179 Coal Pits (Yama) in the Old Days (Carrying out the Victim of a Disaster in the Pit)

It was believed that the spirit of a pit worker who died in an underground accident would stay and wander around there as a ghost after his/her body was brought up to the surface. Therefore, after loading a mine car with the body, many fellow workers rode on other mine cars coupled to the former, which were wound up together. While they ascended the slope, they alternately called the name of the dead and cried loudly (omeku or orabu in dialect), “We’re rising,” or “We’re at a certain level.” Soon after upon reaching the pit mouth, they stopped their mine cars once to remove the talisman of the pit deity on the beam of the frame supporting the pit mouth, and then went out of the pit. Then, all of the miners loudly cried, “We’re out!” The fact that every pit worker hated covering his/her head and cheeks with a towel underground had something to do with the above custom.