cars, so we walked. On the way we would always stop at Ojizosan and rub on the statue wherever it ailed us. We would rub the statue, then rub the same place on our body. We never gave too much thought to Ojizosan. It was just there, and we never questioned why. All we knew was that if you had an ache, like a headache, you went there and rubbed its head. Being kids, we also touched its head and then our own to make us smart.

Although the majority of the residents in Kawailoa Camp were Japanese, families of other nationalities lived there, including some Portuguese families. Clara Putzulu, born in the camp in 1924, was the daughter of Antone Camacho, a foreman for the plantation. Their family attended Sacred Heart Church in the camp, but she remembered the statue very well. Like all of the other children in the camp, I went to Kawailoa Elementary School where Mrs. Kawashima was our teacher. But after Kawailoa, we went to Waialua Intermediate and High School, and we had to ride the bus to get there. If we missed the bus in the afternoon, we had to walk home. My mother always told us, “If anyone stops to offer you a ride, you say ‘No.’ ” In 1941, I was a senior at Waialua High School, and one day I missed the bus — the only time I ever did. So I walked home. It was a long walk and a hot day, and by the time I reached Kawailoa Road, I was feeling faint. When I walked past the statue, two old women were there praying. They asked me if I was all right, and I told them I had a headache. They told me to rub the forehead of the statue and then rub my own forehead, so I did. Then they told me to sit down in the shade, and they continued to pray. I don’t know if it was their prayers, the statue, or just sitting down, but I felt better right away.

Today almost nothing remains of Kawailoa Camp. In August 1976, Reverend Matsuura conducted the last service in the temple at Kawailoa and the first service in the new temple in Wahiawā. In the same year, a community


Reverend Shugen Komagata holds up the Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission munafuda, or temple signboard, which gives the construction history of the temple (2002). Temple carpenters placed the munafuda in the building upon its completion in 1906. Efforts in the late 1970s to save the historic temple in Kawailoa Camp were not successful, and the munafuda is one of the few artifacts that survived the demolition. Photo by the author.

group organized the Kawailoa Temple Restoration Project in an attempt to save the temple, but they were unsuccessful, and by the early 1980s the temple and all the houses in the camp had been torn down. The only signs of the temple today are its concrete front steps and the bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa) that was planted next to the steps when the temple was constructed in 1914. The Kawailoa Jizo stood at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Kawailoa Road from March 1922 to September 2003, when it was relocated to the grounds of the Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission. The shrine had been the subject of vandalism, requiring the members of Wahiawā Ryusenji to install a gate with a lock on the Jizo-do. Former residents of Kawailoa Camp continued to visit the shrine to pay their respects, and Reverend Shugen Komagata of Wahiawā Ryusenji held a ceremony there once a year. In 2003, during discussions of the events that would commemorate the mission’s hundredth anniversary celebrations in 2004, members of the Wa-


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Reverend Shugen Komagata of Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji Soto Mission and members of the congregation pause for a group photo before moving the Kawailoa Jizo to Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji in 2003. Photo courtesy of Reverend Shugen Komagata.

hiawā Ryusenji decided to relocate the Kawailoa Jizo to their temple grounds. On September 20, 2003, the statue was moved from its location under the ironwood trees at Kawailoa Road and Kamehameha Highway and transported to Wahiawā.

Wahiawa¯ Kawamori Jizo When the Kawaihāpai Jizo and the Kawailoa Jizo were moved to Wahiawā Ryusenji, they joined a third Jizo — the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo — a statue that once stood on the south fork of Kaukonahua Stream. Early Japanese residents in Wahiawā erected the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo on the riverbank near the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Avocado Street to protect children who swam in the stream and travelers who crossed it. In 1984, Lani Nedbalek presented a brief history of the statue in her book, Wahiawā: From Dream to Community.


An area called “Blood Town” grew up alongside the south fork of Kaukonahua Stream. “Blood Town was close to the army base,” explains retired real estate broker Robert Ishikawa. “Maybe that’s why it attracted outsiders, people who preyed on the soldiers . . . rough people, gambling, drinking, prostitutes, knife fights. That’s why it was called Blood Town. “To the east of Blood Town, a section of the south fork stream itself gained a reputation for misfortune. Several swimmers drowned in the waters. A car traveling on the narrow wooden bridge plunged into the stream. Several children, unable to outrun a train approaching from the rear, were killed on the railroad trestle spanning the stream. Residents of the town placed an ojizo-san (Japanese stone shrine) on the bank overlooking the water. It was put there as a guardian to protect swimmers and others who passed through the area.”

Harry Takano, another one of Nedbalek’s informants, also told her about the statue of Jizo that stood above Kaukonahua Stream at the corner of Kamehameha Highway and Avocado Street: “There used to be an ojizo-san overlooking the water, close to the Masuoka Building. It was put there to protect the swimmers. People drowned there, but we still used to go out swimming.” Henry Lee, a lifelong Wahiawā resident who was born in 1930, recalled one of the tragedies that prompted the installation of the statue — the train incident that involved two children, a girl and her younger brother. Those days all of us kids used to go down to swim in the river, and we used to play on the trestles. The river was like a hangout for the kids, and we used to go all the time. The train incident happened when I was too young to remember, but my mother used to tell me the story. She didn’t want me playing on the trestles. She said a boy and a girl were on the trestle when the train came. The girl grabbed her brother’s hand and they jumped into the stream, where they both drowned. When they found them, they were still holding on to each other. That story really hit home. We stayed away from the trestles.

Howard Oda also recalled the statue of Jizo in 2005. I remember the statue of Ojizosan by the river. It was in a little three-sided shelter with a roof up on the riverbank in an empty lot. I was born in 1931, and it was already there when I was young. I remember going there once a year when they celebrated, and they used to have sumo wrestling there, too. At that time Wahiawā had three Japanese schools: Showa, Hongwanji, and


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Dokuritsu. I think one of the schools, perhaps Showa, took care of Ojizosan. He was there to protect the children who swam in the river. The river was dangerous because there’s no place you can walk out. From the riverbank, it just drops straight off, so you have to know how to swim before you go in. Every summer since I was a kid, there was a drowning. In fact, I had several friends who drowned there.

In 1949, the City and County of Honolulu opened the Wahiawā Memorial Swimming Pool. On November 2, the Honolulu Advertiser noted, “for years the people of Wahiawā had no place to swim except the lake formed by the dam where there is a muddy bottom and many sad drownings occurred.” The public pool created a safe swimming environment for Wahiawā’s children and ended the drownings in Kaukonahua Stream and Lake Wilson. During World War II, vandals pushed the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo down the steep riverbank into Kaukonahua Stream. Members of Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission recovered the statue after the war and moved it to a piece of property the mission owned on California Avenue, the future site of Wahiawā Ryusenji. They built a Jizo-do for the statue and held services there annually. When the new Wahiawā Ryusenji temple was dedicated on August 22, 1976, the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo was reinstalled in a new Jizo-do. The town of Wahiawā had a second statue of Jizo that stood at the end of California Avenue. Former Hawai‘i resident Yujiro Honmyo, who was born in Wahiawā in 1925, recalled the second Jizo. I lived on Kellog Street from when I was seven to when I was fifteen. It was Hakone Tract until the war started. Several nearby streets had Japanese names. I guess the developers were Japanese, and they wanted to target Japanese buyers. When the war started, the street names were all changed to American names. Wahiawā had two Jizo-san. One was near Avocado Street near the water’s edge. The other was on California Avenue at the end where the two rivers join to form Lake Wilson. It stood near the old cemetery at the end of California Avenue. It was on the side of the road away from the lake, so the road and then the city dump were between it and the lake. It was about 400 to 500 yards from the lake, and it faced the water. Like the other Jizo, it had a house of its own, a wooden structure with a roof supported by posts, and a waisthigh wall on three sides, the front being open. My parents were Jodo Shinshu, and we went there once a year for the annual cleanup service.


The employees of the old water company took care of the Jizo, and they lived on the end of California Avenue in what was company housing. Names like Tomita and Yanagisako come to mind. It was vandalized twice. The first time, they found the Jizo and replaced it in its niche. The second time it was never found, or if it was found, no one acknowledged finding it. Since it was only about 2 feet high, it would have made a nice garden ornament.

Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji Soto Mission During the winter of 2004, members of the Wahiawā Ryusenji constructed a new Jizo-do on the grounds of their temple on California Avenue. Completed on October 31, 2004, the structure now houses the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo, the Kawaihāpai Jizo, and the Kawailoa Jizo. Although the Kawaihāpai Jizo and the Kawailoa Jizo now stand on O‘ahu’s central plateau, they overlook their former homes on the ocean from the town of Wahiawā, the gateway to the North Shore. Each of three statues of Jizo at Wahiawā Ryusenji has a connection to water. The Kawaihāpai Jizo and the Kawailoa Jizo protected people who swam and fished in salt water and the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo protected those who swam and fished in fresh water.

Hale‘iwa Jizo A third statue of Jizo that was placed on O‘ahu’s North Shore stands on the grounds of the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. Unlike the Kawaihāpai Jizo and the Kawailoa Jizo, which were set at remote sites away from their home temple, the former Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission, the Hale‘iwa Jizo was erected on the grounds of the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. “Hale‘iwa” means “home [of the] ‘iwa, or frigate bird.” In Hawaiian tradition, the ‘iwa in flight is a poetic symbol for beauty, so the figurative meaning of the name is “beautiful home.” Hale‘iwa was originally the name of the Waialua Female Seminary (1865–1882), a Protestant school for girls that was built on the banks of the Anahulu River. The name was permanently established in the area by the Hale‘iwa Hotel, a popular beach resort destination on the Oahu Railway and Land Company’s train line from 1899 to 1943. When the hotel opened, the staff translated the name Hale‘iwa as “beautiful home.” Adjacent to the west end of Hale‘iwa Ali‘i Beach Park, the Hale‘iwa Jodo

In 2004, volunteers at Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji Soto Mission dismantled the Jizo-do that housed the Wahiawa¯ Kawamori Jizo, the resident Jizo at the temple, and constructed a new Jizo-do to house the Kawaiha¯pai Jizo, the Kawailoa Jizo, and the Wahiawa¯ Kawamori Jizo. Photo courtesy of Reverend Shugen Komagata.

Members of the Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji Soto Mission dedicated their new Jizo-do as one of the events to commemorate their hundredth anniversary on December 12, 2004. The dedication ceremony included, from left to right, Reverend Shugen Komagata of Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji, Bishop Jiho Machida of Hawai‘i Soto Mission, Reverend Shuji Komagata, and an assistant. The three women behind them were part of the Baikako, or choir. Photo by the author.


Mission is the only Buddhist temple on O‘ahu that is on the ocean. The temple is famous for its annual Toro-nagashi, or floating lantern ceremony, which was started in 1976 by Reverend Shyunjo Shiratori. During the summer Obon season, hundreds of lanterns lighted by candles, each bearing the name of a deceased family member, are floated out to sea in memory of those who have passed away. The Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission was founded by Reverend Jitsujo Muroyama, who arrived in Hawai‘i in 1909. He first went to Kōloa, Kaua‘i, where he established the Kōloa Jodo-Shu Kyokai-Do in 1910. While he was on Kaua‘i, Reverend Muroyama learned that the North Shore of O‘ahu did not have a Jodo temple, so he left Kōloa in January 1912 and moved to the district of Waialua. He rented a house in the town of Hale‘iwa, establishing a temporary mission, and on May 12, 1912, he held a dedication ceremony to place the statue of Amida Buddha on the altar. During Reverend Muroyama’s search for a permanent site for his temple, he learned that the fourteen-year-old Seaside Hotel was for sale for $4,000. A tireless fund-raiser who went house to house on horseback, he and his congregation were able to raise the purchase price by October 1912 and paid the owners in cash. Members of the congregation renovated the two-story building, converting the second story into the temple and the first story into the minister’s residence and the Japanese-language school. The temple opened in December 1913, and the Taisho Gakko Japanese School opened in January 1914. When Reverend Muramoto returned to Japan in 1915, the Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i sent Reverend Buntetsu Miyamoto to Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission to replace him. He erected the third historic statue of Jizo on the North Shore of O‘ahu on the grounds of the mission in 1934. Reverend Miyamoto served until 1949. He arrived from Oita-ken, Japan, in July 1915 with his wife Nuiko and was assigned to the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission in 1916. When Nuiko died unexpectedly on March 19, 1920, at the age of thirty-four, Reverend Miyamoto returned to Japan and married his second wife, Fumi. They returned to Hale‘iwa in 1921 and by the early 1930s had a family of six children. In 1934, the Miyamoto’s two-year old daughter, Edna Kayoko, wandered unseen by the family across the beach fronting the mission and fell into the water, where she drowned. Reverend Miyamoto erected a statue of Jizo at the top of the beach overlooking the ocean where the children’s play equipment is today. The statue, a standing figure, faced inland so that services could be held in front of it.


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After the statue was erected, other Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission members who had lost children in other accidents also came to pray. One of those tragic accidents occurred on the night of August 5, 1936, when a drunk driver plowed into a crowd of children and adults who had just walked out of Hale‘iwa Theater, which was located at the corner of Pa‘ala‘a Road and Kamehameha Highway. The Honolulu Advertiser ran the story the following day with this headline: “Four Killed, 8 Injured by Auto Driver / Man, Assertedly Drunk, Careens through Pedestrians / Terrifies Scores / Victims Were Emerging from Theater When Struck Down.” Two of the four who died were adults, and two were preteen children — sisters Miyoku and Tsuyako Oda. June Hirayama, one of the girls’ friends from Japanese school, recalled, “During the 1930s, the Taisho Gakko Japanese School at the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission had an enrollment of over four hundred students. Each day all my friends and I stopped at the Jizosama and prayed before we went to class. The [Oda] family placed pictures of [Miyoku and Tsuyako] next to the statue, and each day we paid our respects to them.” During the 1940s, life on the North Shore and in Hawai‘i changed dramatically for everyone. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the federal government declared martial law, which allowed the military to arrest Japanese nationals. Military personnel immediately arrested most of the Japanese priests at the Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Hawai‘i, including Reverend Miyamoto. Soon after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the mass internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans across the nation. During the war years, 1941–1945, the military occupied the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. The congregation had boarded up the temple and the Jizo-do, but army personnel from Schofield Barracks lived on the property, using the school building for a barracks. In 1943, an unusual event occurred at the mission involving a soldier quartered there and the statue of Jizo. Although only military personnel were on the property at the time, a mission member learned about the incident from another soldier shortly after it happened and told this story over sixty years later: During the war I started working at Schofield Studio, a photo studio across from Schofield Barracks near Kemo‘o Farm. That was 1942, and I was still a senior in high school, but the war effort needed workers. That studio became the headquarters for censoring all of the photos in Hawai‘i. The messenger who brought the photographs to us was a corporal, a haole [Caucasian] from the mainland.


About a year after I graduated, he came into the studio one day, and he was upset. He said, “I have a story to tell you, but keep it a secret. One of the soldiers staying at the mission didn’t like the statue on the beach. He swore at it, then threw it in the ocean. That night, he just died. They did an autopsy, and they couldn’t find anything wrong.” The corporal was a very short guy, a nice guy. I can still see him. He was a very religious guy, and the incident really affected him. But the cause of that soldier’s death was never publicized.

With the heavy military presence at the mission, including accordion barbed wire strung across the beach, none of the mission members ever realized that the statue of Jizo had been thrown in the ocean with the exception of the young girl who knew the story. And assuming that the information had to be kept secret in the interest of national defense, she never talked about the incident to anyone, including her own family, until 2004 when she was asked if she knew what happened to the original Hale‘iwa Jizo. In 1985, Dr. J. I. Frederick Reppun interviewed Dr. Seiichi Miyasaki for the Hawaii Medical Journal on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the Japanese in Hawai‘i. Miyasaki, a nisei physician who had opened his office in Hale‘iwa in 1935, was a member of Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. Dr. Miyasaki has been a member and vice-president of the Waialua Lions Club since 1947. He has also been active with the Waialua Community Association, but his main interest — his only “hobby” — has been the Haleiwa Jodo Mission (Buddhist), which his father helped to found. The day after Pearl Harbor, its co-founder and minister, the Reverend Buntetsu Miyamoto, was summarily seized by the Military Police and taken away from the bosom of his family, and incarcerated; later he was interned on the Mainland for five years. Dr. Miyasaki, with fear and trepidation not only for his own personal safety in those irrational times but also for the safety and protection of the reverend’s wife and small children and for the mission itself, took upon himself the role of guardian for the duration. The church was boarded-up, the school occupied by the military, the “Image” [of the Buddha] removed to safekeeping elsewhere. As the war came to a close, very strong pressure by powerful interests was put upon Dr. Miyasaki to sell or lease the valuable property, but he kept his trust and preserved the mission until Reverend Miyamoto was released and returned from exile.


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When World War II in the Pacific ended on August 15, 1945, the military released the Miyamoto family from the internment camp at Crystal City in Texas. They returned to Hawai‘i in December 1945. Their home and the temple had been trashed, and it took several months for mission members to restore them. Dr. Miyasaki recalled this difficult period during the eulogy he gave for Reverend Miyamoto on May 3, 1982: “The Army occupied the school and the grounds from the very first day of World War II and permitted no one to enter. During their occupation, they destroyed practically all the desks used in the school and took many contents and also the bell and the shrine of the temple. The bell was later found in Mr. John Midkiff ’s yard, which, too, was occupied by the Army. It was used to inform them of their meal times. I took my father to indentify it, and we brought the bell back.” Reverend Miyamoto and his family had barely moved back into their home when they were forced to move out again, this time by the severe tsunami that struck the Hawaiian Islands on April 1, 1946. Although the destructive waves inflicted the greatest damage and loss of life in Hilo and Laupāhoehoe on the Big Island, the tsunami also inundated the North Shore of O‘ahu, including the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. The original twostory temple building with the Miyamoto’s living quarters on the ground floor and the temple above them on the second floor was moved 11 feet off its foundation. The wave completely destroyed the Jizo-do, the shelter that had housed the statue of Jizo. In 2004, Carol Murashige, Reverend Miyamoto’s daughter, recalled the day the wave struck: “I looked out the window and saw the water receding. I yelled to the rest of the family and we started to run out of the house. But my father didn’t want to leave the temple. We had to pull him to go with us. The water went right through our house, and fish were flopping all over.” The April 12, 1946, issue of the Honolulu Advertiser carried a story on the tsunami damage and an interview with Reverend Miyamoto’s daughter, Carol. An island-wide check of the damage done by the first tidal wave seen here since 1923 was made yesterday by Police Chief W.A. Gabrielson, Lt. Van Hubbard, USCG and reporters. The check-up began at Haleiwa where we found two navy 83-foot crash boats beached, a Jodo mission up-rooted from its moorings, a neighboring building 20 by 40 feet turned completely around and various small craft still floating about in the back water. One of the residents of Haleiwa, Carol Miyamoto, said there had been five big swells altogether. The first two were high but really did no damage. Residents had plenty


of time to evacuate their quarters, which were right on the beach. In her opinion, it was the third swell that did all the damage in that area.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, Dr. Miyazaki approached Mrs. Harold G. Dillingham, who had a country home on the Dillingham Ranch in Mokulē‘ia. Mrs. Dillingham had acquired a statue of Jizo during her travels in Japan before the war. When Dr. Miyazaki explained that the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission was looking for a statue to replace the one they had lost, she offered hers. In 2005, Debbie Vogel of San Francisco reminisced about her grandmother, Margaret Dillingham: Margaret Bayard-Smith was born in San Francisco on November 20, 1885. She had one brother and one sister. She married Harold Garfield Dillingham in 1908 in San Francisco when she was twenty-two years old and moved to Hawai‘i to live, where she bore five sons. She loved Hawai‘i and the Hawaiian people. She passed away in Honolulu on November 15, 1975. Painting was a passion. She studied art as a child, while living in Paris with a relative, and again when she was seventy-eight years “young,” living in Paris for several months. She liked to paint on masonite. Her paintings are treasured by her family, their subject matter mainly showcasing the magnificence of Hawai‘i’s tropical plants. She had fun painting trompe l’oeil scenes on her kitchen doors in her home in Mokulē‘ia and on the ceiling of her home in Honolulu, much to the delight of everyone who saw them. Travel was another passion, fueled by her philosophy that there was no better education than travel. One of her “missions” was to give that opportunity “to learn through travel” to her grandchildren. Traveling in the Orient was fascinating to her. She had a real eye for art and beautiful objects, and she so admired Oriental arts.

Peter Dillingham, a resident of Kona and one of Margaret Dillingham’s five sons, added the following about his mother: “My mother went often to Mokulē‘ia, at first by train and then later by car. She had her own place there, separate from the ranch house. She was very fond of Japanese things and liked the culture and artifacts. She and a companion went to Japan in the early 1930s, before World War II. The government provided them with security and allowed them to go anywhere.” When the new statue of Jizo arrived at the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission, members placed it on the site of the original statue at the top of the beach. Then on May 9, 1957, another tsunani inundated the North Shore and struck the


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In the aftermath of the 1946 tsunami, Margaret Dillingham, wife of Honolulu businessman Harold G. Dillingham, donated this statue of Jizo to the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission to replace the original thrown into the ocean by a soldier during World War II. Photo by the author.

mission. The new statue survived the waves, but the Jizo-do was washed away again. The congregation eventually moved the statue to its present location alongside the steps leading into the temple when the temple was constructed in 1975. The statue faces the ocean from its triangle-shaped Jizo-do, serving the members of the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission, and it watches over the swimmers, surfers, snorkelers, scuba divers, and boaters offshore. A plaque below the statue has a message written by Reverend Shiratori, who was the minister at the temple in 1957 when the plaque was installed. It reads as follows:


We dedicated this image to the repose of the little souls who have passed out of this world, especially here on this Hale‘iwa beach. Through his vows, may the children together enjoy everlasting happiness. The Patron Saint Jizo St. Jizo was a Buddhist disciple in India. He suffered for the sake of all sentient suffering beings and vowed he would never accept enlightenment for himself so long as ever a single suffering remained. Here he is presented as being a gentle-faced disciple, holding a sacred jewel in his hands. He is worshiped as the redeemer of the souls of children who are supposed to be tormented by demons on the beach of Sainokawara on the road to hell. Benign Jizo, impelled by his love and pity for the little ones, drives the demons away, comforts the children, and hides them under his robe. Thus comes the belief that each bit of the pitiful little pieces of children’s clothing hung around the image of St. Jizo will clothe the soul of some child. This image of the patron St. Jizo was donated by Mrs. Harold Dillingham. This plaque was donated by Mr. Toshiaki Mukai.

The only time the original Hale‘iwa Jizo was apparently seen again was after the war in the 1950s. The man who saw it was Isamu Ebisui, a senior member of Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. Ebisui was born in ‘Ewa in 1912, but his family moved to Mill Camp in Waialua while he was still young. He worked for Waialua Sugar Company from 1927 to 1977 and still lives near the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission, where he has been a member as long as he has lived in Waialua. When he was told the story about the original statue in 2004, he said, “After the war, maybe in the 1950s, I was diving for tako [octopus] straight out from the present playground equipment. I was maybe 30 feet from shore and the water was about 5 feet deep. I saw something round in a rocky area that was shaped like a lotus flower. It was covered with limu [seaweed].” Today, Ebisui realizes that he probably saw the base of the statue, but at the time he did not associate what he saw with the original Hale‘iwa Jizo. He left it where it was. Statues of Jizo almost always feature Jizo sitting or standing on a lotus flower base. For Buddhists, the giant, tuliplike pink or yellow blossoms are symbols of purity and perfection. Lotus, a water plant, grows out of mud, but the flower is pure and is not defiled, just as the Buddha was born into the secular world but as an enlightened person lived above it.


