Mount Iimori

Fukushima · Japan · Cemetery

At dusk, young figures are glimpsed among the cedars on the hill — nineteen boys cut themselves open here believing the castle was burning.

At dusk, when incense drifts between the headstones on Mount Iimori, visitors tell of young figures glimpsed among the cedars and of a heaviness settling over the slope. It is the boys they mean. Nineteen of them lie buried here, all of them teenagers.

During the Boshin War of 1868 a band of young samurai from Aizu's Byakkotai unit fled up the hill after a lost battle. Through the smoke of the burning town they saw what they took for their own fallen castle, and rather than be captured they committed ritual suicide on the slope — though Tsuruga Castle had not in fact fallen. The victors long forbade burial; only later were the boys given their graves, looking out toward the castle they died for.

FAQ

Where is Mount Iimori located?

Mount Iimori is in Fukushima, Japan.