.
THE JAPANESE CEMETERY
by Kevin
The bends, Obon and the men from Wakayama
Broome at the turn of the century was as well known on the streets of London
as any Australian city. Ships from all over the world called in to this tropical
port to take on cargo's of pearl shell. The streets of Chinatown were alive with a
cosmopolitan population that lived crowded along the foreshore.
Today tourists in Broome often search in vain for evidence of this pearling hey
day. The same foreshore where hundreds of Asians lived and worked is now
deserted. Empty lots in Chinatown once housed large commercial emporiums.
Sheba lane is now a sandy track. What happened? Where did it all go?
The answer is of course that the Broome of old was built with pearling in mind,
not posterity. Men after quick rewards came to Broome, tacked together
buildings of timber and corrugated tin then sailed off in search of shell: When
the pearling industry collapsed they left and the structures they abandoned fell
into rapid decay.
Today it is the men, women and children walking along Broome's pindan verges
who define the legacy left by the pearling industry. Their faces are reflections of
those who established the town, their stories the living history of the area.
Those wanting to gain insight into the Broome pearling industry through
structural evidence should not look so closely among the houses of the living,
but rather drive to the main Broome cemetery at top of Anne Street and there
walk among the monuments to the dead. Nowhere is the legacy left by
Broome's hey day more evident than at the Japanese cemetery. Here the silent
rows of tombstones testify to the dangers of the deadly game of pearling and
the sacrifices made by those brave men who played it.
It is perhaps the greatest irony of the Broome pearling industry that the
Japanese, who made such a determined and successful effort to establish
themselves as divers within the fleets, would as a result suffer the greatest
casualties in the search for shell.
Visitors to the Japanese cemetery unable to read the language may be interested
to know that the typical Japanese tombstone contains the following information:
the name of the individual, his place of birth, his age and date of death along
with the names of those who put up the marker.
Armed with this knowledge and in the company of a person who reads
Japanese and speaks English, a visit to the Japanese cemetery reveals a number
of interesting details.
It appears that many of the unfortunate Japanese men buried here were born in a
place called 'Wakayama' in the south-east corner of Honshu, Japan's main
island. People from this region have historically followed the God of the Sea
called Namikiri-Fudo arid are famous for their abilities as fisherman and divers.
A few of the tombstones in the Japanese cemetary are dedicated not to the
memory of individuals, but to whole groups of individuals. A tall obelisk rises
from the middle of the Japanese cemetary to commemorate those who died on
April 26th, 1908. It reads: 'In that year, near La Grange Mission, forty one
luggers were sunk and forty men died. This memorial was built by the survivors.
Nearby a smaller tombstone remembers another disaster. It is dedicated to five
Japanese men aged 28, 21, 29, 26, and 21 who worked for the Smith Company.
They all died the same day in circumstances that history fails to record.
Cyclones, those terrible disasters that arbitrarily ripped into the fleets sending
divers, deck hands and skippers to early graves proved equally fatal for all the
Asian nationalities including the Japanese.
The dates of death on most of the individual tombstones are often found in
sequences. This indicates no sudden tragedy, but instead a steady death rate
that progressed from month to month. Unquestionably these Japanese deaths
were a result of the bends.
During Broome's pearling hey day an incredible average of thirty three divers a
year were falling victim to this excruciatingly painful and largely misunderstood
'disease.
Japanese divers must have regularly attended these burials and watched as the
rows grew longer and longer. Why would the they knowing these dangers
continue to use every means at their disposal to ensure that they became the
divers of the pearling industry?
Clearly money was a factor, but it is just as probable that for the these men
honour, pride and bravado played an equally important part in their fateful
decision. Many were undoubtedly more prepared to risk their lives than they
were to risk a lose of face.
Most of the Japanese tombstones have bottles embedded in their foundations.
These are part of the yearly Shinto festival called 'Obon.' On August 15th, the
Japanese pay their respects to the dead by cleaning the grave sites and leaving
offerings of food, flowers and saki to the spirits.
An intricate part of 'Obon' is called the 'Shoro Nagashi' or the flow of the
spirits. In this ceremony relatives gather the grave offerings and in the evening
place them into small, delicate boats made of bamboo and rice paper. A candle
is placed in the boat which is then launched usually into a river.
On the night of 'Obon' the Japanese community practised this custom by
launching their boats into Roebuck Bay on an out going tide. This proved a
delight for the local children who would follow the flickering fleets along the
shore eager to intercept the goodies on board. Since then the Japanese
community of Broome has dwindled and 'Obon' is no longer a big event.
Today tourism has replaced the pearling industry as Broome's main reason for
existence. Every year more vestiges disappear of that time when the fleets sailed
out of Roebuck Bay on their dangerous quest for shell.
The Japanese cemetary remains however and with it the memory of the
incredible courage and terrible sacrifice made by those men from 'Wakayama.
Story reproduced with permission from Kevin