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After the Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission moved the Kawaihāpai Jizo and the Kawailoa Jizo to its grounds on California Avenue, the only statue of Jizo left on the shoreline of O‘ahu’s North Shore was the Hale‘iwa Jizo at the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. However, other statues of Jizo are located at inland sites on the North Shore, such as the Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission on Pa‘ala‘a Road. When the issei came to work on the plantations, Jizo came with them. Like every group of immigrants, the issei brought their culture with them, and for many of them Jizo had been an everyday part of their lives, so where they went, he went too. In Hawai‘i they continued to call him by his honorific titles — Ojizosan or Ojizosama — and his statues soon appeared in the fi rst temples and cemeteries that were built in the early 1900s. One of the unique characteristics of Jizo in Japan is that he is often placed in remote locations, especially in dangerous areas, to protect travelers and other people engaged in potentially dangerous activities, such as fishing or swimming, and this tradition of placing a statue of Jizo in a remote area happened first in Hawai‘i on O‘ahu’s North Shore. The issei at Waialua Sugar Company erected the Kawaihāpai Jizo in 1913 in an attempt to stop the widespread drownings that were occurring among the plantation workers, especially during the high winter surf season. The Kawaihāpai Jizo was followed by the Kawailoa Jizo in 1922 and the Hale‘iwa Jizo in 1934. The close relationship between the statues of Jizo and the Japanese plantation community showed itself in many ways. People cared for the statues because they believed the statues cared for them, and when they needed help in other areas of their lives, they visited the statues to request assistance. But even though the issei asked for help with infertility, for ease in delivering babies, for cures of physical ailments, and for protection of the spirits of their children who had passed away, they always remembered that these particular statues of Jizo were also guardians of the sea, and news of the success of these statues in preventing drownings traveled across the island to the issei on O‘ahu’s south shore.

chapter five

Warning Signs

some of the best ulua fishing on O‘ahu occurs along the Koko Head sea cliffs between Kawaihoa Point and Hālona Point. Issei shorecasters discovered the eastern O‘ahu sea cliffs in the 1920s when they saw Hawaiians fishing there. Hawaiians call their style of ulua fishing kau lā‘au, or “setting [a] pole.” In 2004, Charles Langlas from the University of Hawaii–Hilo produced a video documentary on kau lā‘au, noting that a few Hawaiians still practice that style today in Puna on the Big Island and in Hāna on Maui. As the issei learned how and where Hawaiians fished for ulua, they applied their own fishing knowledge to the sport. This was the beginning of ulua fishing in Hawai‘i as we know it today.

Honolulu Japanese Casting Club In 1929 a group of issei on O‘ahu organized the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, the second ulua fishing club established in Hawai‘i. The first was Atlapac, named for a fishing reel manufacturer, which formed in 1926. Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club fished the entire Koko Head shoreline, but their favorite fishing site was Bamboo Ridge, a small promontory to the west of the Hālona Blowhole. The narrow ridge drops down to sea level from Kalaniana‘ole Highway, ending on a flat point that extends into the ocean. In 2003, Horace Sasaki, son of Mokichi Sasaki, one of the founders of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, recalled the early days of ulua fishing. In 1924 my dad leased several hundred acres of farmland from the Bishop Estate in Ka‘alākei Valley in Hawai‘i Kai, where the Mt. Terrace condominium is now on Kawaihae Street. Our farm went up the valley just past the Hawai‘i Kai Retirement Community. We raised cattle and pigs, grew watermelons,

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and made kiawe charcoal. My dad was an ulua fisherman, and he was one of the first to fish in the Blowhole area. Before the road was built, the trail from Hanauma Bay ended at Lāna‘i Lookout. After that the sea cliffs were too steep to get by. To get to the Blowhole, you had to go through the gate to Alan Davis’ ranch. The gate was on the road between Kamiloiki and Kalama Valleys, and my dad had the key because he had permission to cut kiawe on the ranch to make charcoal. So before the road on the sea cliffs was built, my dad, some of his friends, and a few others were the only ones who fished there. My dad learned about all the spots between Portlock Point and Makapu‘u from a Hawaiian who lived near the end of ‘Elelupe Road in Kuli‘ou‘ou. He had one arm, and we only knew him as Mumu Joe. He had lived in Kuli‘ou‘ou all his life and knew all the fishing spots on the Koko Head sea cliffs. We got to know him because he came to our farm to cut haole koa. He cut the longest and thickest ones he could find and used them for his fishing poles. He always

William D. Alexander’s 1881 map of O‘ahu, a portion of which is reproduced here, shows that Koko Head was already named in the late 1800s, although the name is given to the taller cone that is now called Koko Crater. What is now called Koko Head, west of Hanauma Bay, was known to Hawaiians as Kuamo‘oka¯ne. Map courtesy Library of Congress.


used the green trunks because they were strong and pliable. He never used the fallen dried ones because they would snap with a big ulua on the line. He had a jackass to carry his 20-foot poles and his gear out to the Blowhole, where he used a simple dropped-bait fishing technique. With only his pole, line, and a hook, he would bait his hook, drop it in the water, and stick his pole in the rocks. With only one arm he couldn’t land a big ulua, so when he caught a big one, he would tie the pole to the jackass and use the jackass to pull the ulua up on the rocks. Bamboo Ridge was the best spot at Koko Head. Originally, we drilled eighteen holes around the edge of the point to hold our poles, but once the road opened and people could drive out there to fish, we had to drill more holes. After World War II we got up to seventy-two holes. With all those people on the point, we had to get organized, so we divided ourselves into two groups and set a two-hole limit per person. At that time we were using simple, onepiece lengths of bamboo for our rods. When all the holes were filled, there were bamboo rods all around the point. That’s where the name Bamboo Ridge came from.

In 1931, the Territory of Hawai‘i awarded E. E. Black, Ltd., a local construction company, a contract for $209,951 to extend Kalaniana‘ole Highway from Hanauma Bay to Sandy Beach. Equipped with an unlimited supply of dynamite, two huge gas shovels, eleven dump trucks, and eighty-five laborers, Black began the project in March of 1931. The company divided its laborers and equipment into two gangs, positioning one at each end of the project. The gangs worked toward each other, blasting and grading the highway and constructing three bridges to span the gulches that lay along the route. They met midway between Hanauma Bay and the Blowhole. Fishermen and curious motorists were warned to keep away from the road while it was still under construction because of the continuous blasting. Black completed the highway, including the bridges, six months later in September. The extension of Kalaniana‘ole Highway through the sea cliffs from Hanauma Bay to Sandy Beach opened one of the most scenic sections of shoreline on O‘ahu, an area that many residents and visitors still consider the most beautiful coast on the island. The extension of the highway also opened one of the most productive fishing grounds on the shoreline of O‘ahu — but one of the most dangerous. Powerful surf sweeps over the rocky ledges at the base of the sea cliffs, the spots where fishermen place their poles, and the

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frequency of injuries and drownings increased immediately as fishermen were able to drive into the area. Almost all of the fatalities were issei. When the number of drownings increased so dramatically, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club decided to take action. They agreed on an ocean safety campaign that would include placing wooden posts — obelisks — to serve as warning signs at every spot that a fisherman had drowned on the island of O‘ahu, no matter who the person was. They began their community service project in December of 1931, but it was announced in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin one month earlier on November 5, 1931, when the paper ran the following story: Signposts to warn amateur fishermen will be placed at all dangerous fishing grounds on this island by the Honolulu [Japanese] Casting Club, it was announced today. The casting club is comprised of amateur Japanese fishing enthusiasts. A number of deaths have occurred within the past few years because of a lack of knowledge of fishermen of dangerous fishing places. Kaichi Kaya, dealer in fishing supplies and a member of the club, has offered to donate the signs. The club will sponsor a fishing tournament November 1, 1931, to September 1932. A trophy has been offered for the largest number of fish caught during this period. Another prize has been offered by Nobuichi Ishida, an advisor of the organization, to be awarded the member who secures the largest catch on Sundays and holidays during the contest period. Mr. Ishida’s prize will be a gold medal. The officers of the casting club include Takeo Shigeno, president, Waichiro Izumi, vice president, Tokio Ishida, secretary, Z. Matsumoto, treasurer, Kumahichi Ito and Mitsuki Numata, auditors, Nobuichi Ishida and Kaichi Kaya, advisers.

Horace Sasaki remembered the project well: The club members contracted a commercial company to make the wooden danger signs, and they came already painted with the words printed on them. My dad would pick them up and bring them to our house in Kaimukī. He would add the name of the person who had died to the post before they put it in place. It didn’t matter who the person was or where they had died, my dad


In this undated photo from the 1930s, four members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club stand in front of a newly erected obelisk warning sign with the tools they used to install it: a bucket to mix concrete, a pick, a sledgehammer, and a shovel. The calligraphy at the top means “kiken,” or “danger,” and the calligraphy at the bottom means “Honolulu Japanese Casting Club.” The word “DANGER” is written diagonally in English between the two sets of calligraphy. Photo courtesy of Maurice Kaya.

and the other members would put up a post. Sometimes even Hawaiians died throw-netting or picking ‘opihi, and they put up signs for them, too. All of the danger signs were put up in the 1930s during the Depression when there wasn’t a lot of work and people had a lot of free time. In all, there were maybe fift y of them around the island. My dad took charge of the project for all those years, but it pretty much ended for him in 1937 when he had to give all of his attention to our farm in Ka‘alākei Valley and his charcoal business. The ones I can remember were at the Blowhole, Bamboo Ridge, and First and Second Bridge. At Hanauma Bay they were on the left side of the bay by the hole in the rock and outside by the moi hole. On the right side of the bay, they were at Witches Brew and at Suicide Point. Further on they were at Ulua

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House and Portlock Point. On the other side of Maunalua Bay, there were two at Black Point, one on the Kāhala side and one by Doris Duke’s house. One was at Diamond Head below the lighthouse. There was one in Waikīkī by the old aquarium and two at Kaka‘ako, one on the point outside the Tuna Packers and one by the incinerator. They were at Nānākuli by the school, Mā‘ili Point, Pōka‘ī Bay near the heiau, Mākaha on the point, Mākua near the moi hole, Ka‘ena Point, Mokulē‘ia near Camp Erdman, and one closer to Ka‘ena Point. There was one at Lā‘ie Point. There were three at Mōkapu, one before the cliffs, one before the Monument, and one at the Monument. There was one on Rabbit Island and two on Black Island, one at Makapu‘u Point and one at the Makapu‘u blowholes. There was one between the blowholes and Alan Davis’ house and one on the west point of Kalama Stream. There were two on the rocks between Kealahou Street and Sandy Beach. During World War II, the GIs used the posts for target practice, and most of them were destroyed.

The Koko Head sea cliffs supported the largest concentration of warning signs, a solemn testament to all the lives that were lost there prior to World War II. Today only two of the original obelisk markers remain intact:

Tadashi Fukunaga (standing) and Yasuhei Tsutsumi, two of the original members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, were photographed by Honolulu Advertiser fishing columnist Bruce Carter in 1962. Carter posed them next to one of the many obelisk warning signs they helped to install in the 1930s on the rocky ledges around O‘ahu. This obelisk stood at First Bridge, to the east of La¯na‘i Lookout. Photo courtesy of Gertrude Tsutsumi.


In 1960, professional photographer Clarence Maki captured the Waikı¯kı¯ Surf Club crew off Kawaihoa or Portlock Point, where they were on their way to winning their third consecutive Moloka‘i to O‘ahu Outrigger Canoe Race. Small but visible on a ledge at the base of the point (see arrow) is one of the original obelisk warning signs erected by members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. This memorial was for Misaku Kurihara, a fisherman from Kuli‘ou‘ou who drowned there on July 18, 1931. Photo by Clarence Maki.

one at the Blowhole, which has no date, but according to Horace Sasaki was erected in 1931 by his father and other Honolulu Japanese Casting Club members, and the one at Pai‘olu‘olu Point near Hanauma Bay. The year 1934 is etched in its concrete base. Evidence of other original warning signs on the Koko Head sea cliffs still exists between Lāna‘i Lookout and the Hālona Blowhole. Two of these sites survive with dates: one near ‘Ihi‘ihilauākea Bridge, or First Bridge as the fishermen call it, and one near Kawaiaka‘aiea Bridge, or Second Bridge. The date etched in the concrete that once supported a now long-gone post at First Bridge is 1931, and the date in the concrete at Second Bridge is 1934. A short, jagged wooden remnant of another original obelisk is still anchored in its concrete base near Palea Point on the east side of Hanauma Bay. Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club erected it to honor the memory of Hisaji Yamagata, who was swept to his death there by a large wave in 1933.

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Zensaku Uchibori One month after the members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club announced their warning sign project, they were ready to start putting up the signs. On December 17, 1931, they installed their first obelisk post in Nānākuli. Next they decided to install two signs on the Koko Head sea cliffs in a particularly dangerous spot that had recently claimed the lives of two ulua fishermen whose last names were Kurashita and Mikimoto. That spot was on the west side of Bamboo Ridge. The club members agreed to meet on Sunday, December 20. When they arrived that morning, they parked on Kalaniana‘ole Highway above Bamboo Ridge and began unloading their tools, their supplies, and the wooden posts. Two of them, Takeo Shigeno and Zensaku Uchibori, started down the trail ahead of the others, hiking down the sea cliffs to survey their work site. When they reached the rocky shelf at sea level, they started walking west to the area where one of the warning signs was to be placed. As they passed the spot where Kurashita had drowned, a huge rogue wave came out of nowhere and swept across the shelf, catching both men off guard. The powerful surge pulled Uchibori into the ocean, where he was able to stay

On December 18, 1933, Hisaji Yamagata drowned while fishing in Hanauma Bay. After holding a service at Mo¯‘ili‘ili Higashi Hongwanji (today’s Pa¯lolo Hongwanji), Reverend Tenran Mori conducted an oceanside service at the site of the incident where members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club had erected an obelisk warning sign. Club members are sitting to the right of the obelisk, while family members and friends are to the left. Photo courtesy of Brian Funai.

Only two of the original obelisk warning signs put up by members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club remain today. This wooden post, worn by wave and weather, stands next to the Ha¯lona Blowhole, where it was erected in 1931. It was among the first of over fifty obelisks that were placed on the rocky shores of O‘ahu in the 1930s as a community service project to prevent drownings. Photo by F. L. Morris, Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

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afloat in the rough seas for only about twenty minutes before he sank out of sight, never to be seen again. In a cruel bit of irony, Zensaku Uchibori drowned that day trying to save others from the same fate that claimed him. The English and Japanese daily newspapers all covered the incident the next day, but the accounts in the Hawaii Hochi and the Nippu Jiji told the tragic story in much greater detail than those in the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin. Reporters from the Hawaii Hochi and the Nippu Jiji drove to the scene of the drowning and then went to Uchibori’s home on Sheridan Street in Honolulu to interview his widow. The stories they filed, which today are windows into the lives of the issei in the 1930s, contain vivid descriptions of the incident and reveal the highly charged emotions that surrounded it. What follows is a translation in its entirety of the full-page article that appeared in the Nippu Jiji on Monday, December 21, 1931, the day after the incident. They Had Gone to Set Up Danger Warning Signs / Swallowed by a Violent Wave Beyond Hope of Rescue / The Tragedy of Mr. Uchibori Who Worked at a Ke‘eaumoku Street Taxi Stand / It Happened Yesterday at the Blowhole It happened yesterday on December 20, around ten in the morning as Mr. Uchibori, 44, who works as a taxi driver stationed in a taxi stand on Keeaumoku Street, was on a mission of mercy along with a dozen or so members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. They had traveled down the newly made Waimanalo Road to a section on the shoreline facing the Blowhole Point at Koko Head in order to post some signs warning about the danger of high waves in the hope that the signs would help prevent any future drownings of any fishing enthusiast in this area. As Mr. Uchibori was looking for a likely spot to erect a sign, he was dragged away by a violent wave and suddenly was beyond hope of rescue. Alerted to this emergency, a couple of fishing vessels were launched by a fishery in Honolulu and reached the area around noon, conducting a search throughout the day and well into the evening while Uchibori’s friends kept a desperate vigil from shore, all in vain as he had completely disappeared from sight. At night fourteen members of the casting club, determined to do something for their fallen companion, held a wake for him, performing the service on the accident scene under a chilly December wind. In this manner they hoped to give some measure of consolation to the soul of their friend. Meanwhile at Uchibori’s home on Sheridan Street, his dazed wife, now the lone caretaker of three young children, was soft ly weeping.


As the Warning Sounded of Immediate Danger, Uchibori Had Already Been Swept into the Sea / After Swimming for Twenty Minutes in the Direction of Honolulu, He Raised His Arm a Final Time and Then Sank Out of Sight / A Club Commemorative Photo Becomes the Photo of a Sorrowful Event The members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club had thought long and hard about the problems of frequent drownings in the area and had reached the conclusion that posting danger signs at appropriate places would be the most practical measure. They had already set the precedent of erecting a similar sign at Nanakuli on December 17 in order to lessen the danger for fishing enthusiasts in general, and yesterday being a Sunday, twenty members took the opportunity to gather at the taxi stand on Sheridan Street and took a club picture to commemorate this event as they gathered around three of the warning signs. Then the group headed out in six automobiles, one group headed for Koko Head while another group went to get sand to mix with the cement they were using to set up the posts. The remaining ten members headed for the Blowhole, and around ten a.m. gathered at the rocks on the shoreline about 300 feet from this landmark on the Honolulu side. As the members were on the rocks looking for a suitable spot to erect the first warning sign, club member Kaya noted huge waves breaking against the rocks and called out a warning to the others who quickly retreated inland, but one of the members suddenly noticed a hat fashioned from wheat straw floating 20 feet offshore and yelled out, “Hey! Did someone just fall into the water?” The group looked and saw that Mr. Uchibori was floating on his back about 10 feet away from his hat. Thinking fast, the group cast the warning signs into the water as makeshift lifesavers. Then someone yelled, “Get back. It’s dangerous to get too close to the shore!” Mr. Uchibori, following the hand signals from his companions on shore, began swimming. On the seashore, the only thing available was a rope of about 10 to 20 feet used in pulling the signs into an erect position. The situation looked hopeless, and as the frantic club members watched, Mr. Uchibori was swept farther and farther out into the open sea. About 300 yards out, he began to swim toward Honolulu while waving four or five times to indicate that he was all right, but as he continued to swim desperately to stay afloat, the precious seconds were inexorably ticking away. Meanwhile, the people on shore were completely frustrated. Club members Shigeno and Ishida drove to the nearest phone at the Maunalua Fish Pond,

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where they were able to call the Kewalo Basin fishery, as well as Mr. Kawamoto, who works at this newspaper office. Mr. Kawamoto in turn quickly called the fishery again, explaining that they needed the help of fishing boats as soon as possible to join in the rescue effort. All during this time, Mr. Uchibori continued to swim with grim determination, but now he was about 800 yards away from the point where the wave had forcefully dragged him into the water, and about twenty-five minutes later, he raised his arm one last time over the waves as though to give his friends a final salute and then sank completely out of sight into the water. His deeply disappointed companions clambered up to high ground continuing to wave encouragement in the direction where he was last seen, but to no avail, as Mr. Uchibori was now nowhere to be seen. This Area Is Aptly Called the Devil’s Ocean / Even the Police Are Helpless before Mother Nature This area where Mr. Uchibori was lost has become well known to the public since the new Waimanalo Road was constructed. The locals call this point the “Blowhole,” because ocean water is perpetually being shot out from a hole in the rocks. It is about 300 feet from this Blowhole going toward Honolulu, in a relatively flat area where nature has created what looks like a little harbor complete with large, flat black rocks that look ideal for beginning fishermen to cast their lines from. At this same site, a man named Kurashita was similarly swept away by an ocean wave to his death some time ago, so this area is one of the most dangerous local places. Yesterday, as this newspaper office got the report of Mr. Uchibori’s predicament, we rushed over to the area just before eleven and noted that due to a violent east wind, the waters looked very rough. Captain Kau and Detective Lau from the Identification Bureau of the Honolulu Police Department had rushed over, but there was nothing that they could do, and they left disappointedly just before noon. “Tonight, Daughter, We Are Going to Have a Wonderful Christmas! / Daddy Will Buy You Some Fabulous Christmas Decorations!” / Mrs. Uchibori Tearfully Related What Her Husband Had Told Their Eight-Year-Old Eldest Daughter That Morning Just Before He Left Home As we visited Mr. Uchibori’s Sheridan Street home that is close to Waikiki, his wife, Naka, tearfully greeted us, explaining, “My husband worked for


a long time at a taxi stand in Makiki, but on November 15 he transferred to work at the taxi stand in Keeaumoku. He was a very patient and gentle person. Last night he returned from work at midnight and this morning he seemed jollier than usual, smiling a lot as he ate some mandarin oranges that I had purchased from the Kawahara Store, complimenting me by saying, ‘These oranges you bought are really delicious!’ “After finishing his breakfast, he went with Fumiko, his eldest eight-yearold daughter, to a Chinese store in the neighborhood looking for Christmas decorations, but apparently finding nothing that they liked, they returned home as he promised Fumiko that that night he would get her some fabulous Christmas decorations. “He had become involved with fishing for the past two or three years and was always going fishing, but after his youngest son was born two months ago, he had only gone fishing once or twice. He didn’t go fishing recently, but today he said as he left, ‘Today — no matter what happens — I have to go out because we’re going to set up those warning posts to make the beach safer for everybody!’ So I told him, ‘Be careful, then!’ and we parted, but around ten in the morning there was a false report that my husband’s car had been involved in a traffic accident, and finally I got word about what really happened! And now I have a sick child on my hands. What should I do?” After that, Mrs. Uchibori broke down in tears. Mr. Uchibori was born in Shimotakaba Village, Yasu town, Asakura County, in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, and came to Hawai‘i in 1907. Survivors are his wife, Naka, his eldest daughter, Fumiko, eight years old, his eldest son, Yoshito, seven, and his youngest son, who is two and a half months old, Tomikazu. In Japan he leaves a lone mother who is waiting for her son to visit.

