The Yoronese show a great reverence toward their ancestors. Homes have lines of ancient photos  decorating the picture rails -  old faces from the past, many of them looking strikingly similar to Geronimo or Sitting Bull, even the females.

    A burial tradition, perhaps unique to this island and certainly to the rest of Japan (where it is illegal), is followed in Yoron.  After bodies are buried,  a small wooden house replica is erected at the graveside. This is a temporary residence for the soul of the departed.  Into this are placed a sampling of that person's daily life. Also his /her bad habits follow them to the hereafter as their favorite brand of cigarette and booze are also placed in and around the little house.

 The house remains in the burial plot for seven years while the nearby grave is covered with boulders (probably while the family saves up to afford one of the fancy granite tombs.) Fresh supplies of rice balls and other goodies are delivered periodically. 

    Now, here's the surprising bit.  At the end of seven years the house and its belongings are ceremoniously burned and the body dug up, or what's left of it.   A party ensues. Yes, a party.

    Family members sit around happily cleaning the bits and pieces of the deceased, at the same time swigging the local brew. (Few gatherings in Yoron are complete without it).  When bones are all spruced up they are returned to the earth and the departed is left to lie in peace and purity for the rest of eternity.

    Sadly, in this summer's historically bad typhoons most of these wooden miniature house were destroyed. Also, a couple of graveyards were inundated by high waves.  Ancestral remains were swept into a great drift at one end of a field.  The graveyard and its family  plots are being restored, but the problem for many people has been  - which bits belong to grandpa?