Ohigan

On the college property is a Japanese village cemetery from the 1930s and 1940s. During Ohigan the ethnobotany class cleans up the Japanese cemetery. Due to rain attendance was taken photographically. Many thanks to Lino and the maintenance crew for the sharp knives. More was accomplished than every before due to the sharp machetes.

At class start Kiyoe Sato led a chant appropriate to Ohigan in Japanese. The video ends before the chant due to heavy rain. Rain also meant that attendance would be taken using images.

Johsper, Darion, Shanaleen, Kimsky, Kiyoe, Jamie (behind Kiyoe), Pelida, and Sandralynn assist with the chant


Kiyoe cleans around the marker for Hoshino Noritake who passed away in 1945. Jamie, Sandralynn, and Pelida work with her.

Kiyoe and Sandralynn cleaning up around the marker

Jamie worked on clearing the Ischaemum polystachyum paddle grass

Shane with Vincent and Johsper in the background

Clayson

Jamie, knife moving too fast for the shutter speed


The cemetery has never been this clear


Shane, attendance photo

Jade, also for attendance, with an Asplenium nidus frond

May-me and Sharisey 

Kimsky and Megan Ruth

Reinhardt Jr.

May-me with Pterocarpus indicus behind her

Emerika in front of Ixora casei

"...by the 1930s the finest research work was being done at the Ponape station [Kolonia], largely through the efforts of one man, the distinguished agronomist Hoshino Shutaro, who came to the island in 1927 and set about making Ponape the center of Japanese agricultural research in Micronesia.

Shanaleen amid Nephrolepis fern and Hibiscus tiliaceus

Harriet



Lizleen




Kiyoe and Jamie



Kira with Cananga odorata

In late February 2003 Kazuhide Aruga of Japan visited the College of Micronesia-FSM. He came to visit the Haruki cemetery and pay his respects to the graves of his elder brother and younger sister, Natsue. Although the remains of the adults were exhumed after World War II and returned for reburial in Japan, there were apparently infants buried in unmarked graves. Thus the site remains a cemetery due to the presence of human remains.

Pelida, Vincent, and Clayson
Kazuhide Aruga was born on 11 November 1936 in Palikir, Pohnpei. The elder brother died after a couple weeks of life. This happened before Kazuhide Aruga was born and the elder brother was either unnamed when he died or his name was not known to the younger Kazuhide Aruga. His younger sister was named Natsue. Although Kazuhide Aruga could not remember the exact location of the graves, he seemed to remember the general area as indeed being the location of the original cemetery. At ten years old Kazuhide Aruga had left for Japan after the end of the war with the rest of the Japanese population of Pohnpei.

Kiyoe clears paddle grass, Ischaemum polystachyum

Kiyoe 

The class cleared the bulk of the Hibiscus tiliaceus

Kiyoe worked beyond the end of the class 

Lizleen

The view to the gym opened up for the first time in years


A few still working, this view in was not previously available

Kiyoe and Kira

The cemetery is well opened up and exposed on the northern side

Information about Kazuhide Aruga. His sister Natsue and unamed brother remain buried in the cemetery. Kazuhide Aruga was born in Palikir in 1936 and visited the cemetery February 2003.


Kazuhide Aruga's birth certificate


Kazuhide Aruga provided this photo from 1935 which includes his father.

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