On Monday, December 21, Uchibori’s family and friends, including members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, the Makiki Association, and the Asakura County Association, continued the search by land and sea to recover his body. On Tuesday at 8:30 in the morning, the crew on a boat in Hanauma Bay found his straw hat and the two 6'10" signposts that had been thrown into the ocean on Sunday in an effort to save him. Both posts bore this message in English and Japanese calligraphy carved into the wood and painted red: “Kiken. Danger. Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. December 1931.” After the boat crew retrieved the hat and the two posts from the west side of the bay, family and friends decided to discontinue the search. On the night of Tuesday, December 22, representatives from the three

When Zensaku Uchibori drowned near Bamboo Ridge on December 20, 1931, the Hawaii Hochi ran the story the following day in English and in Japanese. They headlined the English version “Another Life Is Sacrificed at Koko Head,” emphasizing that this type of tragedy has occurred many times along the Koko Head sea cliffs.


clubs who coordinated the search as well as representatives from the Automobile Association and the Makiki Showa Club gathered at a home on Aloha Lane. They decided to make Mr. Umeda, a representative from the Showa Club, the funeral chairman and scheduled the ceremony for 3:00 p.m. on December 27. They agreed that the funeral procession with the casket would begin at Mr. Umeda’s house and then circle the neighborhood over the following route: Sheridan Street to Kapi‘olani Boulevard, Kapi‘olani Boulevard to Kalākaua Avenue, Kalākaua Avenue along the Makiki Ditch past King Street, and then west on Young Street to the Shinshu Kyokai Temple on Aloha Lane, which today is the site of Pāwa‘a Neighborhood Park on Kāheka Street. They decided that after the funeral service at the temple, members from each group as well as relatives and friends would take funeral wreaths to the site of the tragedy near the Blowhole. The funeral committee agreed that Mr. Uchibori’s posthumous Buddhist name would be carved on one of two warning signs recovered from Hanauma Bay and that it would be erected at the site of the disaster before the funeral on Sunday. After the funeral arrangements were made, Takeo Shigeno, the chairman of the Automobile Association, offered these remarks to a reporter from the Nippu Jiji: Mr. Uchibori gave his life setting up these danger signs that were supposed to benefit all fishing enthusiasts who fish in these waters, so we would like to give him the grandest funeral possible. Therefore, we are asking that as many of Mr. Uchibori’s fellow taxi drivers as possible to please make the time to attend this funeral. Mr. Uchibori’s family and the Asakura County Association are also asking the people who boat in this area as well as those who live along the shore to report to the Kadoyoshino Drug Store that is on Aloha Lane off South King Street if they happen to sight the body. There will be a reward.

Zensaku Uchibori’s body was never found, but his funeral service and procession on December 27, 1931, still included a casket. According to Buddhist tradition, in the absence of his body something personal was placed in the casket to represent him, but the Japanese-language newspapers did not mention what the item was. On Monday, December 28, the day after the funeral activities, the Nippu Jiji printed this summary of the funeral service, which included a list of all the participants: Mr. Zensaku Uchibori’s Funeral / Accomplished in a Grand Manner Yesterday / It Began at Two PM at the Shinshu Kyokai as Those in Attendance Began to Weep Again

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With the Makiki Association presiding, a funeral took place yesterday on the 27th for Mr. Zensaku Uchibori, who became a sacrifice in the vast and merciless ocean. The funeral procession included thirty cars provided by the Automobile Association and about sixty cars from the attendees, who numbered in the hundreds. This was truly an unusual sight. The funeral procession began with the casket leaving Mr. Uchibori’s Sheridan Street home at two p.m. sharp. They went from Sheridan Street to Kapiolani Boulevard, then to Young Street via Kalakaua Avenue, and finally to the Shinshu Kyokai Buddhist Temple on Aloha Lane. A commemorative photograph was taken during this funeral procession. Funeral wreaths presented by the Izumo Taisha Shinto Shrine, the Makiki Association, the Asakura Association, the Showa Club, the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, the Oahu Fishing Club, the Waialua Fishing Club, and the staff of the Nippu Jiji resplendently decorated the area. After Reverend Zenkai Tatsuguchi and Reverend Goki Tatsuguchi finished chanting the Buddhist sutras, Mr. Kitaro Shimomura took over and led the funeral ceremonies in the following order: The survivors and relatives offered incense. An opening speech by Mr. Kameichi Umeda of the Makiki Association. The lineage of the deceased by Mr. Takeo Shigeno. The representatives from the following groups then offered incense: The Makiki Association: Ryoichi Kawasaki. Asakura County Association (Japanese who came from Asakura County in Japan): Towata Tokumatsu. Hawaiian Japanese Church: Chosuke Mehara. Honolulu Automobile Association: Kamezo Abe. Showa Club: Wasaburo Fukunaga. Nippu Jiji Newspaper: Zenichi Kawazoe. Honolulu Japanese Casting Club: Waichiro Izumi. Family representative Tadasuke Hamamoto expressed words of gratitude to the funeral guests. The funeral assembly offered incense. Several people, moved by the sight of the bereaved family’s tears, were observed to begin weeping as well. The funeral ended promptly at four p.m. An Ocean Funeral is Also Held at the Site of the Tragedy After the funeral held at the Shinshu Kyokai Buddhist Temple, the family and relatives as well as the casting club members and other people left the


church and formed a line of cars and headed for the Blowhole and the scene of the tragedy. Reverend Tatsuguchi performed an ocean funeral service that consisted of chanting some Buddhist sutras and having floral wreaths cast into the ocean. The party members then tearfully parted a final time to return to their respective homes.

Among the many articles in the Japanese-language newspapers that covered the drowning, search, and funeral of Zensaku Uchibori, this moving tribute appeared on Monday, December 21, 1931, in the Hawaii Hochi: In a tragedy that occurred off Koko Head Point yesterday, he was swept away by a wave while trying to erect a danger sign for the sake of his fellow men. This is a tragedy for his family survivors, his colleagues, his countrymen — everyone who now feels a thousand emotions of regret swirling around themselves. In this world filled with people who think nothing of killing others for their own personal gain, the beautiful heart of this one man who made the ultimate personal sacrifice so that others would be saved will not be forgotten as long as the waves of the great Pacific crash against the shore. He will be in our hearts forever.

This short but eloquent eulogy spoke for the entire community. In a terribly ironic stroke of fate, Zensaku Uchibori died in exactly the same spot where another fisherman had died before him. And he died on a humanitarian mission to put up a warning sign at that site, a warning sign that was intended to prevent deaths like his own. Uchibori’s tragic death profoundly impacted the members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. Many of them had gone on the same mission to prevent further losses of life along the east O‘ahu sea cliffs, and they had all watched helplessly while one of their own drowned before their eyes. Some of them were members of the same Buddhist temple, some of them were taxi drivers at the same taxi stand, some of them had come from the same place in Japan and were members of the same social clubs, and all of them had been friends. All of them were acutely aware that Uchibori left behind a wife and three children, the youngest only two months old. The members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club decided to try something different to stop the drownings.

chapter six

Jizo on the South Shore

following zensaku uchibori’s funeral service, the members of the

Honolulu Japanese Casting Club met to discuss his death. They agreed that something more was needed on the sea cliffs at Koko Head — something more powerful than the wooden, obelisk-shaped warning signs. They knew that in Japan statues of Jizo are common on roadsides, at crossroads, in high mountain passes, and at the entrance to graveyards. In certain places in Japan, statues of Jizo are found on beaches and rocky shores, where, in addition to his other responsibilities, Jizo protects people from accidents on the shore and in the ocean. They also knew that members of the Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission in Waialua had erected two statues of Jizo to help protect fishermen and swimmers on the North Shore. With these traditions in mind, the members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club decided that a statue of Jizo would be an appropriate addition to the Koko Head sea cliffs where they fished most often.

Statue Ordered The members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club contacted Kyujiro Uchibori, Zensaku Uchibori’s brother in Hiroshima, and told him their plan. They ordered a statue of Jizo, funding the $700 expense from donations of club members and the public. Kyujiro Uchibori contracted a famous stone sculptor from Hiroshima, Yonekichi Kumano, to make a statue and ship it to Hawai‘i. Kumano carved the statue and its foundation block out of Mikage stone, or Japanese granite, that takes its name from the Mikage region at the foot of Mount Rokko in Hyogo Prefecture. Hiroshima is famous for its silver-gray granite, the color that Kumano selected for the statue. The finished statue and its foundation block weighed close to 2 tons, and standing 6 feet tall, the statue was only the seventh one of its kind that sculptor


Kumano had made. The Japanese-language newspapers kept a close watch on these developments, and on August 9, 1932, the Hawaii Hochi printed this exciting headline and followed it with a short article: It’s Incredible! / A Jizo Statue Is Heading This Way! / Loaded Aboard the Tatsuda-Maru, the Jizo Should Be Arriving on the 25th as a Charm to be Erected at the Blowhole to Defend against Evil Spirits At the ending of the previous year, as members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club set out to erect warning posts at dangerous points along the Oahu shoreline for the sake of all those happening to venture there, Mr. Uchibori, a taxi driver who had gone to the Blowhole at Koko Head with several other fellow club members, was tragically swept out to sea and drowned. The casting club, dismayed at this ironic turn of events, felt that warning posts would no longer suffice to warn the public about the dangers of this area and discussed the idea of obtaining a Jizo statue that would defend against evil spirits. We have already reported in this newspaper how the club decided in the end to order such a statue from Japan. This was done, and the Jizo should be arriving on the Tatsuda-Maru on the 25th of this month.

When the statue of Jizo arrived from Japan, local stonemason Iwakichi Hatanaka inscribed the Japanese calligraphy on three sides of the granite base and the English words “Honolulu Japanese Casting Club” on the fourth side. The largest set of characters on the east side of the base is a Buddhist prayer that asks for protection for those who visit the area. It reads: “A Prayer. With this Holy Image we dedicate our efforts to the deceased. Please bestow your compassion on them. May their souls be free from suffering. May they be comforted. We pray that they attain enlightenment. We ask for an end to all tragedies here. We ask for increased blessings and happiness for everyone. August 1932. Casting Club.” Additional calligraphy on the base acknowledges the groups who helped to pay for the statue and its sculptor: “Patrons: Makiki Regional Group [and the] Makiki Showa Kai Group. [The statue was made in] Hiroshima-shi, Higashi Honkawa [by] Stonemason Yonekichi Kumano.” The final set of calligraphy reads “Shonanyoke Jizo Bosatsu,” or “Jizo Bodhisattva to prevent disasters in the sea.” After receiving permission to erect the statue from the director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club prepared the site for the dedication ceremony by making a

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When the statue of Jizo arrived aboard the Tatsuda-Maru on August 25, 1932, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club asked local stonemason Iwakichi Hatanaka to inscribe a prayer on the east side of the granite pedestal. This copy of the prayer was rewritten in June 2005 by Yutaka Fujioka, a master in the art of shodo, or calligraphy, who is from Matsuyama in Ehime, Japan.

clearing above Bamboo Ridge. Then they constructed a lava rock foundation to support the granite base of the statue and the statue itself. In 2003, Zensaku Uchibori’s son, Thomas, recalled that the site preparation also included one additional item: “When my dad died at Bamboo Ridge, all they found of him was his fishing hat, a big straw hat. The club members put the hat in the lava rock base of the statue before they erected it.”

Statue Erected On Wednesday, August 31, 1932, the Hasuike Contracting Company hauled the statue out to Koko Head. Company owner Kamejiro Hasuike and several club members set the statue’s granite base on the lava rock foundation and then placed the statue on top of the base. Hasuike had more than a passing interest in the project. One of the two men who had drowned in the area before Zensaku Uchibori had been his next-door neighbor in


On Wednesday, August 31, 1932, the Hasuike Contracting Company and members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club installed a tall granite statue of Jizo on the sea cliff above Bamboo Ridge. A photo taken on the day of the installation appeared two days later in the Friday, September 2, 1932, issue of the Nippu Jiji.

Mō‘ili‘ili. “Our family home was on Kahūnā Lane,” Hasuike’s daughter Bessie Yoshimura recalled in 2005. “My dad’s business wasn’t big, but he was successful, and he kept all his equipment there. One of our neighbors was Mr. Kurashita, and he had drowned near the Blowhole before Mr. Uchibori. After the statue arrived, my dad took it out there and put it up. That was the same year I graduated from McKinley High School, 1932. Later, when they held the ceremony, all of us — our whole family — went.” On Thursday, September 1, 1932, the Nippu Jiji reported the events of the installation with the following headline and story:


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Hasuike Contracting Co. Successfully Erects a Protective Jizo Statue at the Blowhole Yesterday Hasuike Contracting Co. was successful in erecting the Jizo statue on a cliff at the Blowhole exactly as planned by the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. Mr. [Lester] McCoy, head of the Honolulu Parks and Recreation Department, directed the placement of this structure on an ideal location, and it now stands on a cliff with its side facing the ocean some 400 feet toward Waimanalo from where Mr. Zensaku Uchibori lost his life while helping to set up danger warning signs for the sake of all fishermen in this area. There are stone steps going up the cliff where people can easily climb up to view this statue that is positioned directly across the road to Honolulu. A grand unveiling as well as a kaigen ceremony is slated for the near future. The club members were clearly overjoyed at how everything had exceeded their highest expectations. The director of parks has also promised to beautify this particular area with trees, so it is possible that this area containing the statue will become a place of interest someday.

On Sunday, September 11, 1932, Reverend Jitsuei Tanjo of the Shingon Shu Mission conducted two ceremonies at the newly erected statue of Jizo. The first was a kaigen, or eye-opening ceremony, which is performed whenever a new statue of Jizo is erected. The second ceremony was a memorial service for all of the fishermen who had lost their lives on this dangerous coast. Many dignitaries attended, including Lieutenant Governor Raymond C. Brown and his wife Grace, Mayor Fred Wright and his wife May, and the acting Japanese consul Ichitaro Shibata, along with an estimated crowd of five hundred people. Surprisingly for an event of this magnitude, there is no mention of it in any of the English-language newspapers of the day, but the Japanese-language newspapers covered it in great detail. The following article is translated from the Nippu Jiji issue of Monday, September 12, 1932: The protective Jizo statue was erected at the Blowhole as a memorial to the late Mr. Uchibori who, in an attempt to set up posts warning of danger to all fishermen in this dangerous area, himself became a tragic sacrifice to the waves. The unveiling and eye-opening ceremony of this statue, originally proposed by the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club and aided by the Makiki Community Club and the Showa Club, took place yesterday, Sunday the 11th, at 10:30 a.m. This rare event was attended by Lieutenant Governor Brown and his wife, Mayor Wright and his wife, and more than five hundred other people.


At 10:30 sharp, Mr. Tokio Ishida, aided by Mr. Uchibori’s surviving daughter, Fumiko, directed the unveiling of the statue. The sight of Fumiko and Mr. Uchibori’s widow standing there brought fresh tears to the eyes of some of the attendees. Reverend Tanjo of the Shingon Temple and another priest performed the eye-opening ceremony and then proceeded to chant the Buddhist prayer for the memorial service for the dead, after which Mr. Takeo Shigeno, former president of the casting club, represented the people who had worked to make the statue possible as he gave a brief summary of the events that made it necessary. He also took this opportunity to extend words of appreciation to some of the honored guests, including Lieutenant Governor Brown, Mayor Wright, and the chief editor of this paper, [Zenichi] Kawazoe. More Buddhist prayers were read and the survivors led the multitude in ceremoniously lighting the incense, after which this paper’s editor took some photographs. Every participant then received a small gift signaling the end of the eye-opening ceremony. Next on the agenda was reading the Buddhist services for not only Mr. Uchibori but for previous unmourned victims. After the prayers were read for Mr. Uchibori came prayers for Mr. Kurashita and Mr. Mikimoto, past victims of the treacherous waters of the Blowhole, whose widows were also in attendance. When Mr. Tokio Ishida read the closing speech for this event, it was already noon.

After the statue was dedicated, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club replaced the temporary fence, a single chain supported by metal poles that surrounded the perimeter of the site, with the low lava rock wall that still stands today. “The stones in the rock wall came from our farm in Ka‘alākei Valley,” recalled Horace Sasaki. “We used to load them up on my father’s truck, and he would haul them out there. If you look carefully at the wall, you can see the original chain and poles. They weren’t removed and are actually inside the wall.” During the rest of the 1930s, no other fishermen drowned at Bamboo Ridge or the Blowhole, the two popular fishing spots that the statue overlooked, but drownings continued to occur in other areas along the Koko Head sea cliffs. One of these happened on December 14, 1933, almost two years to the day after Zensaku Uchibori’s death, when Hisaji Yamagata of Mō‘ili‘ili was swept off a ledge near the east point of Hanauma Bay. He and a friend, Sadao Yokoi, were fishing for moi, or threadfish, when a large wave caught Yamagata off guard. Unable to rescue Yamagata, Yokai ran for help,


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Jizo was an important figure in the lives of the issei, and many of them made pilgrimages to visit the statue on the Koko Head sea cliffs. During the early 1930s, two women from Hilo—Tama Isemoto, center, and her friend, Mrs. Sakamoto—made the trip to east O‘ahu to pay their respects. The name of the man from Honolulu who accompanied them is unknown. Photo courtesy of Yoshie Isemoto Araki.

but by the time he and the rescuers returned, Yamagata had disappeared. Yokoi then drove to Maunalua Fishpond where he borrowed the phone to call the police and notify Yamagata’s family. Over the next four days, family and friends conducted an intensive search for Yamagata: from land with dozens of volunteers on shore, by sea with two sampans from Kewalo Basin, and by air with three airplanes from the military. On December 17, divers from one of the boats found his handkerchief


on the west side of the bay and remnants of his body, which had apparently been ravaged by sharks. The search was called off, and the family held his funeral service at Mō‘ili‘ili Higashi Hongwanji the following day, Monday, December 18. Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club installed an obelisk warning sign on the ledge where Yamagata was swept into Hanauma Bay. Family and friends attended an oceanside memorial service conducted by Reverend Tenran Mori of Mō‘ili‘ili Higashi Hongwanji at the monument after the funeral service at the temple. Today only the jagged base of the wooden post remains, still anchored in its concrete base near Palea Point. Both the Nippu Jiji and the Hawaii Hochi carried detailed stories of the Yamagata incident, including the intensive search that followed, all of the activity an almost identical replay of the Zensaku Uchibori drowning in 1931. In its December 14 issue, the Nippu Jiji concluded its story with this headline and commentary: The Ocean in December Is Dangerous to Sports Fishermen / Mr. Uchibori Also Died in December Two years ago when Mr. Zensaku Uchibori drowned at the Blowhole, it was also in December, on the 20th. It is important that we are all especially careful of the ocean in December.

Statue Destroyed In Japan, statues of Jizo are found not only in temples, on temple grounds, or in cemeteries, but also in open, often isolated areas such as trails, riverbanks, and shorelines where they are revered and respected. The members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club assumed that the same reverence and respect would be shown in Hawai‘i, but that was not the case. Jizo held a shakujo, or scepter, in his right hand, and a nyoihoju, a jewel, in his left hand. The shakujo was a separate piece — an actual staff — and from the beginning it was stolen so often that club members finally stopped replacing it. Then vandals inflicted severe damage to the statue, breaking off the nyoihoju and the left hand that held it, the right hand that had held the shakujo, portions of the robe, and finally the statue’s head. With the help of a stonemason, club members reattached the head to the statue, but vandals broke it off again, carried it away, and finally pushed the entire statue off its pedestal to the ground.


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The original Mikage stone statue of Jizo that overlooked the ocean on the Koko Head sea cliffs now stands at Pa¯lolo Kwannon Temple. Vandals desecrated the statue in 1939, breaking off its head, hands, and part of its robe. Stonemason Sentaro Otsubo carved a new head before his death in 1952, and his daughter, Yakue Natsuyama, gave the statue to Pa¯lolo Kwannon Temple in 1963. Photo by Brian Funai.

Yasuhei Tsutsumi was the president of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club during the destruction of the statue. Born in 1891 in Fukuoka-ken, he came to Hawai‘i in 1910 at the request of his father, who was already in the Islands. He went to work for Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu in 1911 and worked there for fifty-two years, retiring at the age of seventy-two as the chief orderly in surgery. During the 1920s, he rented a two-story building at the corner of Punchbowl and Vineyard and opened Tsutsumi Store on the ground floor. He and his wife, Umeyo, who also worked at Queen’s, lived upstairs with their three children, Kenneth, June, and Gertrude. A famous landmark in downtown Honolulu for over fifty years, Tsutsumi Store closed in the early 1970s. In 2005, June and Gertrude Tsutsumi reminisced about their father and recalled the destruction of the statue. We were members of the Chikusui Kai, which was a chapter of the Fukuoka Kenjin Kai. Chikusui is the district in Fukuoka prefecture where my dad was from. Dad loved to fish. He would go every Saturday at noon, and he used to catch big ulua. He was very close to Mr. Kaya of K. Kaya Fishing Supply, and


he used to buy his esa, his bait, from a fish market downtown near Mr. Kaya’s store. When he brought a big ulua home, our mother was the one who cut it up. The statue at Koko Head had to be rebuilt several times. People kept knocking the head off. The club members finally took the statue away.

Most people familiar with the story of Jizo at Koko Head believe that the vandalism happened as a backlash to the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but it actually occurred two years earlier in 1939. Sentiment against Japan was already running high throughout the 1930s, especially for its undeclared war against China — a war that started off with the Manchurian Incident of September 18, 1931, and led into the Shanghai Incident of 1932. Then on February 26, 1937, the military in Japan seized control of its own government and aggressively escalated its campaign in Asia. The following excerpt is from A History of Japanese in Hawaii, edited by James Okahata: One significant fact, perhaps due to the aloha spirit prevalent in Hawaii, was that although a bloody war was taking place between Japan and China in the Far East, and although both the Chinese and Japanese [in Hawai‘i] were supporting their homelands, there were no untoward incidents or animosity between the 28,000 Chinese and 153,000 Japanese in Hawaii. The Chinese business houses continued to employ Japanese, while the Japanese worked harmoniously side-by-side with the Chinese. Relations between the U.S. and Japan, however, continued to deteriorate, [and] a blackout practice drill on Oahu May 18, 1939 brought the feeling of war closer to Hawaii. A presidential proclamation on May 30, 1939 declared the Pearl Harbor area and three miles of waters surrounding it as a naval restricted area.

The combination of the war in China and the increase of U.S. military personnel in Hawai‘i escalated the sentiment against Japan and things Japanese. The statue of Jizo, standing alone on the sea cliffs near the Blowhole, was an obvious target. Vandals dealt blow after blow, finally stealing the head. On July 11, 1939, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin printed a story headlined “Koko Head Statue Is Wrecked by Vandals.” The article identified three proposals that the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club members made for the statue’s restoration: “One was that the statue be set up again and surrounded by a tile covering. A second was that a shaft or monument of stone be erected in place of the ruined statue. A third was that a new statue be ordered from


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Japan, provided civic authorities could guarantee protection from further vandalism.” On August 4, 1939, the Star-Bulletin reported that the members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club had agreed that in place of the statue of Jizo, they would erect a large stone monument upon which the figure of Jizo would be carved in bas-relief. This decision was reached in the belief that the stone monument would be better able to withstand any further attacks. Yasuhei Tsutsumi, president of the club, noted that the old statue had been destroyed twice by vandals. In 1972, Umeyo Tsutsumi, wife of the club president, recalled the final decision: “The costs to replace the statue were too high, so the club members had Ojizosan carved into a stone, which still stands today on the site of the original statue.”

