Third year memorial service

It was the third anniversary of the death of Tomono's uncle Akinori. So the family assembled at their temple. It is in Yotsuya in central Tokyo close to where she was born. Families pay an annual fee to the the monks, well business is business, and they look after all the ceremonies. Tomono has many cousins so it was quite a crowd that gathered. Akinori was the last male member of the family of his generation, so Tomono's older brother is now  the head.

The old original temple was rebuilt and put inside a new building, there are now  6 floors of family shrines/graves arranged in vast corridors above. With reception rooms and the main shrines on the ground floor.

After the original funeral, which usually lasts three days, the family regather at regular intervals to do a shorter version again. This happens after 1, 3, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 33 years. So if you come from a big family of deceased relatives you can be quite busy all year round.

The family assemble in the main temple area and then the two monks chant in Sanskrit and ring bells, clash cymbals and so forth for about an hour.(At the original funeral this is about 3 hrs a day for three days). During this the family take turns in coming up to the front. You bow to the assembled relatives, who bow back, then turn to the front and take a pinch of incense raise it to your nose and put it on burning charcoal that is on a special platform  in front of you. You do this three times then join your hands together, pray, then return to your seat. Everyone does it but there is a strict order of precedence. In our case it was his widow, then the eldest son then the eldest grandson then the the eldest son's wife then the eldest daughter then the eldest nephew then the eldest niece (Tomono) then her husband (me) and so forth.

 Then we all go up to the person's personal shrine, in our case on the 5th floor. There is more chanting and incense burning here.

Afterwards we go down to the reception room and there is a large and riotous Japanese lunch. Many good things and lots of beer etc. The monks do very well from all this of course, in many ways they make the Catholic church look like a bunch of amateurs when it comes to extracting funds from the flock.

 The original funeral is an understandably sad and awful affair. These anniversary  get togethers are a lot more relaxed and actually in a way quite joyful.


 We'll be back again soon for Tomono's mother's anniversary and indeed every time we come to Japan there seems to be a memorial for someone. Its actually quite enjoyable and a great way to catch up with the tribe. Of course it's all deeply bound up with ancestor worship and some very old rites.