Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Samantha Jetzer | 230501-N-ML137-1015 KEKAHA, Hawai‘i (May 1, 2023) Shigeo Luke Masukawa, event...... read more read more
The soft chime of bells ring out atop a small hill on the flat plain of Mānā. Incense swirls calmly through the air where some of the last remains lie of the Mānā Camp, the 19th century plantation town. Graves from the remaining Japanese cemetery are visited by members of Kauaʻi’s Buddhist community and Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), Barking Sands, for a blessing ceremony.
Reverend Tomo Hojo, the president of the Kauaʻi Buddhist Council, and Reverend Kohtoku Hirao, with Waimea Shingon Mission, conducted sanbujo (welcome chant), chanted sutras (scriptures and prayers to buddhas and bodhisattvas), and offered flowers, incense, Hawaiian salt and blessed sand to the remaining spirits of the town during the ceremony. Following these blessings, the reverends and attendees concluded the ceremony by laying flowers at each remaining gravestone and sprinkling them with blessed sand to honor those interred.
Before commencing the ceremony, Reverend Hirao said a few words to welcome everyone to the event.
“Today, we are thinking of the ancestors of Mānā, all of their joys and difficulties, and the many who lived out their lives here. …It is due to the spirit of our ancestors that we who have followed them enjoy peaceful lives…May the spirits of Mānā continue to watch over and protect this land and may PMRF continue to be a safe place.”
The cemetery lies within a stone’s throw away from the aircraft hangar and has graves dating back to 1858. With the introduction of the sugar plantations, immigrants began to arrive on Kauaʻi from Japan, Korea, China, Philippines, Portugal and elsewhere for job opportunities. On the west side of the island, this created what was once a thriving plantation town commonly known as the Town of Mānā or Mānā Camp. Most of the population on these plantations were segregated. Saki Mānā was known as the Japanese camp.
Shigeo Luke Masukawa, event liaison for Waimea Shingon Mission, was in attendance at the ceremony and shared the meaning behind the event as well as some of the history of the area.
“We’re honored to be here and for an event to be put together to pay some respect to the Japanese immigrants who are buried here,” said Masukawa. “They weren’t aware of it, but in their own way they helped contribute to what became a private airstrip, and then Bonham Air Force Base and then eventually PMRF as we know it today.”
Masukawa discussed how he and his family tend their ancestor’s gravesites across the island of Kauaʻi. In an ongoing effort, he also assists Reverend Hirao with identifying Japanese burial sites, regardless of how well-known they are or difficult to access. Reverend Hirao is then able to travel to each one to conduct ceremonial blessings annually. Some of those buried no longer have any living descendants, so unless those graves are taken care of they may fall away. This is why it is common in Japanese culture and society to help upkeep graves even if they are not a person’s own ancestors.
“I think it's good for everyone to recognize that in Japanese culture, tending graves is such an important thing,” Masukawa emphasized. “Even if there aren’t any living descendants, there are still people who care and tend the graves and show proper respect.”
The town was eventually demolished in the 1980s following the economic decline of the sugar production on the island of Kauaʻi and residents were moved to the nearby town of Kekaha. Masukawa explained how his grandparents and great grandparents were all Japanese immigrants who had come to Kauaʻi. His grandfather had begun to farm watermelon in Mānā in the 1940s and later was recruited to head operations for Pioneer Hi-Bred International on Kauaʻi. His grandmother had been very active at the Waimea Shingon Mission, which is where he was inspired to continue to be a volunteer for the church. Masukawa’s family would share stories with him in his youth of their time in Mānā Town and of his grandfather’s farm before the final demolition of the town.
“We would pass through the area to get to the beach at Polihale,” reflected Masukawa. “Also back then it was really easy to come onto base and go to Major’s Bay and the surrounding area. I used to come with family and friends and we used to fish and play on the beach. We have a lot of history and a lot of memories on the west side of Kauaʻi.”
Alex Hazlett, a cultural resources technician with PMRF and a Secretary of the Interior archeologist with a doctorate in anthropologie, remembers a time when Mānā Camp was a thriving plantation town.
“I grew up in small town Kauaʻi and it just kind of made me sad that one of the small towns just disappeared on the island so quickly,” said Hazlett. “Everything I've seen from research, looking at aerial photos and the documentation we have, says that the cemetery predates the airbase by decades or more, so it's like a little window to the past.”
There are currently 49 potential grave markers still within the cemetery. These can range from a distinct burial stone made from local granite or sandstone to clustered rock piles or wooden posts. With one exception, all of the remaining gravestone markers are carved using the traditional Japanese reign name style, where the dates of the person’s death are shown as the ruling year of the current Japanese emperor, and then the month and day of that year. Due to some of the markers being made of softer material, erosion and exposure has occurred on the writing which can make identification of the remaining markings more difficult to read and translate.
“We're looking at markers that had dates or names or locations,” clarified Hazlett. “Those things are usually on the sides of the tombstones.”
The development of the Mānā Plain began because traditionally the area was a wetland. There was so much water that native Hawaiians could carry their canoes from the coast of Polihale on the northwest side of the island inland to the swamp and paddle across to Nohili and Waimea. When more and more Westerners began arriving in the 1850s and 1860s, they began to try using the plain to grow various crops. Kekaha Sugar Company eventually arrived and developed a pump system to drain excess water from the area to make it suitable to grow sugar. This pump system is still used today.