Statue Replaced The man who carved the bas-relief of Jizo into the boulder was Sentaro Otsubo of Mō‘ili‘ili. A stone carver and monument maker by trade, Otsubo applied his talents to a large volcanic boulder of a type that is known in Hawai‘i as “moss rock.” When he finished, the replacement Jizo was transported to the Koko Head sea cliffs and installed on the granite base of the original statue. The members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club and the priests at Shingon Shu Hawai‘i in Honolulu held the kaigen ceremony on Sunday, June 23, 1940, the closest weekend day to June 24, a festival day in Hawai‘i for Jizo. The Japanese-language newspapers covered the event, and the Nippu Jiji ran this story the next day: Eye-Opening Ceremony Held Yesterday to Reinstall Statue / Many Good Men and Women in Attendance Just as the peak of the summer season is coming upon Hawai‘i and the ocean is so inviting to people, a Buddhist eye-opening service for a statue of Jizo, the guardian of seagoers’ safety, was held yesterday, Sunday June 23, at two o’clock in the afternoon. The statue was reerected at the Blowhole near the beach at Koko Head on this island by the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. The service was held on a grand scale, with nearly a hundred people in attendance. On this day, the 5-foot tall boulder of natural stone with its image of Jizo Buddha, which was painstakingly carved in relief by the stonemason Otsubo, was transported by volunteers from the club, Mr. Otsubo, the owner of Aka-


On Sunday, June 23, 1940, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club posed with the newly dedicated Umi Mamori Jizo, a bas-relief of Jizo carved into a large boulder. Kneeling in the center is Kaichi Kaya, owner of K. Kaya Fishing Supplies, and to his left are stonemason Sentaro Otsubo and club president Yasuhei Tsutsumi. Photo courtesy of Maurice Kaya.

ishi Shipping Co., and others. They started out from Honolulu at eight o’clock in the morning, reached the site, and completed the installation. At two o’clock in the afternoon, Bishop Suetomi, the head of the Shingon Sect in Hawai‘i and the lead priest, conducted the solemn service with the participation of a group of priests and hymn singers. After the service, Mr. Tsutsumi, the club president and the master of ceremonies, delivered the opening remarks. Then Mr. Tokio Ishida explained how the reerection of this statue came about and also thanked the general public for all of their good wishes. Afterwards, the club held a reception for those who attended the service, which lasted well into the night.

Sentaro Otsubo Sentaro Otsubo (1872–1952), the talented stonemason who carved the basrelief of Jizo on the boulder at Koko Head and the Japanese calligraphy “Umi Mamori Jizo Zon” on its side, was born in Fukuoka-ken. After immigrating to Hawai‘i in 1894, he immediately found employment working with stone. Many of Hawai‘i’s early buildings were constructed with hand-cut blocks of blue stone, which was basalt quarried from the sides of Hawaiian volcanoes. Otsubo helped with these buildings and also made headstones


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Stonemason Sentaro Otsubo stands next to the calligraphy that he carved into the side of the large “moss rock” boulder with his bas-relief of Jizo. Painted in white, the characters read “Umi Mamori Jizo Zon,” or “Ocean Protector Jizo.” Standing to Otsubo’s right are Kaichi Kaya, Yasuhei Tsutsumi, and Tadashi Fukunaga, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. Photo courtesy of Maurice Kaya.

and other stone monuments, working out of his home in Mō‘ili‘ili. He called his business Otsubo Stone Monument Shop. One of Otsubo’s first major works in Hawai‘i was the seki toh, or stone monument, that fronts Shinshu Kyokai Mission of Hawai‘i near the corner of Beretania and Punahou Streets. The tall, massive, obelisk-shaped stone stands to the left of the temple entrance with the characters “Hyo-Chu-Hi” inscribed on it. Commissioned by the Japanese residents of Hawai‘i, it was built to commemorate Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904– 1905) and to honor the Japanese soldiers who died in that war. Hawai‘i’s Japanese residents lost many relatives and family members in that war, including sons who had returned to Japan for their education. They ordered the stone monument as a war memorial to their loved ones. The Hyo Chu Hi monument was dedicated on February 25, 1907, on the grounds of Chuo Gakuin, then Honolulu’s most famous Japanese private school. Officers and cadets from three visiting Japanese training ships — the


This family photo of Sentaro Otsubo, his wife Yone, and his daughter Yakue is from the Memorial Photo Book of People from Fukuoka Residing in Hawaii in 1924. Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club took the original statue of Jizo to Otsubo’s home in 1939 after it was severely vandalized at Bamboo Ridge.

Hashidate, the Matsushima, and the Itsukushima, which were named after three of Japan’s famous sea vistas — participated in the ceremony. The ships’ crews marched in full uniform from Honolulu Harbor to the school. Rear Admiral Sadayasu Tomioka, the officer in charge of the training mission, gave a memorable speech, in which he said, “If those ‘voiceless unknown’ who died in the war for their country in a place so far from home could hear of the fact that you, who are also so far away from home, remembered them with this monument of patriotism, without a doubt they would be deeply touched, and their desolate souls would be at peace.” The Japanese characters “Hyo-Chu-Hi” were the dai ji, or “large writing,” of Gensui (Admiral) Heihachiro Togo, hero of the Russo-Japanese War, and they mean “symbol of patriotism.” Four local stonemasons cut the stone and carved the calligraphy: Moichi Akita from Yamaguchi Prefecture, Katsuji Kajimura from Kumamoto Prefecture, and Kahei Nomura and Sentaro Otsubo from Fukuoka Prefecture. Their names appear on the east side of the monument.


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Harriet Natsuyama, granddaughter of Sentaro Otsubo, and her daughter, Julia Kagiwada, at the stone monument Hyo-Chu-Hi at Shinshu Kyokai Mission of Hawai‘i in 2005. Harriet points to Otsubo’s name on one side of the obelisk. Otsubo and three other stonemasons made the massive monument in 1904 and inscribed the calligraphy on it. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

Sentaro Otsubo’s best-known work is the Founders’ Gate on the University of Hawai‘i campus at the corner of Dole and University Avenues. University president David Crawford introduced the idea for an ornamental gate to mark the entrance to the university in 1931 and assembled a committee to work on the project. The committee raised funds among students, faculty, and other university supporters to pay for the gate’s construction, hired Ralph Fishbourne as the architect to design it, and contracted Otsubo to build it. Named Founders’ Gate to honor the founders and builders of the university campus, President Crawford dedicated the structure on September 14, 1933. In 2004, Harriet Natsuyama recalled life in Mō‘ili‘ili with Ojitchan, as she called her grandfather Sentaro Otsubo.


My family has been living on King Street in Mō‘ili‘ili for a hundred years or so. The patriarch of our family was Sentaro Otsubo and his wife was Yone Narahara Otsubo (1875–1961). Yakue (1912–2003) was my mother and she was married to Kenjiro Natsuyama (1908–2003). My grandfather, Sentaro Otsubo, was a monument maker and stone carver par excellence. His work area was on the same property where our frame house was and where we still live. In the yard were blocks of stone and two large storage boxes of sand for making concrete foundations. Ojitchan, as we called him, had learned the art of stone carving in his home province of Fukuoka, Japan. In Hawai‘i, he made many of the gravestones, as well as his own, that are in the Mo‘ili‘ili Cemetery, and he made some of the gravestones in Makiki Cemetery. He worked on many buildings made of blue stone from the Mō‘ili‘ili quarry. He was also known for sacred monuments like one in Kalihi which protected children from being hit by cars, but Ojitchan is especially remembered for carving the famous Ojizo monument at Bamboo Ridge, which has been protecting fishermen since 1940. Since Ojitchan had his monument business, we had a fairly large yard. There was a large kiawe tree, and we hung a rope swing from a branch. There was a ladder going up the tree, and there under the kiawe stood Ojizosan. This taller than human size granite statue of the beloved bodhisattva had no head or hands. We had the statue because Ojitchan had been asked to make its replacement at Bamboo Ridge. The Ojizosan was the protector of my second brother, Eric. Eric was born six years after the Ojizo had been brought to our home, and he played in the yard around the Ojizo and the kiawe. One day, when Eric was still barely a toddler, he climbed up the tree and couldn’t or wouldn’t come down. We didn’t want to scare him into falling so we left him alone. Was it our prayers or Ojizosan himself who brought Eric safely down? No one is saying, but the family “knows” it was Ojizosan. For many years Ojizosan remained headless. Ojitchan wanted to carve a new head for the statue, but the right stone was hard to find. Finally, two years before his death in 1952, when he was seventy-eight years of age, he located a stone that was somewhat too small, but he created a fine head for Ojizosan.

The statue of Jizo from the Koko Head sea cliffs stood for twenty-three years in the backyard of stonemason Sentaro Otsubo’s Mō‘ili‘ili home. In 2002, Otsubo’s daughter, Yakue Natsuyama, reminisced about her father and the statue:


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When the original statue at the Blowhole was knocked down, my father and the other club members looked everywhere for the head. They even went diving offshore, but they never found it. They brought the statue to our house and asked my father to make another one, a duplicate in a stone. My father cut an image of Ojizosan into a large boulder and the club members put it up at the Blowhole on the site of the original statue. I went once to see it. When my father took the original statue, he made a head for it, but it just remained on our property. One day when my father was unloading some stone, a heavy piece hit him in the head. He never recovered from the injury and died on February 6, 1952. In 1963, we decided to build a two-story commercial building on our property. Before the construction started, we needed to clear the lot, so we offered the statue of Jizo to Pālolo Kwannon Temple.

Pa¯lolo Kwannon Temple The Natsuyama family first offered the statue to Shingon Shu Hawai‘i on Sheridan Street, but there was dissention among the congregation on whether to accept it or not. Their final decision was not to accept it, so the Natsuyama family offered the statue to Pālolo Kwannon Temple. This modest temple in Pālolo Valley was founded in 1935, largely through the efforts of a woman named Myosei Matsumoto. Well known in the community for her remarkable healing abilities, she attributed her gift to a divine visitation from Kwannon Sama. Her son, Reverend Richard Matsumoto, was the minister at Pālolo Kwannon Temple in 1963, and he accepted the statue of Jizo from the Natsuyama family, placed it on the grounds of the temple, and conducted a dedication ceremony on November 24, 1963. Photographs of the ceremony in the temple’s 1985 fiftieth anniversary yearbook are entitled, “Dedication of the Umi-mamori Jizo — Guardian God of the Sea.” Captions with the photos explain that many fishermen had died at the Blowhole and that the Umi Mamori Jizo was placed there to protect them. It also noted that vandals had destroyed the head of the Ojizosama and that it was repaired by Sentaro Otsubo, whose family had donated it to Pālolo Kwannon Temple. Reverend Irene Eshin Matsumoto remembered the dedication ceremony of the Umi Mamori Jizo. “Mrs. Natsuyama knew my husband. She asked him if we would keep the statue at our temple, and my husband agreed.


We scheduled the delivery of the Ojizosama and the dedication ceremony for Sunday, November 24, 1963.” Two days before the ceremony on Friday, November 22, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Reverend Matsumoto continued, The memorial service for President Kennedy was held the same day as our dedication ceremony for the Ojizosama, and even today when I think of the ceremony, I always think of President Kennedy. When the statue arrived at the temple in 1963, we were surprised when we saw it. While it was in Mr. Otsubo’s care, he had replaced the head. We saw immediately that the profile of the new head was almost identical to the profile of my husband.

Today, the original Umi Mamori Jizo from the Koko Head sea cliffs stands where it was placed in 1963, adjacent to the entrance to Pālolo Kwannon Temple. On March 26, 2005, May Fumiko Akimoto, Zensaku Uchibori’s daughter, visited Pālolo Kwannon Temple. She brought a flower lei and a plant for the statue of Jizo, which she had not seen since she was a child in the 1930s. After paying her respects, she recalled that fateful Sunday morning, December 20, 1931. When my dad left, he took me to the store with him. We went to K. T. Kwai Store, and he bought a lot of fruit, two large bags for me to take home. They were so heavy, and I had to walk a long way with them. Our house was where Channel 2 is on Pi‘ikoi Street today. That section of Pi‘ikoi Street between Kapi‘olani Boulevard and Ala Moana Boulevard was an extension of Sheridan Street. Our address was 340 Sheridan Street, and the front entrance to our house was where the front entrance to the Channel 2 studio is today. When I got home and my mother saw how much fruit I had, she was upset. It was strange that my father had bought so much. She asked me if I had asked him to buy it. I told her, “No.” She said, “Something’s wrong. He could have bought the fruit on the way home.” Later that morning, I was in the kitchen and my mother was outside by the pond. There was a large mullet pond behind our house with a tall kiawe tree on the bank of the pond. Suddenly, I heard a loud cracking sound. I ran outside and my mother called me, “Come, come!” I saw the kiawe tree had fallen into the pond, roots and all. My mother connected this immediately to my father. She said, “This is not good. This is a bad omen. How can a strong tree

May Fumiko Akimoto stands next to the statue of Jizo at Pa¯lolo Kwannon Temple on March 26, 2005. The statue originally memorialized her father, Zensaku Uchibori, who drowned on December 20, 1931 near Bamboo Ridge. Photo by Mike Waggoner.


like this just break? I think something terrible has happened to my husband.” She was very upset and wanted to call him, but at that time there weren’t many phones, and there wasn’t a phone where he was. There was no way to call him. About an hour later, she received word that my father had drowned. The tree had fallen just about the time he died. I don’t remember unveiling the statue, but I know it was vandalized about six months after it was put up. Something was broken, but I don’t remember exactly what it was. Each time this happened, someone from the club would call my mom just to let her know. My mom would always say, “They just don’t understand. Why doesn’t someone write something in the newspaper that says, ‘It’s for everyone, whether they’re Japanese fishermen or not. It’s to remember those who died there and to protect the living.’ ”

Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club erected the unique Mikage stone statue of Jizo from Hiroshima on August 31, 1932. It stood on the Koko Head sea cliffs for seven years, where the tall statue immediately became a prominent figure. A landmark that attracted the attention of everyone who passed by, it called their attention to the dangers in the ocean below. Unfortunately, it attracted vandals, too, and after seven years as the target of constant and finally severe abuse, club members removed it in 1939. But determined to maintain a statue of Jizo on the dangerous sea cliffs, club members asked stone sculptor Sentaro Otsubo to carve a bas-relief of Jizo into a huge boulder they had found on the side of Koko Head. The boulder monument still stands on the sea cliffs above Bamboo Ridge, where it was erected in 1940 on the base of the original statue. Otsubo’s calligraphy, “Umi Mamori Jizo Zon,” means “Ocean Protector Jizo.” “Zon” is an honorific title of respect. Every year in November, members of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i on Sheridan Street in Honolulu conduct a prayer service at the Koko Head site. In 2003, Reyn Tsuru of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i explained, “We hold our annual prayer service at the statue on Ojizo Matsuri Day, which is in the second week of November. We hold it on the second Sunday even if the actual Ojizo Matsuri Day falls on a different day. The first-generation Japanese fishermen in Hawai‘i embraced Ojizo as their protector, and the Umi Mamori Jizo at Koko Head was placed there for those who were lost at sea while fishing. We conduct the service to honor Ojizo and to pray for those who were lost.”

chapter seven

Pilgrimages

pilgrimages to holy sites are an important part of Buddhist tradition. After the death of the Buddha in the sixth century BC, his followers began visiting the places associated with his life, establishing the pilgrimage as a Buddhist practice. Historians believe that Buddhist priests who studied in China introduced the practice of pilgrimage to Japan in the middle of the Heian period (A.D. 794–1192), where it was firmly established. When the issei immigrated to Hawai‘i, they brought the tradition of the Buddhist pilgrimage with them, so pilgrimages to spiritual destinations have been a practice in the Islands for over a hundred years. While Buddhists in Hawai‘i today leave the Islands to go on international pilgrimages such as the Shikoku Henro in Japan, many more participate in local pilgrimages, some of which include visits to temples that have statues of Jizo and visits to other sacred sites associated with Jizo, such as the Umi Mamori Jizo on the Koko Head sea cliffs.

Eighty-Eight Temples of Shikoku, Japan The Shikoku Henro (“henro” means “pilgrimage”), the oldest and most famous pilgrimage in Japan, visits eighty-eight temples along a circular route 960 miles long that usually begins and ends at Ryozen-ji, the first temple that pilgrims reach coming from central Japan via Awaji Island. All of the eighty-eight temples are associated with Kobo Daishi (A.D. 774–835), the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, although today the Shikoku Henro attracts worshippers from all over Japan and from all over the world, including Hawai‘i, and from all sects of Buddhism. Five of the eighty-eight temples are dedicated to Jizo, while many other statues of Jizo are found along the way. In 1996, Bishop Taisen Miyata of the Koyasan Betsuin Temple in Los Angeles, published A Henro Pilgrimage Guide to the Eighty-Eight Temples of


Shikoku Island Japan. A priest of the Shingon sect, Bishop Miyata, who made his first pilgrimage on foot in the summer of 1955 and completed successive Shikoku Henro in 1971, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1984, and 1992, describes this sacred journey, which is known to Buddhists around the world. To visit these old esoteric temples and historical villages surrounded by evergreen trees and verdant mountains is to go back in time to the quiet ancient ambience of Japan. Visiting the historical sites and following footsteps of the great savior/master Kobo-Daishi (Kukai), the founder of Japanese Buddhism, a Henro pilgrim aspires to the beauty and harmony of the nature of the island, enriches his religious faith, and enhances his way of life significantly. All of these experiences come through the visiting of 88 temples in the traditional manner; namely chanting a Buddhist Sutra and Goeika hymn, offering a Fuda (paper-card) of personal wishes, reciting an esoteric Mantra, wearing the traditional white robe, carrying a wood stick and rosary (Juzu), lodging at the temple, and taking the vegetarian meals. Allowing fift y to sixty days — walking along the coast, rivers, mountains, and inland sea of the island for 900 miles — a pilgrim encounters strangers, local people, beggars, priests, and unknown travelers. The local inhabitants gaze at us strangers; sometimes they treat us harshly. Occasionally they welcome us with full hospitality. Through such various experiences the Henro cultivates his inner character and discovers the joy of living by overcoming his inner struggles. Today most pilgrims take advantage of modern transportation to reduce the time spent. Roads, bridges, and mountain paths have been paved, renovated, and improved for the past three decades. Bus, taxi, train, and automobile are heavily used. A charter bus takes 13 days to cover the full course of the pilgrimage, while a taxi or car takes only 7 days. Regardless of the changes in the pilgrimage pattern and the time spent, the Henro visits the island repeatedly and tries to seek the joy of living in the traditional manner. Most pilgrims come back again and again to the island. Ringing a small bell, wearing a white robe and mittens, carrying a Vajra cane (Kongo-tsue), a white towel or Henro-kasa on his head, hanging a small folded Kesa over his neck, murmuring a Mantra constantly, and holding a rosary in his left hand, a Henro pilgrim walks along the coast toward his next temple destination, seeking freedom/liberation.

Bishop Miyata points out that completing the Shikoku Henro in the traditional manner on foot requires about sixty days, so from the beginning

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completing the pilgrimage was for many people a difficult task. In addition to the physical demands of walking for two months, time away from work and family, distance from home, and finances were all barriers to participation. In response to these challenges, temples in other prefectures developed miniature pilgrimages that they modeled after the Shikoku Henro, allowing their members to make the pilgrimage in their own community. In 1999, Hiroshi Tanaka Shimazaki of the University of Lethbridge in Canada wrote a paper for an international pilgrimage seminar in New Delhi that described some of the substitute sites he had seen. Some of the miniature pilgrimage sites are so small that the eighty-eight sacred sites are represented by a set of stone markers each of which has carved on it the name of one temple and the figure of the chief deity of that temple. Very often these stone markers stand side by side in a row, although sometimes they are spread over a more intensive area. Often these markers stand within a temple compound and can be visited in a matter of minutes. They particularly attract the local residents of the area. These miniature pilgrimages have been instigated by the head priest of the temple in which the markers are found, either at his initiative or in response to congregational demand.

La¯wa‘i International Center, Kaua‘i One of the most important pilgrimage sites in Hawai‘i is the Lāwa‘i International Center on the island of Kaua‘i, which has a miniature pilgrimage of the Shikoku Henro. This miniature pilgrimage site was constructed by the congregation of Lāwa‘i Shingon Shu Temple in the early 1900s. Temple members cut a winding path across a hillside in Lāwa‘i Valley and built eighty-eight small shrines, which they placed on either side of the path. Each shrine is a three-sided, roofed shelter that houses a small statue, many of which are hand-carved wooden images. The congregation also built Lāwa‘i Shingon Shu Temple, which they completed in 1904. One of the earliest descriptions of the miniature Shikoku Henro pilgrimage at Lāwa‘i is found in the December 1926 edition of Paradise of the Pacific magazine in an article by Lilian Mesick entitled “The 88 Holy Places on Hawai‘i’s Garden Isle.” The path turns on itself as it ascends the hill of the Eighty-Eight Holy Places of Kobo Daishi. The eighty-eight small shrines are irregularly distributed, some being above the path and some below. They are a combination of Chi-


nese and East Indian design, each having a sanscrit word which represents the name of the image whose image, in most cases, occupies it. To the right of the sanscrit letter is a picture of Kobo Daishi. Under each shrine are sands, sacred because they were brought from the original Eighty-Eight Holy Places that were erected by Kobo Daishi himself more than a thousand years ago on the island of Shikoku. Although there was no priest of the Shingon faith in Hawai‘i until the year nineteen hundred and fourteen, it has been preached here for more than a quarter of a century. About the year nineteen hundred devout laymen, fearing lest the feet of some of the followers of the faith might stray into other folds, took up the task of keeping the flock together; a little later they began the erection of the Eighty-Eight Holy Places of Kobo Daishi. One of these laymen afterward studied for the ministry and is now the Reverend K. Yamamoto, the resident priest there. There are twenty-five temples representing the Shingon faith in our territory and another Eighty-Eight Holy Places of Kobo Daishi is now being completed at Holualoa, on the island of Hawaii.

La¯wa‘i International Center on Kaua‘i is home to a unique pilgrimage site, a miniature version of the Shikoku Henro, the famous eighty-eight-temple pilgrimage on Shikoku Island in Japan. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

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After World War II, the Lāwa‘i Shingon Shu Temple fell into disrepair and the site became overgrown. During the 1960s, some of the shrines were desecrated, some were destroyed, and some of the small, hand-carved wooden images were stolen by squatters who lived in the valley, but through it all one faithful member of the congregation continued to find her way to the eighty-eight shrines. Her name was Takano Nonaka. Born in Fukuoka-ken, she came to Kaua‘i in 1921, married Jinkuro Nonaka, who was also from Fukuoka, and raised a family of ten children — seven sons and three daughters. A devout Buddhist of the Shingon sect, she began visiting the Lāwa‘i Shingon Temple monthly in 1944. By then the small congregation was holding services only once a month on the 21st, Odaisan Day, the day of the month that Kobo Daishi died. As the years passed, only Nonaka continued to make the monthly visits. Help arrived in 1989 when Ray Nitta, a Kaua‘i woodworker, discovered the site. “I was working at a friend’s home on the hill above the temple installing some shoji doors, and he told me about the shrines with wooden images in them on the hillside below. I started visiting on a regular basis, and I realized that someone else was coming, too. The place was always swept clean.” During those visits in 1989, Nitta ran into a friend, Lynn Muramoto, who mentioned that she was trying to find the eighty-eight shrines at Lāwa‘i. “Lynn told me that she was looking for this place,” Nitta said, “so I showed it to her, and now it is history. She made it her life’s work.” Lynn Muramoto was so taken by the site that she resigned from her job of fifteen years as an elementary school teacher and devoted herself to its restoration and development as her full-time mission. In 1990, she, Ray Nitta, Fred Zollinger, and other volunteers formed a community group to clean up the area and clear out the overgrown vegetation. During the next ten years, their group purchased the 32-acre site and formed a nonprofit organization — the Lāwa‘i International Center. With Muramoto as president, the group is developing the area into an international cultural and healing center. “This place is a treasure,” Muramoto said. “We hope it will be a place to uplift all of humanity through peace, compassion, and pure aloha.” As in Japan’s Shikoku Henro, a number of shrines at Lāwa‘i International Center also contain small images of Jizo. Other larger statues of Jizo are located below the shrines at the base of the hill.


