At Manzanar, death in confinement brought grief and ritual to a community living behind barbed wire. On May 16, 1943, Matsunosuke Murakami, age 62, became the first of 150 men, women, and children to die in camp. He and 14 others, most of them infants and older men without families, were buried in a cemetery outside the fence in an old peach orchard from Manzanar’s farming era, beneath Mt. Williamson, where hundreds attended funerals and memorials. Some who died were returned to hometown cemeteries, but most were cremated and their ashes kept in camp until families left Manzanar. Giichi Matsumura, an internee who died in 1945 while exploring the Sierra, was buried high in the mountains above. Today only six graves there, including Matsunosuke Murakami’s, still contain remains, because families removed the others after the war. The monument bearing the Japanese kanji I REI TO, meaning “Soul Consoling Tower,” was designed as a permanent tribute to Manzanar’s dead by master stonemason Ryozo Kado, a Catholic, and Buddhist minister Shinjo Nagatomi. Kado built the obelisk with help from Block 9 residents and a young Buddhists’ group, using funds from 15-cent donations by each family in camp, and Nagatomi inscribed the characters, including “Erected by the Manzanar Japanese, August 1943” on the west side. Kado also left other works at Manzanar, including the sentry posts at the camp entrance and additional features in his distinctive faux wood style.