Hair memorial service

Gratitude to hair,
pride in the trade

Not a memorial for the tools of a trade, like needles or combs, but for hair itself — a rite found almost nowhere else in Japan, held at Ankokuin since 1921.

It began in 1921, when barbers of Nihonbashi, Tokyo offered the hair they had cut to Ankokuin, in gratitude for their livelihood and in prayer for prosperity. Carried on with the help of the Kyōbashi guild through earthquake and war, it reached its 100th service on 24 November 2025.

Today it is held by the Hair Memorial Society, presided over by the chief priest Masaki Nakayama, with the Chūō branch of the Tokyo Barbers’ Association as its stewards.

The hair memorial stone and the 41st chief priest, Rijō Nakayama

The 100th service

24 Nov 2025 (Mon)Event
Open & zoom
Gyokusenzan Ankokuin · Tachibana Gallery
The 100th Hair Memorial Service
“Gratitude to hair, pride in our trade, and thanks to our customers.” For the memorable 100th service, barbers and hairdressers joined hands to give thanks for their daily work and to pray for the future of their trade. After the memorial rite (12:00–13:00), the internationally active hair artist Mieko Ueda — former beauty director of Shiseido — dedicated a hair show and talk in Tachibana Gallery (13:30–15:00), styling the chief priest in front of the Recurrence Flowers folding screen. Master of ceremonies: Yoshiko Sugiyama.
- Report in Sanpo no Tatsujin (san-tatsu.jp) ↗

A hundred years

24 Nov 2025The 100th hair memorial service, with a dedicated hair show by Mieko Ueda
6 May 198560th-anniversary service
May 197650th service, jointly with the Nihonbashi society; the 41st chief priest Rijō Nakayama records the origins of the stone
May 1966For its 40th anniversary the society dresses the stone with a stone fence and frame, at a cost of one million yen
17 Nov 195125th-anniversary service with a memorial for all members who had passed away; afterwards the Kyōbashi guild continued the service as the Mōhatsu Kuyō-kō
1940sInterrupted again by the war
1933The present hair memorial stone of Sendai stone is erected, its inscription written by the Diet member Masazumi Andō, adviser to the guild
1927Revived after the reconstruction
1923Interrupted by the Great Kantō Earthquake
1921Kenjirō Okada — a leading parishioner, a barber in Gofukuchō, Nihonbashi and head of the Nihonbashi Chūō hairdressing guild — holds the first hair memorial in the temple grounds with fellow guild members, to give thanks for their livelihood and pray for prosperity

On the origins of the memorial stone

顧れば大正十年の秋の頃、当山檀家総代の一人で当時日本橋呉服町に理容業を営んで居られた岡田建次郎氏が、其の当時日本橋中央美髪術組合長であったため、組合有志と相計り生き毛の供養によって生業に感謝し商売繁栄を祈念する事を念願して組合有志主催に依る毛髪供養を当院境内で営んだ事に始まったものである。

其の後関東大震災で中断したが、復興成った昭和二年再び供養会が復活し、昭和八年組合顧問であった衆議院議員・安藤正純氏の筆になる現在の立派な仙台石の毛髪供養碑が建立されたのである。

爾来十数年後、今次大東亜戦争によって再び中断の止む無きに至ったものであったが、昭和二十六年十一月十七日復活三年目にして毛髪供養二十五周年記念として、創設以来の物故者の慰霊祭を併せ行なったものである。

然し、この時点迄は日本橋美髪術組合が主催で、京橋の同業組合の方々を来賓として招き供養が行なわれたものであるが、罹災、疎開と複雑な変化の中に於て客分であった京橋の組合有志の方々により毛髪供養講の名の下に供養会が継続されたのである。

昭和四十一年五月毛髪供養講が四十周年を記念して、百万円の巨費にも及ぶ建設資金を以って、玉垣額縁の化粧を施した立派な供養碑の偉容が整い今日に至ったものである。

全国にも類をみない、毛髪供養の意義を持つ、当院境内の毛髪供養碑の縁由を述べると共に、その後設立された日本橋地域の供養講と共催にて、供養実修五十周年を迎えたことを機とし盛大に供養会を処修する事のできる法悦を感謝し、業界の将来の繁栄を祈念するものである。

昭和五十一年五月　千葉県市川市玉泉山安国院第四十一世中山利静謹記

Original Japanese text written by the 41st chief priest in May 1976; the chronology above summarises it in English.

60th anniversary — 60th-anniversary service, 6 May 1985

The origins (1976) — “On the origins of the hair memorial stone”, 1976

The 100th Hair Memorial Service