Waimea Shingon Mission, Kaua‘i Another miniature version of the Shikoku Henro on Kaua‘i with statues of Jizo is located at the Waimea Shingon Mission. These miniatures stand on level ground and line three of the four sides of the mission property. The shrines are tall, silver, bullet-shaped monuments with little alcoves built into them to house the small images of the Honzon, the major deity of the shrine. The long rows of vertical shrines, which are striking and completely unexpected for a Buddhist temple in Hawai‘i — or anywhere else in the world — were designed at the end of World War II by a group of women from Waimea Shingon Mission who were gold star mothers. The name “gold star mothers” goes back to the early days of World War I when Americans began flying small service flags at their homes. One blue star was sewn on the flags to represent each family member in the military

Many of the eighty-eight shrines at La¯wa‘i International Center still contain the original hand-carved wooden images that were made in the early 1900s by members of the La¯wa‘i Shingon Mission. This small, hand-painted statue of Jizo is one of many similar statues found throughout the site in almost every shrine. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

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service of the United States. As the war progressed and men and women died in combat or from their wounds, gold stars were sewn over the blue stars to recognize those who had made the supreme sacrifice. This practice led to the phrase “gold star mothers.” After World War I, a group of mothers living in Washington, D.C., who had lost a son or daughter during the war decided to form a national support group. They incorporated in 1929 as the American Gold Star Mothers, and today the organization has twenty-eight chapters nationwide. States with small memberships are combined into one chapter, such as Arizona, California, Nevada, and Hawai‘i. In 2005, Reverend Leonard Abeshima, minister of Waimea Shingon Mission, explained how members of the congregation had designed and built the miniature pilgrimage. Right after the Second World War, the gold star mothers in our congregation, the issei mothers who had lost a son in the war, decided that they wanted to do something for their sons who had died. They approached the congregation to build a memorial and suggested that the memorial should be the eighty-eight shrines of Shikoku. The memorial would serve two purposes. It would provide a place for people to do the Shikoku pilgrimage, and it would honor their children who had died in the war. They decided that each of the eighty-eight shrines should be shaped like a bullet so that each one would be a permanent reminder that we should seek peace and not war. Many of the issei men in the congregation were good with their hands, and two of them in particular — Hisashi Nagoshi and Tetsutaro Enoki — did all of the concrete work that went into the shrines. They used a form with a bullet shape. The minister of the church at that time was Reverend Asaoka Kakuho. He had been arrested in 1941, interned on the mainland, and then released in 1945. The shrines were completed on December 21, 1946. We call them the Hachijuhachi Kasho. Although men from our congregation did the construction work, it was a community effort to fund the project. Each of the shrines is for someone who lost a son, so family members donated money for their own shrine. Some of the shrines are for two sons because two families shared the cost of one shrine. When some of the other gold star mothers in the community heard about the project, they asked to be included, so there are a few non-Japanese sons honored there, too. Each shrine has a number on the front and the name of the person who donated money for it on the back. Once in a while, we have visitors who know their family number and come to find it.


In 1976, a fire completely destroyed our original temple and all of the records that had the shrine information, so now the only individual histories of the shrines we have is what’s written behind them. During the fire, we also lost all of the original Honzon, the images, in the shrines. The ones there now are replacements from our headquarters at Mount Koyasan in Japan. Many of the shrines have really deteriorated over the years. Construction materials were scarce after the war, and we’ve found that the concrete contains lots of sand and rocks. Maybe this was done to conserve concrete. During Hurricane Iniki in 1982, a lot of flying debris hit the shrines and caused additional damage, but we’ve been trying our best to repair them. We were founded in July 1908, so we’re trying to restore the shrines by 2008, our 100th anniversary.

Kona Koyasan Daishiji Mission, Big Island In her article in the December 1926 edition of Paradise of the Pacific magazine, Lilian Mesick mentions that another pilgrimage site of the EightyEight Holy Places of Kobo Daishi was developed in Hōlualoa on the Big Island. This site, built on a small hill on the grounds of the Kona Koyasan Daishiji Mission in Hōlualoa, was another miniature version of the Shikoku Henro. As the years went by, the site deteriorated and the shrines fell victim to rain and wind. In 2005, Reverend Masaaki Miyazaki of Daishiji Mission provided this update: The last of the eighty-eight shrines at Hōlualoa were destroyed during an especially heavy rain in October 1968. Today only a stone monument remains to mark the site. The calligraphy on the monument says ‘New Shikoku EightyEight Holy Places established in July 1925.’ However, there is another miniature version of the Shikoku Eighty-Eight Holy Places at the Pa‘auilo Kongoji Mission. They were built at the same time as the Hōlualoa shrines, but at the site of the former Pa‘auilo church. When the church moved to its present location in the late 1930s, the congregation moved the miniature shrines, too, but over the years many were broken. The set of images that’s there today is well preserved but isn’t complete. I take care of the Pa‘auilo church and also hold services there.

Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, O‘ahu Miniature versions of the Shikoku Henro were never constructed on O‘ahu as on Kaua‘i and the Big Island, but Reyn Tsuru of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i in

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Honolulu explained that their church has its own version of the Shikoku Henro. Our pilgrimage is called Osunafumi, or “walking on the sand,” and it goes back to the first pilgrimage by the issei from Hawai‘i who returned to Japan to do the Shikoku Henro. We have a huge obelisk in front of the temple that commemorates that event. The inscription on the monument says that the trip was made in 1934. When the issei returned to Hawai‘i, they brought back soil from each of the eighty-eight temples in the Shikoku Henro, and we still have our eighty-eight bags from that trip. We also have eighty-eight small statues of the Honzon, or major deity, of each of the eighty-eight temples. The issei from our church also brought these back. We keep them in the temple on shelves that are on either side of the altar. To set up for the Osunafumi, we construct two-step platforms that go all the way around the church. The top step has the appropriate Honzon with its

The eighty-eight shrines at Waimea Shingon Mission on Kaua‘i are tall, silver, bullet-shaped posts that stand on three sides of the temple. Each post is a shrine and a memorial to an American soldier from Kaua‘i who lost his life during World War II. Photo by the author.

Today only this large seki toh (stone monument) marks the site of the former miniature version of the Shikoku Henro at Kona Koyasan Daishiji Mission in Ho¯lualoa on the Big Island. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

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Okiyo, or prayer, under it in Japanese and English. The second step is built for people to stand on, so we place each of the eighty-eight bags of soil under the second step. Then when someone stands on the step, they are “walking on the sand” of each of the eighty-eight temples. The stations are numbered from 1 to 88, and the pilgrims move in a clockwise direction. They place a preprinted prayer at each station before they move on. Ojizo is a large part of this ceremony because many of the Honzon are statues of Ojizo. Osunafumi is very popular among our members and allows them to recreate the traditional pilgrimage, which includes stepping on the ground of each temple. The pilgrimage is usually made by people who want to be healed.

Hichi Kasho Meguri, O‘ahu The Eighty-Eight Holy Places of Kobo Daishi in Lāwa‘i, Waimea, Hōlualoa, and Pa‘auilo were among the first Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Hawai‘i. After World War II, Bishop Mitsumyo Tottori of Shingon Mission in Honolulu es-

Pa‘auilo Kongoji Mission on the Big Island is also home to a unique pilgrimage site, another miniature version of the Shikoku Henro. These miniature shrines stand in orderly rows on the hillside behind the temple and include at least one statue of Jizo. Photo by Mike Waggoner.


This photo taken in the early 1950s shows two motorcycle policemen waiting with the buses that carried the pilgrims on the Hichi Kasho Meguri pilgrimage. The buses are parked on North King Street in Kapa¯lama opposite Dai Nichi Do, one of the sacred stops. Dai Nichi Do was a cottage that served as a temple. Photo courtesy of Sadako Kaneko.

tablished another pilgrimage, one that he named the Hichi Kasho Meguri, or the “seven temple journey.” He patterned the name after an alternate name of the Shikoku pilgrimage, the Shikoku Hachijuhachi Kasho Meguri, the “Shikoku Eighty-Eight temple journey.” After several years, Bishop Tottori’s Hichi Kasho Meguri was as well known on O‘ahu as the Eighty-Eight Holy Places of Kobo Daishi on Kaua‘i and often included several hundred or more people. In 2004, Sadako Kaneko, one of Bishop Tottori’s daughters, recalled her father’s annual event: When we were young, my father organized a pilgrimage that he patterned after the Shikoku Henro in Japan. He started it in 1946 when he was at Hawai‘i Shingon Shu Betsuin and continued it until he moved to Liliha Shingonji in 1958. He called it the Hichi Kasho Meguri, and my sister and I would go with him and his congregation. Some years there were as many as ten buses to carry all the people. There were seven temples on our pilgrimage, and while the order may not be exact, the stops were the following:

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1. Hawai‘i Shingon Shu Betsuin on Sheridan Street. 2. McCully Shingon Mission, which is no longer there. 3. Pālolo Kannon-ji in Pālolo Valley. 4. Liliha Shingonji Mission on Liliha Street. 5. Koboji Shingon Mission on North School Street. 6. Dai Nichi Do. This was not a temple but a cottage. The minister was Reverend Mitoyo Muranaka, and it was located in Kapālama near the Oahu Junk/Oahu Lumber and Hardware Company. It is no longer there. 7. Hale‘iwa Koshoji, which is called the Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission. When we did the Hichi Kasho Meguri, we brought pieces of paper from the Hawai‘i Shingon Shu Betsuin, and every piece had a prayer on it. At each stop, we would put our name on one of the pieces of paper, wrap our donation in it, and leave it at the temple. Besides the seven temples, we also visited certain places to pray for the dead. One of those was the Ojizosan at Koko Head. We would stop at the parking lot at the Blowhole, but only my dad would get out. Everyone else remained in the buses while he prayed. We also stopped to pray at the National Cemetery of the Pacific, the old graveyard in ‘Aiea next to Aloha Stadium, and at the Waialua Lions Memorial Monument in Hale‘iwa Beach Park.

Reverend Tottori’s great compassion for others was evident throughout his life. Prior to organizing the Hichi Kasho Meguri pilgrimage at the Shingon Mission in Honolulu, he was the minister at Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission from March 16, 1942, to May 15, 1946. Sadako continued, From the onset of and throughout World War II, my father received many requests for prayers from concerned parents, relatives, and friends of Hawai‘i nisei soldiers who went off to war. He offered many prayers on their behalf. In addition, he personally made toba (wooden memorial tablets) for those Hawai‘i AJA men who gave their lives for their country and memorialized and honored them in the religious services he held every year until he passed away in 1976. It was only after his death that Reverend Jitsunin Kawanishi (his successor) found the 420 toba Reverend Tottori had personally dedicated to the Hawai‘i nisei killed in combat. In addition, Reverend Kawanishi found the notebooks in which Father had recorded the names of Hawai‘i nisei men killed in action during World War II. The first entry was that of Sgt. Shigeo Takata of Waialua, the first nisei casualty from Hawai‘i, who died on September 29, 1943. My father gave him his posthumous name: “Yu-mon-in Chu-sei Ho-koku Ko-ji,” which means “For the sake of America, he gave his life.”


Pilgrimages are still popular in Hawai‘i today, and several Buddhist churches, such as Pālolo Kwannon Temple, conduct them for their members. Reverend Irene Matsumoto of Pālolo Kwannon Temple organizes one each year that she calls the Reijyo Junpai Dan Tai. After the second World War, several Shingon and Soto temples and Kwannon Temple started what at that time was known as “Hichi Kasho Meguri,” which means the “seven temple pilgrimage.” The temples we visited were McCully Shingon Mission, Sheridan Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, Soto Mission of Hawai‘i, Dai Nichi Do in Pālama, Koboji Shingon Mission, Wahiawā Jizo statue (there wasn’t a temple at the time), Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission (where a vegetarian meal cooked by the temple members was served), and the last stop, Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Temple. There would be three to five busloads from our congregation. We would circle the island and return to Honolulu around four in the afternoon. Throughout the years, the temples we visited changed. During my motherin-law’s time, I believe those were the temples they visited, too. The temples that we visited on the pilgrimage also came to our temple. The service would usually consist of the following: a short prayer, including the Heart Sutra (Maka Hannya Hara Mita Shingyo) and a goeika, or Buddhist song with instruments. These were given by the members of the visiting temple. Then the resident minister (my mother-in-law) greeted them, gave a short dharma talk, and provided them with refreshments and a little omiyage such as bags of chips, candies, oranges, and apples. As the buses left the temple, the members of the temple would wave good-bye. During my husband’s residency as the minister from 1960 to 1995, we also continued the pilgrimage. Ours was scheduled for the first Sunday in March. Most of the other temples also had set schedules. When more temples were included on the pilgrimage, my husband decided to call it “Reijyo Junpai Dan Tai.” “Reijyo Junpai” means “a round of pilgrimages” and “Dan Tai” means “a group.” The additional stops that were added were the National Cemetery of the Pacific, Liliha Shingonji Mission, Tendai Mission of Hawai‘i, which was established in 1973, and Waipahu Soto Mission. When my husband passed away on August 13, 1995, I became the resident minister after finishing Tendai Buddhist training at Mount Hiei. After graduating from basic training, I formally became the resident of Pālolo Kwannon Temple in 1996. In the beginning, the March pilgrimage included the temples that my husband visited. But as my temple members grew older, a whole day

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of pilgrimage was getting harder for them, so I decided to go on a shorter pilgrimage, visiting the Honolulu temples. Now we start with a service at our temple at 7:30 a.m. The bus leaves at 8:00 a.m. The temples that we visit are the following: 1. Shingon Shu Hawai‘i 2. National Cemetery of the Pacific 3. Tendai Mission of Hawai‘i 4. Liliha Shingonji Mission 5. Koboji Shingon Mission 6. Ehime Maru Memorial in Kaka‘ako Waterfront Park 7. Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i 8. Pālolo Hongwanji We always have friends of the members that go with us, and they find the pilgrimage to be meaningful and enjoyable. Other temples that visit our temple on their pilgrimages presently are Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, Liliha Shingon Mission, and Koboji Shingon Mission.

Hawai‘i Jizo Meguri, O‘ahu Hawai‘i Jizo Meguri, or the Jizo in Hawai‘i Pilgrimage, is a new, self-guided pilgrimage created from the information in Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i. It includes a visit to each of the statues of Jizo that still stand or once stood on the shores of O‘ahu overlooking the ocean. The pilgrimage sites can be visited in a day by car, beginning in the east in Honolulu and ending in the west in Hale‘iwa. Please make a donation to each temple that you visit during the pilgrimage. Donations for the Umi Mamori Jizo in Koko Head Regional Park should be made at Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, rather than left at the statue. Here is a list of the stops and their locations, followed by a description of each: 1. Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, 915 Sheridan Street, Honolulu 2. Portlock Point obelisk, on the sea cliffs above the point 3. Umi Mamori Jizo, Koko Head Regional Park 4. Pālolo Kwannon Temple, 3326 Pa‘ale‘a Street, Honolulu 5. Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission, 164 California Avenue, Wahiawā 6. Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission, 66-279A Hale‘iwa Road, Haleiwa


Shingon Shu Hawai‘i

Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, established in 1915, was for many years the Betsuin, or headquarters, of the Shingon sect in Hawai‘i. Today it is an independent Shingon church. In Shingon Esoteric Buddhism: A Handbook for Followers, author Abbot Yusei Arai summarizes the history of Shingon. Shingon Buddhism is a religion that was established by Kobo Daishi (Kukai) at the beginning of the Heian period (9th century), and its teachings are known as Shingon Esoteric Buddhism (Shingon Buddhism). This form of Buddhism is known in Japanese as mikkyo, meaning “secret teaching.” Mikkyo is one of several streams of practice within the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Mikkyo blends many doctrines, philosophies, deities, religious rituals, and meditation techniques from a wide variety of sources. Assimilation of Hindu and local deities and rituals was especially marked in the Buddhism that became Mikkyo. Such diverse elements came together over time and, combining with Mahayana philosophical teachings, formed a comprehensive Buddhist system of doctrine and practice. Esoteric Buddhism places strong emphasis on ritual, especially that involving reciting sacred words. These are known in Sanskrit as mantra or darani. Shingon Buddhism took its name from the phrase in the Mahavairocana Sutra, which teaches that when all living beings awaken to the life of the Buddha, they will realize the Buddha that is in their own lives. This is the teaching of becoming a Buddha in this body.

This belief is the essence of Shingon that was taught by its founder, Kobo Daishi. Reverence for Kobo Daishi distinguishes Shingon from the other sects of Buddhism and explains why statues of Odaishisama are found at all Shingon temples. As Reyn Tsuru of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i explains, “Kobo Daishi taught that faith is important, but religion doesn’t matter. If you exercise tolerance and compassion every day, you can gain insight into yourself and become a religious spirit. Meditation is an essential practice to find balance within yourself. Through meditation and recitation of the sutrasscriptures, you can heal yourself.” Bishop Jitsuei Tanjo of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i performed the dedication ceremony of the original Umi Mamori Jizo in Koko Head Regional Park in 1932, and his successor, Bishop Koten Suetomi, performed the dedication of the replacement monument in 1940. Today, Shingon Shu Hawai‘i continues to care for the site and holds a ceremony at the Umi Mamori Jizo once a

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year on Ojizo Matsuri Day, which they celebrate on the second Sunday in November. The temple also has its own statue of Jizo. Portlock Point Obelisk

On December 30, 2005, the Honolulu Emergency Services Department of the City and County of Honolulu, which includes the ocean lifeguards, installed a modern obelisk on the sea cliffs above Portlock Point. Designed after the original warning signs installed by the members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club in the 1930s, the obelisk overlooks China Walls, a famous south shore surfing spot, which over the years has been the site of many drownings. The obelisk also serves as a memorial to everyone who lost their lives there. Umi Mamori Jizo

Located in Koko Head Regional Park to the west of the Hālona Blowhole, this lava rock monument has a bas-relief image of Jizo that was carved by stonemason Sentaro Otsubo. Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club erected the monument in 1940 to replace the original granite statue of Jizo, which was removed after it was severely vandalized a year earlier. Parking is limited on Kalaniana‘ole Highway fronting the shrine, but additional parking is available nearby in the Hālona Blowhole parking lot. In addition, one of the original obelisk warning signs still stands on the rocky terrace next to the blowhole, where casting club members installed it in 1931. Pa¯ lolo Kwannon Temple

Pālolo Kwannon Temple houses the original statue of Jizo that was erected in Koko Head Regional Park in 1932 by members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. Vandals severely damaged the statue in 1939, breaking off its head, hands, and part of its robe. Pālolo Kwannon Temple acquired the statue in 1963 from the family of stonemason Sentaro Otsubo and placed it at the entrance to its temple and near its own statue of Ojizosama. Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji Soto Mission

The Jizo-do at Wahiawā Ryusenji is home to three statues of Jizo: the Kawaihāpai Jizo, the Kawailoa Jizo, and the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo. The Kawaihāpai Jizo and the Kawailoa Jizo formerly stood on O‘ahu’s North Shore but were relocated to the church grounds as part of Wahiawā Ryusenji’s hundredth anniversary celebration activities in 2004. The Wahiawā

A new obelisk warning sign stands in the small park above Portlock Point, the site of many drownings and near drownings. A part of Diamond Head is visible in the background on the west side of Maunalua Bay. Photo by the author.

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Reverend Howard Masaki of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i performed a ceremony at the Umi Mamori Jizo as part of the international Mount Fuji World Peace Prayer Day on May 8, 2004. Shingon Shu Hawai‘i conducts an annual memorial service here on the second Sunday of November. Photo by Harriet Natsuyama.

Kawamori Jizo formerly stood on the bank of Kaukonahua Stream at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Avocado Street but was relocated to the church grounds in the early 1950s. Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission

When Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission relocated the Kawaihāpai Jizo and the Kawailoa Jizo to their church grounds for their hundredth anniversary in 2004, only one statue of Jizo was left on the ocean on O‘ahu’s North Shore — the Hale‘iwa Jizo at the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission. The mission is adjacent to the west end of Hale‘iwa Ali‘i Beach Park. The Hale‘iwa Jizo sits next to the temple in a triangle-shaped Jizo-do and faces the beach.

Other Sites Other sacred places that might be of interest to Hawai‘i Jizo Meguri pilgrims include the following, from east to west:


1. Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i, Honolulu 2. Koganji Temple, Honolulu 3. Makiki Cemetery, Honolulu 4. Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawai‘i, Honolulu 5. Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission, Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i

The Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i in Makiki is the headquarters of the Jodo sect in Hawai‘i. In 1928 the congregation purchased the Makiki Hotel property to replace their original temple, which was near Mother Waldron Park in Kaka‘ako. Archbishop Kyojun Sakai from Japan dedicated the new church on July 2, 1932. Among the statues on the temple grounds are a traditional statue of Jizo with a red cap and bib that is visible from the H-1 Freeway adjacent to the church property. Bishop Dwight Nakamura installed the statue of Jizo in 1953, shortly after the H-1 Freeway (known then as the Mauka Arterial) was

Two surfers pay their respects at the Umi Mamori Jizo in Koko Head Regional Park on Sunday, November 13, 2005. On the same day, Reverend Sumitoshi Sakamoto from Shingon Shu Hawai‘i conducted the temple’s annual memorial service at the shrine above Bamboo Ridge. Photo by Mike Waggoner.

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The Jizo-do of the Wahiawa¯ Ryusenji Soto Mission is home to three statues of Jizo. From left to right, they are the Kawaiha¯pai Jizo, the Kawailoa Jizo, and the Wahiawa¯ Kawamori Jizo. Photo by Reverend Shugen Komagata.

built. “After the freeway was completed, many accidents began to happen near our boundary wall. I could hear the crashes from my office, so that was my motivation to put the Ojizosama there. Ojizosama is the protector of children and travelers, and I think after the statue was put up, there were less accidents.” Another statue on the temple grounds is a contemporary statue for world peace made from Okazaki stone, a type of granite, by Wakei Nagaoka. A famous artist in Japan, he donated the statue to the church in 2004 to commemorate the return of Bishop Dwight Nakamura to Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i after a thirteen-year absence. Titled the “All World Saving Buddha,” the statue includes images of the Buddha and several bodhisattvas, including Ojizosama, and represents the past, the present, and the future. Nagaoka made the statue in memory of all those killed by acts of terrorism throughout the world and to foster world peace. It is one of hundreds of statues that he has made and donated to cities around the world in his efforts to encourage world peace. Both of these statues stand next to a bodhi tree, which has great significance in Buddhism. The bodhi tree (also known as bo tree) is the sacred tree of India. “Bodhi” is a Sanscrit word meaning “enlightenment” or “wisdom.” A member of the ficus, or fig family, the bodhi tree can grow to a height of


100 feet, with great spreading branches. In Hawai‘i, trees in the ficus family are commonly called banyan trees. Tradition says that Sakyamuni Buddha gained satori, or enlightenment, while sitting under a bodhi tree in deep meditation at dawn about 2,500 years ago, and his teachings have been the guiding light for people of many cultures ever since. The bodhi tree at Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i came from a cutting of a much larger tree that once stood on the church grounds. When the freeway was built, the state condemned some of the church property, and the huge tree had to be cut, displacing thousands of mynah birds that roosted in it every night. The church used the money from the condemnation to build the twostory classroom building next to the statues. Members of the congregation planted a shower tree at the west end of their property near the site of the original bodhi tree. During the summer Obon season, Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i also holds a Jizo Bon, a special event to honor Jizo as a guardian and protector of children and adults. The temple staff conduct a brief ceremony at their statue of Ojizosama before the annual Bon dance festivities begin. Koganji Temple

Located in Mānoa Valley, Koganji Temple is dedicated to Jizo. Bishop Jikyu Rose is the resident minister, and in 2003 she related her story. All my life I have loved religion. My mother said when I was small, every time I passed a temple, I would put my hands together and bow. She didn’t know where I got it. When I got older, I wanted to show my appreciation, so I went to Koganji Temple in Tokyo. That was in 1940, when I was twenty-two years old. There was a big celebration going on and so many people were there, but Reverend Kozuka was curious about me. He called me into the temple and asked me some questions. Then he said, “I think I can predict your future.” He did, and amazingly all his predictions came true. When my husband, Lester, retired from the navy, I told him, “Let’s take a trip to Hawai‘i.” That was in 1964. We fell in love with the Islands and the people. The weather and the ocean were just like Japan. I went into the real estate business and was quite successful. Then in 1972, the Tendai sect opened a mission in Hawai‘i, and I decided to study calligraphy at their temple. I realized that I wanted to fulfill my love for religion by becoming a minister. I studied under Archbishop Jion Haba at Mount Hiei near Tokyo and was ordained as a Buddhist minister of the Tendai Sect in 1975.