“We have copious water and we have this lush land,” Hazlett illustrated. “If you water it and have lots of sun it's ideally suited for agriculture. So, the plantation set up their fields and expanded for decades into all the productive lands on the plain. The camps were set up to support that and the towns sort of coalesced around them.”
Since the cemetery predates PMRF by decades, it is imperative to continue to conserve and protect the remains of this site. This area has historic value and ties to familial descendants in the local community. PMRF continues to support the local community to allow access to these areas for visitations like blessing ceremonies or to honor ancestors.
“For us, it's just part of stewardship,” insisted Hazlett. “If somebody wants to come visit their relatives, they can do it because this is where they're buried.”
If you are interested in visiting cultural sites on PMRF to pay your respects and honor the past, you can make a request with the public affairs office at PMRFpublicaffairs@us.navy.mil. Inquiries for family descendants or the community about Mānā Town can also be made to oldmanatown@gmail.com.
Legible Tombstone Transcriptions
Names and other information translated from gravestones at Pacific Missile Range Facility courtesy of Alex Hazlett, PMRF Cultural Resources:
Name: Tateyama family
Date of death: March 14
Era of death: Taisho 9
Prefecture: Tamana Gun
Remarks: Husband and wife
Name: Katsuji Mayekawa
Date of Death: April 26
Era of death: Taisho 4
Name: Toyokichi Noda
Era of death: Mejii 39
Prefecture: Gunma
Kawayo -- 2nd girl
Name: Sanjiro Hori
Date born: 1861
Era of death: Meiji 39
Prefecture: Kumamoto
Remarks: oldest daughter
Name: Jintaro Hayashi
Date of death: March 23, 1867
Era of death: Meiji 45
Prefecture: Kumamoto
Name: Isohachi Shintani
Date of death: 1859
Era of death: Meiji 36
Prefecture: Fukuoka
Name: Shizuo Kumagai
Keitaro (father)
Date of death: November 3rd
Era of death: Taisho 8
Prefecture: Fukuoka
Remarks: Shizuo -- #2 son
Name: Koide Fukuoka
Era of death: Meiji 28
Remarks: Child's grave
Name: Megumi Kumagai 'chogan'
Remarks: Keitaro's eldest son
Prefecture: Nagano
Name: Koike Kazusaku
Era of death: Taisho 8
Prefecture: Nagano P
Name: Kango Hamada
Prefecture: Hiroshima Saekigun
Date of death April 2
Era of death: Taisho 9
Names: Ken Yamaguchi, Ine Yoshii, Magogiku
Remarks: #2 girl, Ine (mother), Magogiku (father)
Name: Sada or Jo
Date of death: April 19
Era of death: Taisho 23
Remarks: 2-year-old
Japanese School
Memorial of 30-year anniversary
Name: Suetaro Miyamoto
Date of Death: July 30th
Era of death: Showa 5
Prefecture: Yame Fukuoka
Remarks: 66-year-old
Name: Bunjiro Doi
Date of death: April 16
Era of death: Meiji 42
Prefecture: Torii? Miyagi?
Name: Bunji Shishido
Prefecture: Miyagi
Name: Yaichi Yoshida
Date of death: Feb. 6
Era of death: Taisho 9
Prefecture: Hiroshima
Remarks: 63 years old (built by Mana Japanese community)
Name: Tsuruko Yamaguchi
Date of death: March 3
Era of death: Taisho 9
Prefecture: Okayama
Name: Shinano Suke Okayama
Date of death: March 4
Era of death: Taisho 9
Remarks: 46 years old
Name: Nakamoto
Date of death: March 10
Era of death: Taisho 7
Prefecture: Yamaguchi Ken
Remarks: 52-year-old
Name: Tamijiro Horiguchi
Prefecture: Gunma
Tanogun
Name: Yame
Date of death: May 21st
Era of death: Meiji 45
Prefecture: Fukuoka
Remarks: Child girl's grave
Name: Mitsuga Tomita
Date of death: Oct 2nd
Era of death: Taisho 5
Prefecture: Hiroshima -- Asa Gun -- Hara Village
Remarks: Father Shichigowan
Kichi -- boy's grave #2 boy
Name: Mitsugi Uemoto
Date of death: December 8
Name: Seichi Oda
Date of death: Dec 18
Era of death: Taisho 10
Prefecture: Hiroshima
Remarks: 45 years old
Name: Nagotaro Numashime
Death of death: Jan. 2, 1923
Prefecture: Hiroshima ken
Remarks: 61 years old
Era of death: Meiji 42
Prefecture: Hiroshima Ken Asaguy
Mitsukawa Village
Name: Chosaku Fukunaga
Era of death: Meiji 1860's
Prefecture: Kumamoto Tamana Gun
Name: Kyoiku Kai
Date of death: 10 July
Era of death: Showa 10
Remarks: Ed. Assoc.
| Date Taken: | 05.12.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 05.22.2023 20:55 |
| Story ID: | 444675 |
| Location: | KEKAHA, HAWAII, US |
| Web Views: | 103 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Buddhist Reverends Bless Historic Saki Mānā Japanese Cemetery, by PO1 Samantha Jetzer, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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