Morikami Honors Past With Traditional Japanese Lantern Festival

DELRAY BEACH, FL — Florida's Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens honored the past over the weekend with a traditional Japanese lantern festival.

Morikami volunteers and staff assembled 1,000 lanterns Saturday prior to the toro nagashi or lantern floating ceremony. For a $12 donation, attendees were able to include the names of loved ones or pets who have passed in the lanterns, which were then floated in a lake during a nighttime ceremony.

Patch brings you an exclusive photo gallery of the event, which was a celebration of Obon, one of the most important holidays in Japanese culture and a time of year when families welcome the spirits of the ancestors into their homes for a brief visit among their living descendants, according to Morikami officials.

The observance culminates with the toro nagashi where floating lanterns help departed ancestors find their way back to the otherworld.

"The ancestors are believed to depart for the otherworld guided by the illuminated lanterns and farewell fires," Morikami officials explained.

The festival included a traditional shoryobune, which is translated as “boat for the spirits of the deceased.”

The large shoryobune was hand-crafted and decorated out of straw, wood and paper. It too was set ablaze.

"During the lantern floating ceremony, the shoryobune is filled with tanzaku slips collected from visitors," officials said. "Like our floating lanterns, the shoryobune flames symbolically guide the visiting spirits back to the otherworld."

Shoryobune traditionally have a sail with an inscription down the middle that reads, Gokuraku-Maru.

"Gokuraku refers to the paradise that is the otherworld, while maru is a common suffix for the names of ships in Japan," Morakami officials explained.

In the Spirit of Obon, the Morikami shoryoubune was filled with tanzaku slips inscribed with messages to those who have gone before.

The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach was a gift to Floridians from successful farmer George Morikami, who emigrated from Japan in 1906 as a member of the Yamato agricultural community, according to the Florida Historical Society.

The 16 acres that surround Morikami’s two museum buildings include Japanese gardens with strolling paths, resting areas, a world-class bonsai collection and lakes teeming with koi and other wildlife. A wider 200-acre park features nature trails, pine forests and picnic areas, the Florida Historical Society explained.

Morikami was the last of a small community of Japanese farmers who grew pineapples and tomatoes that were shipped to markets up north.

The Morikami is open Tuesday through Sunday but closed on Mondays and major holidays. For more information visit the website.