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I really believe my destiny was to come to Hawai‘i and start this temple, so in 1975 my husband and I bought the property and built the temple at a cost of $2 million. We sold our other property and used our personal savings to finance everything. Kaya Construction Company completed the temple in 1981, and we held our dedication ceremony on March 28, 1982. I named the temple Koganji after the famous temple in Japan where I went when I was young, and I dedicated it to Jizo Bodhisattva. The statue inside the temple is the Enmei Jizo. “Enmei” means “long life.” The statue outside on the temple grounds is the Togenuki Jizo, which is the same name as a famous statue in Tokyo. “Togenuki” means “to remove a thorn.” The thorn represents suffering, so if you take away the thorn, you can have longevity. The two statues balance each other. We are a Tendai temple. Tendai allows you to believe in what you want, once you receive the training. We all need spiritual guidance, and I believe in Jizo Bodhisattva.

In 1991, Chief Abbot Etai Yamada recognized Reverend Rose for her deep faith and her contributions to the people of Hawai‘i by honoring her with the title of Bishop. Makiki Cemetery

One of the most interesting cemeteries on O‘ahu is the Makiki Cemetery, the oldest Japanese burial site in Hawai‘i. Located on the slopes of Punchbowl Crater at the intersection of Pensacola Street and Wilder Avenue, the Japanese section of Makiki Cemetery was established in 1868 when sailors from the Imperial Japanese Navy died in Honolulu and the Japanese consulate arranged to have them buried on O‘ahu. The sailors were visiting the Islands to support the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawai‘i, the Gannenmono, or “first-year people,” who came to Hawai‘i in Meiji Gannen, the first year of the rule of Emperor Meiji. A large stone monument, erected in the cemetery in 1927 in memory of the Gannenmono, includes a plaque in English that tells their story. Every year in July, the United Japanese Society holds an Imin Yosebaka Obon service to honor the memory of the kanyaku imin, or Japanese contract laborers who came to Hawai‘i, and the muen-botoke, or the souls of the dead without any relatives. The service is held in front of a 12-foot granite monument that marks the collective remains of early immigrants who had no family members in Hawai‘i to give them a proper burial when they


died. The O‘ahu Kanyaku Imin Centennial Committee erected the monument in 1986 from granite quarried from Okayama Prefecture. The service also honors the Gannenmono and the sixteen Japanese sailors who died in Hawai‘i while on Imperial Japanese Navy warships passing through the Islands during the late 1800s. Several images of Jizo are found on the headstones among the oldest graves in Makiki Cemetery, where they mark the graves of young children, boys and girls, who were six years old or younger when they passed away. Children of the issei, the years of their deaths on the headstones range from 1900 to 1907. The stone images, most of them made out of local stones, show a variety of carving skills from novice to professional. Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawai‘i

Reverend Katsuyoshi Miyao founded Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawai‘i in downtown Honolulu in 1906. Located on North Kukui Street, many residents and visitors visit the historic Shinto shrine for blessings to protect and guide their families, businesses, communities, nations, and the world. While blessings and religious services are conducted daily, Izumo Taishakyo Mission is probably best known for its Hatsumoude, or New Year’s blessings, when thousands of believers and friends come to the shrine on January 1 to start the new year by purifying their body and soul. Izumo Taishakyo Mission is also home to a special healing stone that came from Inari Jinja in Makiki when it closed. Known as the Hime Miya, or “Young Girl’s Shrine,” the ritual to ask for help is almost identical to that of Jizo. Those requesting help first rub the stone, then rub the place on their body where they have pain or a problem, then rub the stone again to receive its power. When they are ready to leave, they make a donation to the shrine. Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission

One of two Buddhist churches in the town of Hale‘iwa, Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission was established in 1918 by Reverend Gido Ikeda. Members of the congregation built the temple and the parsonage, which were completed in 1925, and today Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission is one of the few temples in Hawai‘i constructed by the issei that is still in use. A large statue of Sho Kanzeon Bosatsu stands in front of the temple overlooking many rows of Great Stupa, wooden memorial tablets to honor the deceased, that are made by Reverend Taiken Akiyama. The Great Stupa, or Daitoba Kuyo, are 6 feet

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long. A small statue of Odaishisama, or Kobo Daishi, the founder of the Shingon sect, sits in a three-sided shelter near the statue of Sho Kanzeon Bosatsu. The statue of Odaishisama came from Waimea Valley on O‘ahu, where it was originally enshrined in the 1920s on top of a large rock in the valley that overlooked Fujita Camp. When the camp was demolished, Kitaro Fujita donated the statue to Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission. Statues of Jizo and Ebisu are located inside the church. Pilgrimages to holy sites, an important ritual in Buddhist tradition, have been in place in Hawai‘i for over a hundred years and are still conducted today. Local pilgrimages, which include visits to temples that have statues of Jizo, also journey to other sacred sites associated with Jizo, such as the Umi Mamori Jizo on the Koko Head sea cliffs, a memorial for everyone who has lost their lives in the ocean.

chapter eight

Drownings in Hawai‘i

during the summer of 2004, I went to the public library in downtown Honolulu to look for newspaper articles about drowning deaths of fishermen in Hawai‘i. As I read through the newspaper index for 1967, I found a listing for an article on the high number of drownings that had occurred in the first seven months of 1967. I decided to read the story to see if it mentioned any fishing incidents. The article listed the names of thirty victims and the circumstances of their deaths. When I reached number 22, I stopped abruptly. The name was Ralph Heywood — my grandfather, my mother’s father. My middle name is Ralph in his honor. I was staring at my name, too. Even though I had been working on Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i for two years at that point, I had completely forgotten that my family had experienced a drowning tragedy similar to the ones I was writing about. I went to the microfilm cabinets and found the article on my grandfather’s death. All of the memories came flooding back. The issue of the Honolulu Advertiser for Saturday, June 24, 1967, reported that a sixty-eight-year-old man, Ralph McCabe Heywood, drowned the day before. He apparently got caught in the rigging of his 9-foot Boston Whaler Squall sailboat when it capsized in the Ala Wai Boat Harbor channel. The article described him as a retired owner of a Catalina Island department store who for many years had spent half of each year in Hawai‘i. Three members of the Honolulu Fire Department’s rescue squad spotted the hull of the upside-down boat at 12:51 p.m. as they were returning to the boat ramp from a mission offshore. “No one was around, so we went over and turned the boat upright,” said Eben Kalaau Jr. “But something was holding the sail down.” Kalaau, Moses Kim, and Wendell Kaleimamahu checked and found my grandfather’s body tangled in the sail with a rope tightened across his chest. They pulled him into their boat and Kaleimamahu gave

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him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation en route to the boat ramp. A waiting ambulance took him to Kaiser Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. I joined the Honolulu Fire Department on June 1, 1972, after two years as a lifeguard with the City and County of Honolulu. During my career in the department, I had met each of the three firefighters who found my grandfather, but I had never realized any of them were connected with the incident. By the time I read the newspaper article thirty-seven years later, Moses (Moke) Kim had passed away, but I called Eben Kalaau and Wendell Kaleimamahu and thanked them for what they had done. After finding the newspaper article, I went to visit my mother. I was in the army taking basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, at the time my grandfather died. I was not able to attend his funeral services in Hawai‘i or his burial at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, so I had never really talked to my mother about the death of her father. She showed me his Certificate of Death, which says that “death was caused by asphyxia due to drowning,” the standard description for drownings that medical examiners still use today. We talked about our thoughts of his last moments, how all of the family had hoped that he had not suffered, and how all of us had to deal with these thoughts, each in our own way. Our talk turned to him as a wonderful father and grandfather, and we shared the positive memories that offset the tragic ones, the memories that we still hold close — the ones that carried us through our grief and helped to bring closure to this great loss in our lives. Drowning is a tragic way to die. It is not a natural death, and it is always unexpected. In Hawai‘i, adolescent and adult drownings often occur on unguarded shores and beaches in violent, high surf situations that prevent bystanders from saving the victim. In many cases, family, friends, and passersby are helpless, unable to make a rescue. They are often severely impacted by the incident. All of them experience shock and emotional trauma, which may continue long after the drowning has occurred. People at the scene or the victim’s survivors may continue to replay the incident over and over again, wondering if there was something more they could have done. They wonder if the victim suffered during those brief, final moments before unconsciousness and death occurred. During the four-year research phase of Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i, I interviewed many people who had lost a friend or family member in drowning accidents. Among the most severely impacted were survivors who were children when the incident occurred, and of those children, those


In May 2005, Honolulu Advertiser photographer Bruce Asato stopped at La¯na‘i Lookout when he saw a group of Japanese tourists taking a photo of one of their friends on a ledge below. The visitors suddenly started yelling at their friend to run, and Asato snapped this picture of the man running across the ledge with a huge wave breaking behind him. The man made it to safety, but other visitors here have not been as fortunate. Photo by Bruce Asato, Honolulu Advertiser.

who had witnessed the drowning death of a parent or sibling were especially traumatized. Several of them carried vivid images of the incident well into their adult lives, some even continuing to have troubling dreams for many years after. In the end, however, all of them in their own way came to terms with their tragic losses and found the inner strength to carry on. In the aftermath of unexpected traumatic deaths, people experience a powerful urge to overcome their grief, their feelings of anger, depression, frustration, and helplessness. They want to do something. They want to do something positive. They want to give meaning to a senseless death and prevent similar deaths from happening again. Funerals are the usual activities that allow us to take action after a death, but often after especially tragic deaths, family and friends organize additional memorial activities. These may take the form of requesting donations to charitable institutions, establishing scholarships, and organizing sporting events, all in memory of the


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victim. For the Japanese ulua fishermen in the 1930s, these additional activities took the form of putting up over fifty obelisk-shaped warning signs around the island of O‘ahu, each at a site where someone had drowned, and of erecting statues of Jizo on especially dangerous shores. Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i is the story of these men. It is the story of their great compassion and their desire to honor the memory not only of ulua fishermen, but everyone who was a victim of the sea in Hawaiian waters. It is a story of their efforts to stop death by drowning in Hawai‘i. The Japanese fishermen in Hawai‘i who drowned in the early 1900s were usually swept off rocky ledges or steep sand beaches by unexpectedly large waves. Carried by powerful surf into a raging ocean, they did not survive the turmoil of whitewater and pounding waves. While their deaths often went unnoticed by the English media, the drowning death of Zensaku Uchibori, one of dozens that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century, was an exception. His death touched the hearts of everyone in Hawai‘i who heard the story, and the Japanese-language newspapers especially followed it closely. Swept off a rocky ledge in Koko Head Regional Park by an unexpectedly large wave, Uchibori managed to stay afloat for only twenty minutes. During that short period of time, he realized that his friends onshore could not rescue him and that he did not have the swimming ability to survive. Making a conscious decision to die with dignity, he faced his friends, waved one last time, and sank out of sight, never to be seen again. The community response to his death was overwhelming, and hundreds came from around the island to attend his funeral and to offer support to his family. May Fumiko Akimoto, the daughter of Zensaku Uchibori, recalled her mother’s reaction in the aftermath of funeral. My mother was heartbroken over the death of my father. After he passed away, she refused to go out, and she would not leave the house. I used to argue with her, but she wouldn’t go out. She stayed home and did all the household chores. There were three bedrooms upstairs that she rented out to working ladies, and there were some smaller rooms downstairs that she rented out to kids from the outer islands who went to school in Honolulu. So she did alright, and it was enough for us to get by.

In some cases, the families of drowning victims were not as fortunate. For them, the emotional stress of losing a father was compounded by severe financial hardship. This was the situation in 1938 when Kikumatsu Mina-


toishi drowned while fishing off the Diamond Head Lighthouse. The August 15, 1938, issue of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin explained that Minatoishi, thirty-four, a carpenter from Honolulu, and Tadami Fujiwara, twenty-one, were caught by a large wave and pulled into deep water while they were were standing on a shallow reef about 100 feet offshore from the lighthouse. The current dragged both of them away from the reef, and only Fujiwara was able to swim back on his own. A third member of the fishing party, Taichi Ebisuzaki, extended his fishing pole to Minatoishi, but Minatoishi lost his grip on the pole and sank. Minatoishi was survived by his wife Kuma and three young children, George Tsutomu, nine, Merton Chikayuki, seven, and Agnes Shizu, three. In 2004, Minatoishi’s son Merton recalled the impact on his family following the death of his father. I was born on January 23, 1931, so I was seven when my dad passed away. After he died, my mother had to go to work. She got a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant downtown. The rent was $35 a month, and she only made $35 a month. There was no money for food. Our schoolteachers would tell the social workers that we didn’t have lunch, but when the welfare people came to our house, the landlord would talk to them. My mother didn’t speak English, so he would translate. He didn’t want us to take anything, so he told my mother not to accept any help. That was the old style — if you took welfare, it was shame. So we were always poor. I don’t know how we ate sometimes. We would only have rice with salt. We had a hard life until my brother and I reached our teens. Then we were able to work and help out.

Drownings on the neighbor islands were just as common as they were on O‘ahu, but on the neighbor islands ‘opihi pickers were the victims just as often as fishermen, especially on the Big Island. ‘Opihi are small limpets, or snails, that live on rocks at the water’s edge. Although they are found throughout the world, the four species in Hawai‘i are found only on the shores of the Hawaiian Islands. With a preference for the heavy surge and pounding surf of the splash zone, ‘opihi have a broad muscular foot for clinging and crawling and a cap-shaped shell that can withstand the force of pounding waves. Hawai‘i residents eat three of the four species: the yellowfoot or alinalina (Cellana sandwicensis), the blackfoot or makaiauli (Cellana exarata), and the kneecap or ko‘ele (Cellana talcosa). Most of the ‘opihi harvested in Hawai‘i come from the Big Island. The island’s official name is Hawai‘i, but because Hawai‘i is also the name of


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the state, most residents of the Hawaiian Islands avoid confusion by calling it the “Big Island.” The name is appropriate because the Big Island’s land mass is over 4,000 square miles — an area nearly twice that of the other seven major islands combined — and as the newest of the major islands, its shoreline has the fewest sand beaches. Its miles of rocky shoreline, which are still being expanded by active volcanoes, make it ideal for ulua fishing and ‘opihi picking. ‘Opihi have always been considered one of the essential foods to have at a traditional Hawaiian luau, so picking ‘opihi has been an important commercial activity on the Big Island for many years. The demand for ‘opihi today is still great, and they command high prices. In the January 2006 issue of Ka Wai Ola o OHA, the newsletter for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a classified ad for fresh frozen ‘opihi from the Big Island offered them for these prices: $215 for a gallon, $109 for a half gallon, and $65 for a quart. But ‘opihi live in the most dangerous areas of the Big Island’s shoreline — the steep, remote sea cliffs that are pounded by high surf — and over the years many ‘opihi pickers have lost their lives gathering these prized delicacies. The following list of headlines from the Index to the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu StarBulletin records Big Island incidents for the fifteen-year period from 1952 to 1967 (A = Advertiser, S = Star-Bulletin): Two men drowned gathering opihi, Honuapo (S 1/30/52) Mother drowns while picking opihis in Hilo (A 5/8/60) Opihi picker drowns in Puna (A 11/6/60) Quest for opihis claimed three victims in ’62 (A 12/27/62) Soldier hunting opihi falls off cliff near Hapuna Beach (A 4/8/63) Opihi picker drowns at South Point (A 12/30/63) Hilo man lost off Puna picking opihi (A 11/20/65) Man drowns near South Point while picking opihis (A 11/21/66) Opihi picker drowns in Keaukaha (S&A 2/26/67)

In 1995, The Ka‘au Crater Boys received the Na Hoku Hanohano Song of the Year award for “ ‘Opihi Man,” a song composed by Keaukaha resident and radio personalilty Craig Kamahele. The lyrics describe the dangers of picking the “yellow and black,” the yellowfoot ‘opihi, the most popular of the edible species. Sounds like thunder, gotta head for the high ground White water coming, no foolin’ around ‘Opihi man in the sun, ‘opihi man grab your bag and run


‘Opihi man another swell is coming your way ‘Opihi man another swell is coming your way. Gotta fill up your bag with the yellow and black Keep your eye on the wave, don’t ever turn your back ‘Opihi man in the sun, ‘opihi man grab your bag and run ‘Opihi man another swell is coming your way ‘Opihi man another swell is coming your way. Like the crab on the rock, you gotta run real fast Keep your eye on the wave, don’t ever turn your back ‘Opihi man in the sun, ‘opihi man grab your bag and run ‘Opihi man another swell is coming your way ‘Opihi man another swell is coming your way.

Ulua fishermen frequent the same remote areas that attract ‘opihi pickers and often pick ‘opihi for themselves and their families as a side activity to fishing. Between the two activities, the Big Island and the other neighbor islands have seen many drownings, but the organized effort of erecting standardized obelisk-shaped warning signs and placing statues of Jizo in especially hazardous shoreline areas took place only on O‘ahu. Families of neighbor island victims, though, have often placed memorial markers near the scene of the accidents. Dennis Fujimoto, a staff writer and photographer for the Garden Island, the daily newspaper on Kaua‘i, recalled that both of his grandfathers died in the 1950s and that both of them were the victims of high surf sweeping across rocky ledges, one caught while fishing and one while picking ‘opihi. When we were growing up, I remember how the older people in the camps would talk whenever there was a fishing accident, such as people being swept off ledges. But I haven’t been able to locate anyone who remembers anything about a shrine, or any kind of marker being placed at any of the beaches on Kaua‘i. I vaguely remember some of the older people talking about markers being put up at sites where fishermen were washed away, but they were similar to the roadside markers being erected today to designate areas where drivers lose their lives.

Statues of Jizo on the neighbor islands are found most often in temples or cemeteries, and those that are on the shoreline are there usually only if a temple or cemetery happens to be on or near the ocean. During the second half of the 1900s, an interesting shift in attitude toward drownings and other tragic deaths occurred in Hawai‘i. Survivors of vic-


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tims who drowned began taking out their anger and grief in lawsuits against the government. Attorneys suing on behalf of victim’s families commonly argue that either the county or the state is negligent in warning the victims of the potential dangers on Hawai‘i’s shores. They also argue that the first responders — the lifeguards, the firefighters, and the emergency medical services personnel — are negligent in performing their duties. These types of lawsuits still continue. Ulua fishing is one of the biggest ocean recreation sports in Hawai‘i today, generating millions of dollars every year in equipment sales and related items. By 2004, Hawaii Fishing News had featured over 125 issues with “ulua covers” since its first issue in 1979, and every ulua cover issue sells out almost as soon as it hits the newsstands. One of the goals of each ulua fisher in Hawai‘i is to be a member of the 100-Plus Club — those who have landed giant trevally weighing 100 pounds or more while fishing from shore in the main Hawaiian Islands. But in spite of the popularity and publicity about ulua fishing today, drownings among ulua fishers are few and far between, even with the large increase in their numbers. Contemporary ulua fishers are well aware of the dangers in their sport and come prepared for emergencies with safety equipment and cell phones. This same awareness — the same sense of danger that Hawai‘i’s modern ulua fishers have developed over the last hundred years — is what Hawai‘i needs to convey to everyone who visits our shores and beaches. We need to educate our adventurous visitors in particular, who continue to be swept off our rocky ledges to their deaths during periods of high surf. Dan Galanis, epidemiologist for the Injury Prevention Program in the State of Hawai‘i’s Department of Health, reviewed death certificates during the ten-year period from 1994 to 2003 and determined that 619 drownings occurred in Hawai‘i — an average of 62 drownings per year. Some 496 (80 percent) of those drownings happened in the ocean, including harbors and canals. Galanis reported that while “the numbers are high, they may actually be an undercount. There are an average of at least five or six deaths every year that are probably drownings but are coded as coronaries, or the body was never recovered.” Using twelve categories, Galanis summarized the activities of the 496 ocean victims prior to drowning. They are as follows: Boat accident Fell in/swept in Fishing shorecasting Picking ‘opihi

21 43 15 11


Scuba Snorkeling Free diving Kayaking Surfing/bodyboarding Swimming Other Unknown Total

37 54 37 9 24 105 23 117 496

The activities of the other drownings of the overall total of 619 were summarized as follows: Rivers/streams Swimming pools Bathtubs Other/unknown Total

41 43 25 14 123

On May 27, 2005, the Honolulu Advertiser ran a story on Galanis’ statistics for 2004. Advertiser staff writer Peter Boylan’s front-page story featured a quote from Galanis. Drownings take record toll in ’04 / Tourist deaths push total to highest level since at least 1990 Seventy-one visitors and residents drowned in Hawai‘i last year, the highest number in at least fifteen years. The number of state residents who drowned has hovered in the high 20s and low 30s every year since 1999. But the number of visitors who drowned increased from 18 in 1999 to 40 last year, a 122 percent increase. There is an obvious problem with nonresidents being unfamiliar with local conditions and obviously underestimating the ocean environment in Hawai‘i.

