Families blend divergent traditions honoring death
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer
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| Toshie Mizuno and her son, Asuka, look at the paper lantern dedicated to her grandson, Yuta Mizuno, who died when he was 7. The lantern was one of 1,800 mitama, or "spirits," dedicated in remembrance of loved ones.
Advertiser library photos |
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| Mourner Mark Havenblue drops flowers into the ocean. |
Last December, the wife of a firefighter who died in the Sept. 11 attacks took an urn of World Trade Center rubble and sprinkled it over her husband's favorite golf course on Maui.
Although she had attended his funeral days after he died, she made the symbolic gesture of releasing his memory at his favorite place.
Japanese families of Ehime Maru sinking victims waited for eight months until their loved ones' bodies were found to hold funerals for those who died in the boat's collision with a U.S. Navy submarine off O'ahu. Though it's not certain what each of the eight families did, family graves are customary in Japan.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" has a whole range of meanings here in Hawai'i, where East meets West on every main drag and side street. In weekend services at any cemetery, it's possible to find not only examples of each culture, but interesting meldings as well.
First, the differences.
From the Eastern perspective, the body and spirit are much more entwined than in the West, explained George Tanabe, a religion professor at University of Hawai'i-Manoa.
"The Japanese view of the afterlife is rooted in the belief that the dead continue to live with their bodies," he said. "... Rather than being split in two, the body is attached to the spirit."
The afterlife (what some call Buddha's Pure Land) is much more earth-like than the Christian view of an ethereal heaven, Tanabe said.
During obon season, or the Japanese feast of the dead, filial duty is done by welcoming the spirits of one's ancestors for an annual return in which their souls are "fed," then setting them free at the end of the season in the Floating Lanterns Festival.
The first obon after a loved one's death is very important, Tanabe said, as is a 49th-day memorial service.
Subsequent anniversaries also are important, said Joan Namkoong (Clarke), author of "Family Traditions in Hawai'i."
Depending on how dearly the family holds its traditions, relatives could observe the seventh day, the 49th day, the first year, the seventh year and up to 49 years with memorial services.
A matter of soul
In Jewish and Christian cultures, it is believed that the soul leaves the body and goes to heaven.
Funeral rituals generally are assumed to be for those left behind, and the presiding principle is, the faster you can get the body into the ground, the better. Eastern Orthodox Catholics, for example, believe burial should take place three days after death, and some Jews want it to be within 24 hours.
Hawai'i is home to a host of burial practices, given its multiplicity of religions. Here Roman Catholics are the most numerous, followed by Buddhists, Mormons and many others ranging from mainline Protestant to Shinto.
Ken Ordenstein, the fifth generation of a family of Hawai'i funeral directors, inherently understands this. His grandfather was Taoist and his grandmother Episcopalian.
"My grandfather would take my grandmother to Mass at St. Andrew's Cathedral every Sunday morning," he recalled. "While she attended church, he sat in the car and read the Sunday paper."
Both are buried at Hawaiian Memorial Park in Kane'ohe. When each grandparent died, the relevant tradition was followed.
"What we basically did was have Taoist priest come in to do services" for his grandfather, Ordenstein recalled, adding that as a member of a Masonic lodge, Kenneth Chu Wah Wong was given a Masonic service, too.
Following the Taoist tradition, lisee (a small coin wrapped in red paper to be spent on something sweet) and candy, which should be eaten immediately to sweeten the sorrows, were handed out. At the visitation, they made sure to serve dim sum from Char Hung Sut for the Chinese mourners and doughnuts from Craig's Bakery for Wong's Masonic friends.
Coming together
The melding of cultures in our increasingly hapa state is graphically apparent in the Hayase home, where crucifixes and pictures of Mary and the Christ child share space with the butsudan (Buddhist family altar) and its flowers, incense, candle and picture of Amida Buddha.
Melvin and Eileen Hayase plan to honor each other's religious and cultural practices when the time comes to bury the other. But Melvin Hayase already is breaking with his family's Japanese Buddhist tradition.
Hayase grew up in Hana, Maui, and recalls going to the family grave every year to clean up the site, often sharing a meal there with the family at the base of the rivetingly gorgeous Ka'uiki Hill.
But as a veteran, he plans to be buried at Punchbowl with his wife, a lifelong Catholic.
The two talked at length about respecting one another's funeral wishes. He is prepared to turn over to her priest at St. John's the exercise of certain rituals. She is ready to follow the Mililani Hongwanji minister's suggestions.
"I don't necessary agree with hers, nor does she agree with mine, but we respect each other's beliefs," Melvin Hayase said. "... The only conflict, if there is one, is (for) the living — like myself, a Buddhist, going to her funeral in a Catholic church, going through ritual that's not my tradition. I would have to deal with that, as would my children."
Would Eileen Hayase feel comfortable honoring the tradition of the seven days, the 49 days, the first obon after his death, as Buddhists do?
"If they explained it and that's the tradition, I would. Someone would have to let me know," Eileen Hayase said, adding she probably will depend on her sisters-in-law for guidance. "Forty-nine days? That's an odd day to remember."
And she wondered out loud about her husband following through on her rituals: "I said to my sister, 'Who's going to pray for me after I die, in Purgatory?' "
"You going to Purgatory?" her husband asked.
"Probably," she replied.
"I must convert you to Buddhism before you die," he said, jokingly.
A variety of rituals
In Hawai'i, we find other notable funeral rituals as well, for instance:
• Hawaiians traditionally revere the bones of the dead, the symbol of immortality, and would consider cremation the ultimate insult to a late relative.
"In different regions, we did have a practice that was brought in from South Pacific islands of preserving the body," said John Keola Lake. "They were preserved using different herbs."
Bones, or 'iwi, were the last important place in which the soul existed, he added. Hiding the bones was very important, most commonly for nobility or those of the chiefly class, to keep their mana (spirit) from being stolen. When death took place at home, whoever was present could not leave the compound until a kahu came in and did a ritual cleansing.
• In Chinese funeral customs, which can be Taoist, Buddhist or Confucian, the tradition is to turn away as the coffin is being lowered into the grave, Namkoong said. That way, the spirit of the deceased will not see who is confining the body to the coffin or locking it into the ground, because illness or misfortune might come.
"Many Chinese will engage in folk practices to ward off evil spirits that may be present at the time of a death," she writes.
At a Taoist funeral, symbolic money and replicas of houses and cars are burned so the deceased has money to spend in the netherworld, and firecrackers are lit to scare away evil spirits.
• At the time of death, Filipinos will gather at the deceased's home to pay respect, and inevitably end up playing games of chance, Namkoong said.
• Samoans build colorful structures above the burial site as a way of honoring their dead, she said.
• The calabash collection, in which people give money to the bereaved family to help defray funeral costs, comes from plantation days and is now a cross-cultural tradition, Ordenstein said.
Funerals always are ritualized leave-taking, Ordenstein added, no matter what the belief.
"There are prayers, and generally (a funeral) includes the wider community, a circle of friends," he said. "Grief shared is grief diminished. Joy shared is joy increased."
While Taoists focus almost solely on the transition of the deceased to the next world, making mourners almost irrelevant, Christian and Buddhist rituals often have a dual purpose, helping the living, too.
"What we're seeing more, too, is traditional ritual being modified, personalized," Ordenstein said. "We're going from a fundamental message in the Christian faith, forgiveness and redemption and rebirth ... to more of a secular message, in which life is celebrated."
