Akebono Tribute	Retirement Ceremony
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What's this? Photo essay on Yokozuna Akebono's retirement ceremony held on Sept. 29, 2001.
Last modified: May 15, 2004

Story and photos by Philbert Ono

Wrestlers from the Makushita Division started their exhibition matches. This part of the program is a little boring, so there were few people. The Makushita Division is the third highest division in sumo. Notice the large posters hanging along the upper perimeter of the arena. They are pictures of past tournament winners.

The program started at 11:30 am with an attention-getting taiko performance on the sumo ring. Then exhibition matches by the Makushita Division wrestlers started.

First, you have to understand that a retirement ceremony for an important sumo wrestler includes a variety of activities besides the actual ceremony of cutting away the topknot. It involves almost the entire Japan Sumo Association, and most wrestlers in the top three divisions (Makushita, Juryo, and Makunouchi) also appear in exhibition matches.

Here's one up close. You can find quite a few of Akebono in the Kokugikan. These framed posters are larger than life. The black-and-white photograph is taken in a photo studio and printed on large paper. Then it is hand-painted in color by a woman who has been doing it for years. Some of the paint has peeled off in the above picture. Also notice that his ceremonial apron was presented by "Hawaii's People" as written on the bottom of the apron. The design shows a statue of King Kamehameha with a rainbow overhead.

On the wooden frame, the top kanji characters say "Yusho" (tournament winner). The left characters state, "Yokozuna Akebono Taro," and the right characters indicate the tournament date (year and month). The apron design includes the kanji character for "Akebono" superimposed with a rising sun design, and a red hibiscus complementing it. (Hibiscus is Hawaii's state flower, and "Akebono" means dawn or rising sun.) Someday I'd like to see an exhibition of all his ceremonial aprons. A yokozuna's apron comes in a set of three because the other two aprons are worn by the dew sweeper and sword bearer during the dohyo-iri ring-entering ceremony.

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