The situation with tourists in Hawai‘i today is no different than that of the issei when they arrived over a hundred years ago. Visitors to Hawai‘i’s shores today, like the issei in the early 1900s, have no idea how powerful and dangerous the ocean can be and that conditions can change from no surf to high surf within a matter of an hour or two. The water knowledge of most Hawai‘i visitors comes from experience in pools, ponds, and lakes,


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not from a dynamic marine environment in the middle of the Pacific that can quickly generate violent, deadly surf sweeping across beaches and rocky ledges. They have no idea that these dangers are common in paradise, and this complete lack of ocean knowledge continues to take the lives of tourists in Hawai‘i. Three ledge drowning incidents that happened in 2004 and 2005 are typical of those that continue to occur every year. On April 1, 2004, a couple in their fifties from Illinois and their twelveyear-old son were sightseeing on Kaua‘i’s north shore and stopped to walk at Lumaha‘i Beach. They decided to walk out on a low rocky point, and as they approached the water’s edge, a large wave caught all three of them off guard and swept them off their feet. Bystanders were able to rescue the boy, but the massive waves that followed carried his parents into the ocean where they both drowned in the powerful surge. On Thursday, October 13, 2005, the first large northwest swell of the 2005–2006 winter surf season rolled into the Islands with waves 25 feet high. On the same day, a fifty-five-year-old man from Missouri was swept off the rocks by large waves at Queen’s Bath in Princeville, Kaua‘i, and drowned — the third drowning there in the past three years. He and his wife were walking on the rocky ledge at the popular tourist destination when a huge set of waves knocked them down. She was able to hold onto rocks on the ledge, but he was swept into the ocean, where he drowned in the raging surf. From her hospital bed in Līhu‘e, his wife had this prophetic message for a reporter from the Garden Island newspaper: “I want to warn people. Kaua‘i is such a beautiful place, [but] people need to take extreme caution, especially if [they’re] from a place like Missouri and are more familiar with lakes and rivers than they are with oceans.” Ten days later on Monday, October 24, 2005, a group of six young adults — five women and one man — stopped at Lāna‘i Lookout on Honolulu’s eastern sea cliffs between Hanauma Bay and the Hālona Blowhole. They decided to walk out on Submarine Point, a narrow ledge that extends into the ocean below the lookout. As they posed for a group shot with their backs to the ocean, a huge wave broke over the point and knocked all of them down. The wave carried one of the women into the ocean where she drowned in the pounding surf below. Jim Howe, Ocean Safety Dvision operations chief, told a reporter from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “It’s a tragedy, but it could have been much worse. Five people walked away from this alive.” Howe also noted that the visitors jumped over a wall and ignored posted warning signs. Year after year, the statistics speak for themselves and continually rein-


force the fact that these tragic ledge drownings, which began to occur in unacceptable numbers over a hundred years ago with the arrival of immigrant plantation workers, continue to happen with alarming frequency today to Hawai‘i’s visitors and on occasion to Hawai‘i’s residents. All of us, visitors and residents alike, have to learn how to read the ocean in Hawai‘i. We need to know the basic rules of ocean safety in the Islands and then apply them, especially on remote rocky shores. One of the fundamental rules during periods of high surf is: Never walk on wet rocks. They are wet because they have been swept by big waves, but visitors do not know that waves come in sets with alternating periods of calm seas, or lulls, between sets. If they arrive during lulls, they see a serene ocean and, unknowing, wander out on wet rocks and right into the high surf impact zone. When a set suddenly appears, seemingly out of nowhere, it’s too late to run. Walking on wet rocks during high surf is one factor that is common to almost every ledge drowning in Hawai‘i. Another fundamental rule for ledge incidents is that if you end up in the ocean, swim away from the rocks. Swim out to sea and wait for help. Our natural instinct is to get back on land, to try and return to the place where we were washed off, but this is invariably a fatal mistake. The impact zone where waves are pounding the ledge is the most dangerous place to be. Victims trapped here sustain additional injuries and lose almost any chance they might have to survive. Swimming away from the rocks into deeper water buys the necessary time for help, professional or otherwise, to respond and rescue us. China Walls is the name of a surfing site at Portlock Point on O‘ahu’s south shore. A popular surfing and swimming spot with local residents, it is a dangerous place where powerful waves sweep over a staircase of ledges in a sea cliff, especially during the summer surf season. One of the first drownings on record there occurred on July 18, 1931, when a big wave washed a fisherman from Kuli‘ou‘ou off the rocks. The July 20, 1931, issue of the Nippu Jiji noted that he was “another victim in the treacherous waters which have taken so many lives in the past,” and carried the following story: Misaku Kurihara, 58, Kuliouou-uka, father of ten children, was swept off a rocky ledge where he was fishing, early Saturday evening. His daughter, Yoshio, 11, and Masaichi Uemura, 14, Upper Manoa road, were with him when a huge wave rose as high as 20 feet, washing the man off the rocky ledge and bearing him into the maelstrom below. On seeing the wave coming, Kurihara


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told the two children to run. He stopped to get his bait bag and was dragged into the black waters. The two children tried to save him with a fishing rod, but it was short by a few feet and could not reach the drowning man.

The procession of tragic drownings along the eastern sea cliffs of O‘ahu has continued unabated from the early 1900s to the present. During the four-month period from March to June of 2005, three people drowned at Portlock Point. On June 12, 2005, Jessica Shelton, swimming with her friends at China Walls during a big south swell, barely escaped becoming the fourth victim. She had just climbed out of the water and was standing on the lowest ledge. “One of the bodyboarders climbed out after me,” she said, “and suddenly he yelled, ‘Set!’ I couldn’t get away in time, and the wave caught me and swept me off the rocks. When I came up, I was in the white water and my right leg was completely numb. I couldn’t feel anything, so I didn’t know it was broken. I had to duck under a couple of waves, and then the bodyboarder jumped in and put me on his board. He swam me out of the white water to a calm area until the waves died down, then swam me back to the rocks where I was pulled out. My right femur was broken.” The bodyboarder who saved Jessica Shelton was Peter Sigouin, one of the regular surfers at China Walls. “People get washed off the ledges at China Walls all the time,” he said. “I go there almost every day, so I see it a lot.” Jessica was lucky and she survived, thanks to the quick action of Sigouin. On September 30, 2005, the Honolulu Fire Department awarded him its Civilian Medal of Valor, an award given only to those who risk their own lives to save another person. In August 2005, Dr. Elizabeth Char, the director of the Honolulu Emergency Medical Services Department, and Ralph Goto, the administrator of the Ocean Safety and Lifeguard Services Division for the City and County of Honolulu, convened the Portlock Task Force to look into the high numbers of injuries and drownings at Portlock Point. The members focused on ideas to improve the response times of the first responders when incidents occur and on prevention strategies to reduce the number of incidents or eliminate them altogether. Their recommendations, which are intended for all dangerous shores statewide, included developing ocean safety messages that would be shown on every flight to Hawai‘i and shown again on the television visitor channel in their hotel rooms. They recommended asking the editors of visitor information brochures to include ocean safety information about shoreline sites in their lists of places to visit.


The Portlock Task Force also considered erecting additional on-site signage similar to the original obelisk-shaped warning signs put up by the members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club in the 1930s. The meaning of those simple but effective signs was part of local culture for many years. Everyone on O‘ahu understood what they represented and explained their significance to their children and to visitors they took on circle-island tours. On November 10, 2005, the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, the State Department of Health Injury Prevention Program, and the Hawaiian Lifeguard Association convened their annual Ocean Safety and Drowning Prevention Conference. During the conference, Jimmy Barros, a lifeguard with the Ocean Safety and Lifeguard Services Division for the City and County of Honolulu, displayed a 2-foot prototype of a historic obelisk warning sign that he and another lifeguard, Kevin Allen, had made. Conference members liked the miniature obelisk warning sign, so Barros and Allen decided to construct a full-sized obelisk and install it at Portlock Point. Working on their days off and purchasing materials at their own expense, they completed the sign and installed it in the Koko Kai Beach Right-ofWay, a landscaped, half-acre park on the sea cliff at Portlock Point. Dr. Char took care of the necessary approvals for the installation and convened a press conference to dedicate the obelisk on Friday, December 30, 2005. Everyone involved with the project hoped that all four counties and the state would recognize its value and erect more obelisk warning signs, one at every site where drownings continue to occur. The unique set of circumstances in Hawai‘i’s history that resulted in statues of Jizo in Hawai‘i as guardians of the sea ended with the passing of the issei, the first-generation immigrants from Japan who came to work on the plantations. Today, only two sugar companies are still operating in Hawai‘i: Gay and Robinson on Kaua‘i and Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar on Maui, and the powerful agricultural industry that dominated Hawai‘i’s economy for over a hundred years is at its end. The descendents of the thousands of issei have long since moved into other professions, and Buddhism, the religion they brought with them, has moved on too, to find its place in contemporary society. In the midst of all these changes, Jizo in Hawai‘i has traveled from an immigrant past into a highly sophisticated modern world, where he continues to be a source of inspiration to modern Buddhists. In recent years, the song “Horizons,” written and performed by the group Hawai‘i Matsuri


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Taiko, begins with one taiko player chanting Jizo’s mantra; new statues of Jizo have been erected on O‘ahu, Kaua‘i, and the Big Island; a temple dedicated to Jizo, Koganji Temple, was built in Mānoa; Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i conducts an annual Jizo Bon, a ceremony to honor Jizo and pray for the health and safety of children and adults; a number of temples still conduct annual pilgrimages, which include visits to places sacred to Jizo, including those on the ocean; and Shingon Shu Hawai‘i holds an annual service at the Umi Mamori Jizo on the Koko Head sea cliffs. But unfortunately, tragic drownings such as those that led to the installation of the historic statues and the wooden obelisk warning signs on O‘ahu’s shores continue to occur throughout Hawai‘i. One of the best methods to prevent drownings is direct intervention by another person, such as a lifeguard — someone who can be proactive and stop people from endangering themselves — but the large majority of ledge drownings happen in unguarded areas where we are all responsible for our own actions. We have to be especially vigilant in unguarded areas, some of which are miles away from professional rescue help. Warning markers, including signs, monuments, and even the statues of Jizo erected so many years ago, help to prevent tragedy only if people recognize what they are and what they stand for. They heighten our awareness, if only subconsciously, and encourage us to use common sense. They indicate danger and tell us that tragedy has occurred here before and will occur here again — now — if we are not careful. In the absence of an actual person, warning signs, monuments, and statues promote prevention, but their value is minimal if we ignore the message. In the end, only two things will help us survive: education and common sense. We need to educate ourselves and the visitors to our shores to ensure that we all will live to swim and surf another day.

Epilogue

i have lived in the hawaiian isl ands all my life, but my journey to find Jizo in Hawai‘i took me to places I had never seen and introduced me to people I would otherwise never have met. As I learned more about Japanese culture and Buddhism, my travels took some interesting turns. One of the most unusual of these happened on Sunday, April 10, 2005, when photographer Mike Waggoner and I flew to Hilo for a circle-island tour with Harry Yamanaka, a retired school principal, and Fred Soriano, a sociology professor at Hawai‘i Community College. I was interested in the miniature Shikoku Henro pilgrimage sites in Pa‘auilo and Hōlualoa, and Harry and Fred knew the locations of other statues of Jizo on the Big Island, so we combined our mutual interests in an all-day drive around the island. Early in the afternoon, we arrived at the Kona Koyasan Daishigi Mission in Hōlualoa. No one was home, but I had spoken to Reverend Masaaki Miyazaki, the resident minister, on the phone several days earlier, so I knew that the last of the miniature eighty-eight shrines at his church had been destroyed during an especially heavy rain in October 1968 and that only a stone monument remained to mark the site. As we walked around the church grounds looking for the monument, Fred Soriano spotted a large triangular-shaped lava rock leaning against an old rock wall. The wall fronted the collapsing wooden ruin of the original temple on the property built by the issei. Fred noticed what appeared to be a face had been carved into the stone at the top of the triangle and called the rest of us over to take a look. We all agreed that it looked like a basic face, with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. We took some pictures and continued on our way. Several days later I spoke to Fred on the phone. In addition to being a professor at Hawai‘i Community College, he is a stone sculptor, and while he specializes in Japanese stone lanterns, water basins, and statues of Jizo, he also makes Hawaiian deities. He told me that after our trip, he had a nagging suspicion that he had seen that face in the triangular-shaped rock some-

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where else. He picked up his copy of Peter Buck’s Arts and Crafts of Hawaii, one of the most definitive resources on Hawaiian artifacts, and turned to the chapter titled “Stone Images.” There he found what he was looking for: Figure 312 on page 497 depicts an akua pōhaku — a “stone god” almost identical to the one in Hōlualoa. Arts and Crafts of Hawaii was first published in 1957 under Buck’s Maori name, Te Rangi Hiroa. Buck was the director of Bishop Museum from 1936 until his death in 1951. Fred read the text about the akua pōhaku to me over the phone: After the general acceptance of Christianity, many keepers of the stone gods hid them, either from lingering sentiment or because they were afraid to destroy them by breaking them up. Thus they have been found in caves, in concealment cavities in stone piles, in taro swamps, and buried underground. Some were kept by families, particularly by fishermen, who saw no contradiction to Christianity in keeping a good luck talisman which increased the supply of fish. Some of the hidden gods are alleged to have been located when the god made his material location known to some medium.

Fred told me that although he had spotted the akua pōhaku on the church grounds, he would never have seen it at all if I hadn’t suggested we visit Kona Koyasan Daishigi Mission on our circle-island tour. “There’s a common thread in your journey,” he told me. “All of the stone images you are looking for are related to the ocean, so it was meant to be that we found this Hawaiian fishing god. There’s a definite parallel, too, between your stories of Buddhists on O‘ahu protecting the statues of Jizo and the Buddhists here on the Big Island having this akua pōhaku. Someone knew they would understand what it is and that they would protect it.” On Sunday, May 15, 2005, Harry Yamanaka, Fred Soriano, and I met with Reverend Masaaki Miyazaki and Mikio Izu, one of the oldest members of Kona Koyasan Daishigi Mission’s congregation. We learned that Mr. Izu was the only member of the small, aging congregation who knew anything about the stone. He told us the following story: I was born in 1924 in Hōnaunau, and I remember it as a child. My parents attended church at Hōnaunau Odaisan Shingon Mission, which opened about the mid-1930s. It was on a steep hill in the coffee fields on the Takamoto farm, so it was hard for the old folks to walk up the trail and dangerous for them coming down. They would always say, “Don’t ride the ishiguruma,” which means “stone car.” In other words, don’t hurry or you might slip and fall and

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slide down the hill. The stone was standing at the bottom of the rock steps going up to the front door of the temple. It leaned against the rock wall on the right side of the steps. About 1970, all of the small Shingon churches in Kona were consolidated into one — Kona Koyasan Daishigi Mission here in Hōlualoa. When we closed the church in Hōnaunau, I didn’t realize that we brought the Hawaiian stone god with us, but now when I look back, it was probably Kazuhiko Sugi, one of our oldest members at that time, who made sure it moved with the church. If anyone would have brought it to the temple, it would have been Mr. Sugi. He was an old fisherman. It’s a good thing you folks came and saw it leaning against the wall by the old temple. We’re going to bulldoze that area, and no one would ever have known it’s there. We talked to some of the staff at the national park, Pu‘u Honua o Hōnaunau, about the stone, and then we talked about it among ourselves. We decided that since it’s been with us for all these years, we should just keep it here.

As the story of this Hawaiian stone god played out, Fred Soriano realized that all the stories in Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i have common themes. Early on, I had seen this, too, as I researched and wrote. They are stories of resilient people who were subject to great adversity, including religious intolerance, racial prejudice, and in many cases tragic personal loss. They are stories of people who, in spite of everything, lived the basic tenets of Buddhism, which include showing compassion and seeking peace, wisdom, truth, and self-realization — the foundation stones for dealing with the challenges in their lives. They are stories that inspire us to do the right things, especially for our children. They are stories that inspire us to make the world a better place. In his book, The Hidden Messages in Water, author Masaru Emoto describes the healing power of prayer — especially gassho, or praying by putting the palms together. He also talks about kotodama, the power of words in prayer. With these concepts in mind, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club had the prayer below inscribed on the granite base of the original statue of Jizo that they erected at Bamboo Ridge in 1932. While wind and rain have weathered the characters, it is still possible to read them: With this Holy Image we dedicate our efforts to the deceased. Please bestow your compassion on them. May their souls be free from suffering. May they be comforted. We pray that they attain enlightenment. We ask for an end to all tragedies here. We ask for increased blessings and happiness for everyone.

Timeline of Events 1868

The Gannenmono, or “first-year people,” the first Japanese immigrants to come to Hawai‘i, arrived in Meiji Gannen, the first year of the rule of Emperor Meiji. The Hawaiian government arranged their passage to address the labor shortage in the expanding sugar industry. The first and only group of Gannenmono — 141 men, 6 women, and 1 child — arrived on June 19, 1868, and quickly realized that the hard life of a plantation laborer was not what they wanted. They protested their harsh working conditions, which resulted in some of them returning to Japan, some traveling on to the United States, and some remaining in Hawai‘i. After this attempt to find a new source of laborers in Japan failed, the Hawaiian government made no further attempts to bring Japanese to Hawai‘i until 1885. 1885

When the City of Honolulu docked in Honolulu Harbor on February 8, 1885, the ship carried 944 Japanese men, women, and children. They were the first government contract laborers from Japan, the beginning of a wave of immigrants that between 1885 and 1924 brought thousands of Japanese to Hawai‘i, most of them to work on the sugar plantations. 1908

When the issei arrived, some of them took up shoreline fishing to supplement the food supply for their families. While fishing for ulua, or giant trevally, they were often swept off rocky ledges by Hawai‘i’s high summer and winter surf. Kinsaku Yamamoto, an employee of the Waialua Sugar Company, was an example of the early issei victims. He drowned on November 23, 1908, in Kawaihāpai Bay, but like many of the early victims, his death was not mentioned in the newspapers of the day. 1911

Kaichi Kaya opened the first fishing supply store in Hawai‘i, K. Kaya’s Fishing Supplies, in downtown Honolulu. 1913

Shunkichi Yamaguchi, a stonemason and devout Buddhist from Niigata Prefecture, went to work for the Waialua Sugar Company. While living in Kawaihāpai Camp, which was across the street from Kawaihāpai Bay, he learned that many

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drownings had occurred on this shore. He carved a statue of Jizo to protect fishermen, swimmers, and travelers and erected it on the beach fronting the camp. The Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission blessed the statue and took charge of its care and maintenance. 1922

The Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission, concerned about the drowning deaths of fishermen in the Hale‘iwa and Kawailoa areas, purchased a statue of Jizo from Tokyo. They erected it across from Kawailoa Beach at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Kawailoa Road to protect fishermen, swimmers, and travelers. 1926

A group of issei on O‘ahu formed the Atlapac Fishing Club, the first ulua fishing club established in Hawai‘i. They took their name from a fishing reel manufacturer. 1928

A group of issei in Waipahu erected a kawamori (“river protector”) Jizo on the bank of Kapakahi Stream at the intersection of Farrington Highway and Waipahu Depot Road. The statue was put up in response to children who had drowned in the stream and to protect the children who fished and swam there. 1929

A group of issei on O‘ahu formed the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, the second ulua fishing club established in Hawai‘i. Club officers were Takeo Shigeno, president; Waichiro Izumi, vice president; Tokio Ishida, secretary; Z. Matsumoto, treasurer; Kumahichi Ito and Mitsuki Numata, auditors; and Nobuichi Ishida and Kaichi Kaya, advisors. 1930

During the early 1930s, a group of issei in Wahiawā erected the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo on the bank of the Kaukonahua River at the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Avocado Street. The statue was put up in response to swimmers, especially children, who were drowning in the stream. A second statue of Jizo was erected at the west end of California Avenue, where it overlooked Lake Wilson, the lake that is formed by the damming of Kaukonahua Stream. 1931

March to September: The Territory of Hawai‘i selected E. E. Black, Ltd., a local construction company, to extend Kalaniana‘ole Highway from Hanauma Bay to Sandy Beach. Black began construction in March and completed the highway, including three bridges, six months later in September.

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July 18: One of the earliest known fishing fatalities on the Koko Head sea cliffs was Misaku Kurihara, who drowned at Portlock Point when he was swept off a ledge by high surf. The Nippu Jiji noted that Kurihara died “in the treacherous waters which have taken so many lives in the past.” November 5: Honolulu Japanese Casting Club members announced a community service project to put up warning signs on the shoreline of O‘ahu where fishermen had drowned. The warning signs were wooden 4" × 4" obelisk-shaped posts that were 6' 10" in length. They were painted white with the Japanese word “kiken” and its English translation, “danger,” painted in red on their sides. December 20: On Sunday morning, Zensaku Uchibori, a member of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, and twenty other club members went to the Koko Head sea cliffs to put up two warning signs. While walking on a ledge on the west side of Bamboo Ridge, Uchibori and Takeo Shigeno were struck by a huge wave sweeping over the rocks. Shigeno was able to hold on, but Uchibori was washed into the ocean, where he drowned. December 21: The English newspapers, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, carried brief articles on Zensaku Uchibori’s death, but the Japanese newspapers, the Hawaii Hochi and the Nippu Jiji, carried long and especially detailed articles. The Hawaii Hochi noted that Uchibori drowned in the same place where a man named Kurashita also drowned and that the area was known for its many victims over the years. December 22–28: The Hawaii Hochi and the Nippu Jiji continued their detailed coverage of the Uchibori drowning, search, and funeral. After the funeral, members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club decided to buy a statue of Jizo and erect it in Koko Head Regional Park above Bamboo Ridge. 1932

January to August: Honolulu Japanese Casting Club members ordered a statue of Jizo from Japan. The statue was sculpted in granite by Yonekichi Kumano, a famous stone sculptor in Hiroshima. August 25: The statue arrived in Honolulu from Hiroshima aboard the Tatsuda Maru. Iwakichi Hatanaka, a stonemason in Mō‘ili‘ili, inscribed the words “Shonanyoke Jizo Bosatsu,” or “Jizo Buddha to prevent accidents at sea,” in the base of the statue. August 31: Hasuike Construction Company of Mō‘ili‘ili hauled the statue out to Koko Head. Company owner Kamejiro Hasuike and members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club erected the statue. September 11: Bishop Jitsuei Tanjo of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i dedicated the statue with a kaigen, or “eye-opening” ceremony, that was attended by hundreds of people, including many political dignitaries.


1933

In an almost identical drowning nearly two years to the day after the death of Zensaku Uchibori, Hisaji Yamagata drowned near Palea Point, the east point of Hanauma Bay. The Honolulu Japanese Casting Club erected an obelisk warning sign at the site and Reverend Tenran Mori of the Mō‘ili‘ili Higashi Hongwanji Mission conducted an oceanside memorial service. 1934

After the accidental drowning of his two-year old daughter in the ocean, Reverend Buntetsu Miyamoto of the Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission erected a statue of Jizo on the beach fronting the mission to protect children, swimmers, and travelers. 1939

Vandals severely damaged the statue of Jizo at Koko Head. Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club left its granite base at the site, but took the statue to stonemason Sentaro Otsubo’s home at the corner of Coolidge and King Streets in Mō‘ili‘ili. 1940

Sentaro Otsubo carved a bas-relief image of Jizo into the face of a heavy lava boulder. He also carved the words “Umi Mamori Jizo Zon,” or “Guardian of the Sea Jizo,” into the side of the boulder. June 24: Members of the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club erected the new monument above Bamboo Ridge, placing the boulder on the granite base of the original statue. Bishop Koten Suetomi of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i conducted the kaigen, or “eye-opening” ceremony. 1941

The bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into World War II stopped the obelisk warning sign project and the siting of statues of Jizo. By this time the issei had erected over fift y obelisks and seven statues of Jizo — four on the shoreline and three on inland streams — to protect people fishing and swimming in the ocean and in streams. 1952

Stonemason Sentaro Otsubo passed away on February 6, 1952, but made a head of granite and placed it on the original Umi Mamori Jizo statue before he died. 1963

Sentaro Otsubo’s daughter, Yakue Natsuyama, offered the original Umi Mamori Statue to Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, but members of the temple declined to accept it.

