By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

The January Grand Sumo Tournament kicked off last weekend on the Nippon network. It's not as interesting anymore without Akebono or Musashimaru on the dohyo. But maybe I can wet your appetite with a few sumo stories of Our Honolulu that you've never heard before.

As you probably know, Jesse Kuhaulua from Maui is credited with being the first athlete from Hawai'i to break into professional sumo ranks in Japan. He did it in 1964.

Now comes retired dentist Sidney Kashiwabara on Kolohala Street in Wai'alae-Kahala with the news that his uncle, Shigeru Kashiwabara, from Mo'ili'ili, went to Japan in 1913 and wrestled for the Ohtori stable. He was 6 feet, 235 pounds. But he loved sake, didn't apply himself and failed to progress.

Shigeru got his talent for sumo from his father, Kihachi Kashiwabara, the pioneer of sumo in Hawai'i. Before Kihachi came to Hawai'i in 1889 at about age 18, he wrestled in the Osaka Zumo as a makuuchi with a rank of maegashira-5.

Kihachi and his young wife, Shika, were assigned to He'eia Plantation on Windward O'ahu, then went to Niuli'i Plantation in Kohala, Hawai'i. A powerful 6-footer, Kihachi picked up a plantation overseer who mistreated him and threw him to the ground.

Another overseer heard about the sumo wrestler. He was Joe Fern, who later became mayor of Honolulu. Fern asked Kihachi to teach him sumo, so they built a dohyo (ring) and Fern took lessons. This would be about 1890.

From Kohala, the Kashiwabaras moved to Mo'ili'ili in in 1893 where they were the first Japanese family in the neighborhood. They lived in a house with a big yard behind what is now Star Market and across King Street from the Mo'ili'ili Community Center.

By this time three sons had come along — Hans Hanruko, Shigeru and Tadashi, all big and muscular like their father. Kihachi built a dohyo in front of his stables so he could teach them sumo.

Sidney said he remembers the dohyo that was still there in the 1920s and 1930s. He said 15 to 20 young men came every night to practice holds. His grandmother, Shika, fed them all from a huge barrel of takuwan (pickled radish). She made mounds of musubi and fish cake.

"My uncle Tadashi got his kesho-mawashi (ceremonial apron) at a big tournament on our dohyo in 1924," said Sidney. "People brought sacks of rice and tubs of shoyu as gifts. It made a mountain in front of the house."

He said the Kashiwabara dohyo was one site for sumo tournaments in Our Honolulu. Matches were also held at the Japanese Consulate in Nu'uanu Valley, in Palama, and at the Mo'ili'ili Open Air Theater and the Mo'ili'ili Nishi Hongwanji Temple. Families brought bentos and sat on the grass for a day of watching sumo. The sumo name of the Kashiwabaras was Sendagawa.