Sagara Family Tombs

 

My first stop on the 41st day of my walk around Kyushu was at the Sagara Family Cemetery behind Gangoji Temple.

37 generations of the Sagara family had ruled over the Hitoyoshi domain in Kumamoto for more than 700 years. The founder of the family had the most elaborate of tombs. It seems the Sagara were a branch of the Fujiwara.

Most of the tombs had numerous gorinto around them These 5-leveled stone pagoda are a kind of funerary stupa. I believe there are more than 250 here.

The site of the first lords tomb was once a building, and the temple was much larger than now but was destroyed during the Satsuma Rebellion. The grounds of the temple are now built up with a very large kindergarten but the graveyard is kind of dark and still.