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Mrs. Natsuyama offered the statue to Pālolo Kwannon Temple. Reverend Richard Matsumoto agreed to accept it and installed the statue with a ceremony on the grounds of his temple, where it stands today. 2003

Members of the Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission relocated the Kawailoa Jizo to the grounds of their temple for their hundredth anniversary celebration, which took place in October 2004. 2004

August 17: Members of the Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission relocated a second statue, the Kawaihāpai Jizo, to the grounds of their temple for their hundredth anniversary celebration in October of the same year. December 12: Members of the Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission dedicated their new Jizo-do, the roofed, three-sided shelter that is home to the Kawaihāpai Jizo, the Kawailoa Jizo, and the Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo. 2005

June: A statue of Jizo was installed with a kaigen ceremony in Lili‘uokalani Gardens on Waiākea Peninsula in Hilo. Carved by Hilo stone sculptor Fred Soriano, it replaced another statue of Jizo that stood in the park, a statue that was severely damaged by vandals. Soriano hoped the new statue, which was carved of a hard volcanic rock, would be vandal-proof. August: Dr. Elizabeth Char, director of the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, and Ralph Goto, director of the Ocean Safety Division, convened a task force to address the high number of drownings occurring at Portlock Point. Task force members considered installing warning markers there and at other places where people were drowning similar to those put up in the 1930s by the Honolulu Japanese Casting Club. September: Vandals seriously damaged the statue of Jizo in Lili‘uokalani Gardens in Hilo. Stone sculptor Fred Soriano transported it back to his home, where he was able to repair the damage. November: Portlock Point task force member Jimmy Barros made a prototype obelisk warning marker and showed it on November 10 at the annual statewide Ocean Safety and Drowning Prevention Conference in Honolulu. Also in November, stone sculptor Fred Soriano found a new home for the statue of Jizo in a Japanese Zen garden at the Hilo Senior Center, which is also known as the Kamana Senior Center. Soriano wanted a name for the statue that would speak to the compassion of Buddhism, a name that would forgive those who damaged this statue and the one that stood in Lili‘uokalani Gardens before it. He chose the name “Tsumi Yurushi Jizo,” or “Jizo who forgives wrongdoings,” which was suggested by


Reverend Hirotaka Sato, a Soto Zen minister in Honolulu. Reverend Earl Ikeda of the Puna Hongwanji Mission rededicated the statue. December: Ocean Safety lifeguards Jimmy Barros and Kevin Allen made a fullsized obelisk warning sign and installed it in the Koko Kai Beach Right-of-Way, a small shoreline park at Portlock Point.

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Index Abeshima, Reverend Leonard, 133 ‘Aiea Ebisu Jinja, 50, 51 Akiko’s Buddhist Bed and Breakfast, 46, 47 Akimoto, May Fumiko, 102, 112, 124, 125, 155 Akiyama, Reverend Taiken, 150 aku fishing, 4 akua pōhaku, 168 Allen, Kevin, 164 ama, 52, 53 Amano, Reverend Daiya, 50 Anahola, 6 ‘āpapa, 6 Arai, Abbot Sekizen, 40 Arakawa, Goro, 51 Arine, Reverend Torako, 49 Atlapac Fishing Club, 16, 17, 90 ayu, 6

bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa), 76, 147, 148 bodhisattva, 19, 20, 24, 51, 147, 149 bosatsu, 20 Brown, Lieutenant Governor Raymond, 111, 112 Buddhism, xvii, 20, 26, 48, 55, 58, 169

Bamboo Ridge, xiii, xv, xvi, 15, 18, 90, 92, 94, 97, 103, 109, 110, 112, 120, 122, 125, 126, 146, 169 Barros, Jimmy, 164 Bays, Jan Chozen, 20, 21 Bishop Museum Jizo, 27, 28 Black, E.E., Ltd., 92 blowhole. See Hālona Blowhole

Dai Nichi Do, 138–140 Daifukuji Soto Mission, 46, 73 Daitoba Kuyo, 150 Davis, Alan, 91, 95 Dillingham, Harold G., 86, 87 Dillingham, Margaret, 86, 87 Dillingham, Peter, 86 Dillingham Airfield, 60, 70

cane rod, 7 Chagami, Katsutaro, 50 Chagami, Kawayo, 50 Char, Dr. Elizabeth, 163 China Walls, 143, 162, 163 Chuo Gakuin, 119 cintamani, 21 Circle X Casting Club, 16 City of Honolulu, 1 Crawford, David, 121 cremations, 37, 41 Crystal City, Texas, 85

Ebisu, 49, 50, 51, 151 Ebisui, Isamu, 88 Ehime Maru Memorial, 141 Emoto, Masaru, 169 Engelhard, Pat, 48 Enmei Jizo, 24, 149 Enmei Koyasu Jizo, 46 Enoki, Tetsutaro, 133 Esoteric Buddhism, 142 Executive Order 9066, 83 eye-opening ceremony. See kaigen First Bridge, 94–96 fishing clubs, xiv, 14, 16, 90, 105 fishing companies, early Japanese, 4 fishing poles, 7 fishing tournaments, 14–16, 93 Fooks, Bessie, 74 Ford, Alexander Hume, 61 Forty Niner, 51 Founders Gate, University of Hawai‘i, 121 Fujii, George, 27, 28 Fujimoto, Dennis, 158 Fujioka, Yutaka, 109 Fujita, Kitaro, 151 Funai, Brian, xiv, xv, xvi, 10, 16, 17, 97, 115 Funai, Seichi, 5, 6

188 i n d e x

Galanis, Dan, 159, 160 Gannenmono, 1, 30, 31, 149, 150 Glass Beach, 35, 36 Gold Star Mothers, 132, 133 Gomai, 4 Goodale, William Warren, 57, 58, 72 Goto, Ralph, 163 Guzeiji Soto Mission of Moloka‘i, 42, 44 Hakalau Jizo, 46, 47 Hale‘iwa, 50, 58, 59, 80 Hale‘iwa Ali‘i Beach Park, xvi, 80, 145 Hale‘iwa Jizo, 64, 80, 84, 88, 89, 145 Hale‘iwa Jodo Mission, 64, 80, 84, 88, 89, 145 Hale‘iwa Koshoji Mission, 139 Hale‘iwa Shingon Mission, 50, 58, 139, 140, 146, 150 Hālona Blowhole, xiii, 15, 91, 94, 96, 98–101, 104, 106, 108, 110–112, 114, 116, 117, 123, 139, 143, 161 Hālona Point, xiii, xv, 90 Hanauma Bay, xiii, xv, 91, 92, 94, 96, 102, 112, 114, 161 Harahoge Jizo, 52, 53 Harphan, William, 73 Hasuike, Kamejiro, 109 Hasuike Contracting Company, 109, 110, 111 Hatanaka, Iwakichi, 108, 109

Hatsumoude, 150 Hawaii Fishing News, xiv, xv, 11, 159 Hawaii Herald, 36 Hawaii Hochi, xvi, 62–64, 99, 103, 106, 108, 114 Hawai‘i Imin Shiryo Hozon Kan, 27 Hawai‘i Immigrant Heritage Preservation Center, 27, 28 Hawai‘i Island Hiroshima Kenjin Kai, 14 Hawai‘i Jizo Meguri, 141, 145 Hawai‘i Matsuri Taiko, 164 Heiroku Jizo, 55 Henna, David, 16 Heywood, Ralph, 152 Hichi Kasho Meguri, 138–140 Hime Miya, 150 Hioki, Bishop Mokusen, 63, 64, 66 Hirai, Reverend Ryuki, 71, 72 Hirayama, June, 83 Hirayama, Thomas, 68, 71 Hiroshima, xiii, 2, 38, 53, 107, 108, 126 Hōnaunau Odaisan Shingon Mission, 168 Honmyo, Yujiro, 57, 79 Honolulu Academy of Arts, 22, 27 Honolulu Harbor, 1 Honolulu Japanese Casting Club, xiii, xiv, xvii, 16, 90, 93, 94, 96–100,

102, 105–112, 114–120, 126, 143, 164, 169 Honpa Hongwanji Mission, 36 Howe, Jim, 161 Hurricane Iniki, 134 Hyo Chu Hi, 119, 121 ‘Ihi‘ihilauākea Bridge, 96 Ikeda, Reverend Earl, 46 Iki Island, 52, 53 Imin Yosebaka Obon, 149 immigrant prefectures, 2 immigrant workers, 1–3 Imperial Japanese Navy, 30, 149, 150 Inari Jinja, 150 internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, 36, 46, 83–85, 133 Izu, Mikio, 168 Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawaii, 50, 105, 146, 150 Jizo: functions, 23, 51, 52, 89, 107; history, 20; honoric titles, 89; identifying symbol, xiv; mantra, xiv, 23; statues, 26 Jizo Bon, 148, 165 Jodo Mission of Hawai‘i, 141, 146–148, 165 K. Kaya Fishing Supply, 15, 17, 18, 115, 118 K. Kida Fishing Supply, 17

index

Ka‘alākei Valley, 90, 94, 112 Ka‘ena Point, 16, 57, 66–68, 95 Kai‘ahulu, 60 kaigen, 46, 48, 111, 112, 117 Kajitori Jizo, 55 Kalaau, Eben, Jr., 152, 153 Kaleimamahu, Wendell, 152, 153 Kamahele, Craig, 157 Kamana Senior Center, 48 Kaneko, Sadako, 138 Kanemitsu, Tatsukichi, 42 Kanemitsu Bakery, 42, 43 Kannon, 42, 123, 139 kau lā‘au, 90 Kaua‘i Soto Zen Temple Zenshuji, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38 Kawaiaka‘aiea Bridge, 96 Kawaihāpai Camp, 58–60, 68 Kawaihāpai Jizo, xvi, 59–68, 70–74, 80, 81, 89, 143, 145, 147 Kawaihoa Point, 90, 96 Kawailoa Beach, 72, 74 Kawailoa Camp, 10, 58, 70, 71, 74–76 Kawailoa Jizo, xvi, 64, 71, 73, 74, 76, 80, 81, 89, 143, 145, 147 Kawailoa Ryusenji Soto Mission, 58, 60, 63, 64, 70–73, 76, 80, 107, 140 Kawanishi, Reverend Jitsunin, 139

Kawashima, Galen, 74 Kaya, Kaichi, 15, 18, 93, 115, 118, 119 Kaya Construction Company, 149 Kealakekua Bay, 10 kenjin kai, 13, 14, 115 Kennedy, President John F., 124 Kewalo Basin, 50, 101, 113 Kida, Katsukichi, 6 Kim, Moses, 152, 153 Kobo Daishi, 43, 45, 55, 127–130, 134, 137, 138, 142, 151 Koboji Shingon Mission, 138–141 Koga, Toshiro, 63 Koganji Temple, 146, 148, 149, 165 Koizumi, Betty, 50 Koko Head, 15, 18, 90– 92, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103, 106–109, 112, 113, 115– 118, 122, 124, 126, 127, 139, 151, 165 Koko Head Regional Park, xiii, xiv, 141–143, 146, 155 Kōloa, 6, 82 Komagata, Reverend Shugen, xvi, 43, 72, 76, 77, 81, 147 Komagata, Reverend Shuji, 81 Komagata, Bishop Zenkyo, 42 Kona Koyasan Daishiji Mission, 134, 136, 167–169 Koyasan Betsuin Temple, 127

189

Kumano, Yonekichi, 107, 108 Kurihara, Misaku, 96, 162 kuyo, 26 Lā‘au Point, 43, 44 Lāna‘i Hongwanji Mission, 43 Lāna‘i Lookout, 91, 95, 96, 154, 161 Lāna‘i Shingon Mission, 44 Lāwa‘i International Center, 129–132 Lāwa‘i Shingon Shu Temple, 129, 130, 132 Lee, Henry, 78 Liliha Shingonji Mission, 25, 138–141 Lili‘uokalani Gardens, 46, 48 lotus, 26, 88 Mā‘alaea Ebisu Kotohira Jinsha, 49 Machida, Bishop Jiho, 81 magaibutsu, 53 Makiki Cemetery, 30, 31, 146, 149, 150 Makiki Showa Club, 104, 105, 108, 111 mani. See cintamani Mantokuji Bay, 38, 42 Matsumoto, Reverend Irene, xvi, 123, 140 Matsumoto, Myosei, 123 Matsumoto, Reverend Richard, 123 Matsuura, Bishop Gyokei, 46, 70, 73, 75

190 i n d e x

Maunalua Fishpond, 100, 113 McBryde Sugar Company, 32, 35–38 McCoy, Lester, 111 Mikage stone, 107, 115, 126 Minatoishi, Kikumatsu, 155 Minatoishi, Merton, 156 Miya, Gladys, 75 Miyamoto, Reverend Buntetsu, 69, 82–85 Miyao, Reverend Katsuyoshi, 150 Miyasaki, Dr. Seiichi, 84, 85 Miyata, Bishop Taisen, 55, 127, 128 Miyazaki, Reverend Masaaki, 134, 167 Mō‘ili‘ili Higashi Hongwanji, 97, 114 Mokulē‘ia Camp 4, 60 Mori, Reverend Tenran, 97, 114 Mount Hiei, 32, 140, 148 Muramoto, Lynn, 131 Nagaoka, Akira, 52 Nagaoka, Wakei, 147 Nakamura, Bishop Dwight, 146, 147 Nakasuji, Gorokichi, 6 National Cemetery of the Pacific, 139–141 Natsuyama, Harriet, 121, 145 Natsuyama, Yakue, 115, 120, 122 Niigata, 2, 60, 62, 63, 68 Nippu Jiji, xvi, 4, 16, 64,

66, 99, 104, 105, 110, 111, 114, 117, 162 Nitta, Ray, 131 Nonaka, Takano, 131 North Shore, xvi, 10, 19, 57, 58, 66, 68, 80, 82, 85, 86, 89, 107, 143 nyoihoju, 21, 114 nyoishu, 21, 22 O‘ahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L), 16, 59, 66 obelisk warning signs, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, 20, 93–99, 106, 141, 143, 155, 158, 164 Obon, 37, 82 ocean protector Jizos. See Hale‘iwa Jizo; Kawaihapa‘i Jizo; Kawailoa Jizo; Umi Mamori Jizo Oda, Howard, 78 Ojizo Matsuri Day, 143 Okamura, Harry, 6 Okazaki stone, 147 100-Plus Club, 11, 159 ‘opihi, 94, 156–158 “ ‘Opihi Man,” 157 osunafumi, 135, 137 Otsubo, Sentaro, 115, 117– 122, 126, 143 Otsubo Stone Monument Shop, 119 Outrigger Canoe Club, 61 Pā‘ia Fire Station, 38 Pā‘ia Mantokuji Soto Mission, 38, 40 Pai‘olu‘olu Point, 13, 96

Palea Point, 96 Pālolo Kwannon Temple, xvi, xvii, 115, 123–125, 139–141, 143 Pan-Pacific International Exposition, 33 Pearl Harbor, xvii, 36, 50, 83, 116 picture brides, 13 pilgrimages. See Hawai‘i Jizo Meguri; Hichi Kasho Meguri; Reijyo Junpai Dan Tai; Shikoku Henro pilgrimages, miniature sites. See Kona Koyasan Daishiji Mission; Lāwa‘i International Center; Pa‘auilo Kongoji Mission; Waimea Shingon Mission plantation camps, 2, 10, 13 plantations, sugar, 1, 2 Port Allen/‘Ele‘ele Cemetery, 32, 35, 37 Port Allen Jizo, 32, 34, 37, 38 Portlock Point, 95, 96, 141, 143, 144, 162, 163 Portlock Point obelisk, 141, 143, 164 Portlock Task Force, 163, 164 Puna Hongwanji Mission, 46 Putzulu, Clara, 75 Reijyo Junpai Dan Tai, 140 river protector Jizos. See

index

Wahiawa Kawamori Jizo; Waipahu Kawamori Jizo Roku Jizo, 21, 52 Roosevelt, President Franklin D., 83 Rose, Bishop Jikyu, 148 Russo-Japanese War, 119 Sagi Island, 53, 54 Sainokawara, 88 Sakamoto, Reverend Sumitoshi, 146 Sakyamuni Buddha, 88, 148 sampans, 4–6 Sandy Beach, xiii, xiv, 92, 95 Sasaki, Horace, 90, 93, 112 Sasaki, Mokichi, 90 Sato, Reverend Hirotaka, xiv, 48 Second Bridge, 94, 96 Shakujo, 21, 22, 29, 114 Shigeno, Takeo, 93, 97, 100, 103–105, 112 Shikoku Henro, 39, 127– 129, 131–138, 167 Shikoku Hichijuhachi Kasho Meguri, 138 Shimabukuro, Reverend Yoshiko, 36 Shimanto River, 6 Shingon Shu Hawai‘i, xv, 111, 112, 117, 123, 126, 134, 137–142, 145, 146, 165 Shinmachi Tsunami Memorial, 48 Shinmachi Village, 48

Shinshu Kyokai Mission of Hawai‘i, 104, 105, 119, 121 Shinto, 49, 50, 150 Shiratori, Reverend Shyunjo, 82, 87 Sho Kanzeon Bosatsu, 150, 151 Shonanyoke Jizo Bosatsu, 108 Sigouin, Peter, 163 Sodetani, Clara, 38, 41 Sora no Koen Jizo, 55 Soriano, Fred, 46, 48, 167–169 Soto Mission of Hawaii, 43 Suetomi, Bishop Koten, 118, 142 Sun Mission, 32, 33 Taisho Gakko Japanese School, 69, 82, 83 Takata, Shigeo, 139 Tanji, Tom, 51 Tanjo, Reverend Jitsuei, 111, 112, 142 Tatsuguchi, Reverend Goki, 105 Tatsuguchi, Reverend Zenkai, 105, 106 throw-net fishing, 6 toami, 6 toba, 139 Togenuki Jizo, 149 Togo, Admiral Heihachiro, 120 Toki, Wilfred, 62 toro nagshi, 82 Torres, Michael, 43, 44 Tottori, Bishop Mitsumyo, 137–139

191

trevally, giant, xiii, 8, 11, 12, 159. See also ulua Tsumi Yurushi Jizo, 48 tsunami: April 1, 1946, 41, 48, 85; May 9, 1957, 85 tsurisao, 7 Tsuru, Reyn, xv, 126, 134, 142 Tsutsumi, Gertrude, 95, 115 Tsutsumi, June, 115 Tsutsumi, Umeyo, 115, 117 Tsutsumi, Yasuhei, 95, 115–119 Tsutsumi Store, 115 Uchibori, Thomas, 102, 109 Uchibori, Zensaku, 97, 99–101, 103–106, 108– 112, 114, 124, 125, 155 Ueoka, Reverend Shuko, 42 Ueoka, Reverend Sokan, 38, 40–42 Ueoka, Reverend Sokyo, 38, 41, 42 ulua, black, 8, 9; casting clubs, 14; cooking methods, 12; fishing tournaments, 14, 15, 18, 93; general information, xiii, xv, xvi, 4, 5, 8, 10, 90, 159; Japanese names, 9, 10; white, 8, 9 Umi Mamori Jizo, xiii, xiv, xvi, 118, 119, 123, 124, 126, 127, 141–143, 146, 151, 165

192 i n d e x

United Japanese Society, 149 ‘upena ho‘olei, 6 Uyeda, Shigeo, 35 Vogel, Debbie, 86 Waggoner, Mike, 167 Wahiawa Camp, Kaua‘i, 32, 36 Wahiawā Kawamori Jizo, 77, 79–81, 140, 143, 144, 147 Wahiawā Ryusenji Soto Mission, xvi, 46, 65, 71, 76–78, 80, 81, 89, 141, 143, 145, 147 Waiākea Peninsula, 46, 48 Waialua Female Seminary, 80

Waialua Hongwanji Mission, 58 Waialua land divisions, 57 Waialua Lions Memorial Monument, 139 Waialua Sugar Company, 57–60, 68, 72, 73, 88, 89 Waimea Shingon Mission, 39, 132, 133, 135 Waipahu Kawamori Jizo, 51 Waipahu Soto Zen Temple Taiyoji, 51 Wareishi Jizo, 53, 54 White Rock, 67 Wood, Dr. Hubert, 60, 61 Wood Valley Cemetery, 49 World Buddhist Conference, 64

Wright, Mayor Fred, 111, 112 Yamada, Chief Abbot Etai, 149 Yamagata, Hisaji, 96, 97, 112, 114 Yamaguchi, Shunkichi, 60, 62, 63, 66 Yamamoto, Tommy, 60 Yamanaka, Harry, 167, 168 Yamauchi, Reverend Jiitsu, 32 Yasutake, Clara, 68 Yoshimura, Bessie, 110 Young Girl’s Shrine. See Hime Miya Zollinger, Fred, 131

About the Author John R. K. Clark served as a lifeguard from 1970 to 1972, when he began a career with the Honolulu Fire Department. He retired in 2005 following seven and a half years as deputy fire chief. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Beaches of Hawai‘i series published by the University of Hawai‘i Press: Beaches of O‘ahu, Revised Edition; The Beaches of Maui County; Beaches of the Big Island; Beaches of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau; Hawai‘i’s Best Beaches; and Hawai‘i Place Names: Shores, Beaches, and Surf Sites.

Production Notes for Clark | guardian of the sea Cover and interior designed by April Leidig-Higgins Text in MinionPro with display type in Meta Composition by Copperline Book Services, Inc. Printing and binding by Versa Press, Inc. Printed on 60# Finch White Opaque, 500 ppi

hawai‘i history “John Clark has written a remarkable book about shoreline statues of Jizo, a Buddhist figure dedicated to our protection and enlightenment. Erected by issei, first-generation Japanese Americans, Jizo statues served as guardians of ulua fishermen casting in remote and dangerous coastal areas. John draws on interviews with more than three hundred individuals to document the location of these statues and in the process offers us a glimpse of the daily lives and spirituality of early Japanese Americans. We are indebted to him for making us aware of these Jizo monuments and their role in shaping Hawai‘i’s multicultural heritage.” — Dennis Ogawa, Chair, American Studies Department, University of Hawai‘i John R. K. Clark, a former lifeguard and retired deputy fire chief of the Honolulu Fire Department, is the author of six books on Hawai‘i’s beaches published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888 Front cover: Reverend Sumitoshi Sakamoto of Shingon Shu Hawai‘i at the Umi Mamori Jizo (photo by Mike Waggoner). Back cover: Obelisk warning sign at Portlock Point (photo by author). Cover design: April Leidig-Higgins

www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

“Here are stories meticulously unearthed and added to the rich cultural experience and legacy of Japanese immigrants in Hawai‘i. Initially, one would think that this is just an interesting story about statues of Jizo and where they can be found. But Clark’s book covers considerably more. We find, as Clark says, ‘the stories of these statues of Jizo are part of a much larger story.’ What a brilliant and fascinating way to see another side of early Japanese culture.” — Juliet S. Kono, author of Tsunami Years and Hoolu‘u Park and the Pepsodent Smile “Here in the Aloha State of Hawai‘i, where we have a bonding of various ethnic and religious backgrounds, we are protected by many different deities, including Jizo. We are grateful as we journey together on the waves of life that we can find solace and shelter in Jizo. Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i is an inspirational book for all.” — Bishop Dean Zenei Okimura, Koboji Shingon Mission of Hawai‘i

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