Kogawa Christian Gravestone
Although this gravestone is located on private property, visitors are welcome to walk across the grass to view it. The rectangular pillar with a slightly curved upper face was meant to lie flat on the ground, but it is now presented in a vertical orientation. What is remarkable is the excellent state of preservation of the embossed cross fleury (an ornate cross with three petals representing the Holy Trinity at the end of each arm) on the front.
This gravestone was discovered by Mori Toyozo, a local historian, in 1902; he unearthed another four in nearby Nakasukawa in the same year. These two finds are seen as marking the start of the discovery of Christian gravestones in Nagasaki Prefecture.
About Christian Gravestones in Japan
Of the 192 confirmed Christian gravestones from the early days of Christianity in Japan, 146 are found in Nagasaki Prefecture, all dating from the early seventeenth century. (The oldest Christian gravestone in the country, dating from 1581, is in Shijonawate, near Osaka.) Most of the Christian gravestones in the Nagasaki region are horizontal—either flat or gabled slabs, or semicircular or rectangular pillar shapes—reflecting European gravestone designs of the time. While Buddhist gravestones are inscribed with a posthumous name (kaimyo) of the deceased consisting of multiple kanji characters, Christian gravestones often feature a Western baptismal name. They may be decorated with a floral cross (cross fleury), a double-barred cross (patriarchal cross), or the trigram IHS, an abbreviation of the name of Jesus. Since stone grave markers were an expensive luxury, it is safe to assume that they belonged to the wealthy and powerful. After Christianity was prohibited, some of the horizontal gravestones were upended and converted into Buddhist monuments, hollowed out to make stone vessels for handwashing (chozubachi), incorporated into dry stone walls, or simply swallowed up by the ground. Few of the Christian gravestones in Nagasaki remain in their original locations, though they are often found nearby.