Sites of interment, concentrated repositories of unique material artifacts (gravemarkers), and focal points for a wide variety of traditional practices. The concept and physical siting of cemeteries in America follows a distinctive evolutionary pattern closely linked to changing standards in taste and cultural values. Unlike their European (primarily British) counterparts, the earliest organized burial sites in the colonies did not, as a general rule, surround church structures and thus were not commonly known as “churchyards.” Instead they were called, in the more generically descriptive terms, “burying ground,” “burial ground,” or “graveyard.” The term “cemetery” itself, deriving from the Greek word for sleeping chamber, would not gain general currency until the early 19th century, eventually to be challenged in the 20th century by the even more euphemistic “memorial park.” Community burial grounds in New England and other areas of early American settlement, though they often had recognizable perimeters, generally lacked formal patterns of internal organization and—other than the gravemarkers themselves—overtly decorative qualities. Markers were arranged rather haphazardly, with scant attention to precise alignment, and their placement within the yard was more often a reflection of death date than familial or social status. Formal pathways, secondary plantings, and other decorative alterations to the landscape were infrequendy employed, all of this symbolically in keeping with prevailing attitudes toward death, which viewed it as a grim necessity untempered by elements of sentimentality or, for that matter, undue hopes for a blissful afterlife. By the early years of the 19th century, burial grounds situated within burgeoning urban areas were becoming filled to capacity and were viewed as both eyesores and health hazards. These factors, combined with, on the one hand, a practical desire to utilize valuable urban real estate in a more profitable manner, and, on the other, aesthetic and philosophical considerations deriving from European Romanticism, helped create a radically new concept in cemetery design and function. Located outside existing urban boundaries, on sites specifically chosen for their topographical and horticultural qualities, these new “rural” cemeteries, characterized by their tasteful blending of splendid monuments with other natural and ornamental features, became sentimentalized landscapes of memory, often functioning as the forerunners of urban parks, and would set the tone for cemetery design into the next century. The last phase of this evolutionary process—and that which has come to dominate 20th-century cemetery design—is the “memorial park,” a generally nondescript landscape featuring markers set flush to the ground surface and a minimum of plantings or other decorative features. Along with these developments has come the trend of memorial parks serving as “one-stop shopping” centers for funerary purposes, one convenient location where all necessary services—mortuary, burial (or crematory), floral, monumental, even nonsectarian religious—can be arranged in a single transaction. To many, such places would seem to epitomize not only late-20th-century Americans’ obsession with convenience, but also the enormous distance they have contrived to place between themselves and the fact of death itself. While the majority of cemeteries in America have always been municipally or privately controlled operations, a sizable proportion of them were initially created, and in many instances are still maintained, by various fraternal, religious, and ethnic groups. Though they share many of the features of the “mainstream” cemeteries, these sites, owing to the specialized nature of their clientele, frequently exhibit a number of highly unusual and meaningful qualities, particularly with regard to gravemarker iconography and ritual funerary and remembrance patterns. Nowhere is this more evident than in the large number and wide variety of ethnic cemeteries found in America, wherein it is possible, among other things, to chart the shifting balance over time between patterns of cultural retention and assimilation. Traditional practices associated with cemeteries, one of their least-studied features, are widespread and vary considerably along historical, regional, and ethnic lines. The evolution of the typical American funeral—particularly its gravesite elements—from the elaborate processions of the Puritans and highly codified mourning behaviors of the Victorians to the essentially sanitized ceremonies of the late 20th century serves as one telling indication of historic changes in the manner in which Americans have chosen to ritualize this significant rite of passage. Among the more interesting of regional patterns in cemetery-related ritual is the practice, widespread throughout much of America’s Upland South areas, of Decoration Day, an annual time of cleaning, repair, and decoration closely allied to concepts of familial and community solidarity. Ethnic groups provide some of the most interesting and colorful of all such traditions. Frequently annual in occurrence and centered around familial customs of ancestor worship, these ethnic traditions include practices ranging from Louisiana Cajun grave painting to the cemeteryspecific elements of such festivals as Ching Ming (Chinese), O Bon (Japanese), and La Dia de los Muertos (Mexican). Finally, cemeteries provide the stimulus and focal point for an astounding variety of traditional practices, beliefs, and even narrative forms prominent in American folklore. From proverbial utterances such as “whistling past the graveyard” to superstitions and popular beliefs (such as “When a grave sinks early, another will follow soon”) to blues and other musical forms (like John Lee Hooker’s “Graveyard Blues”), cemeteries function as a metaphorical context for a number of elements of folk wisdom and sentiment. Legends of all sorts, ranging from traditional ghostlore to accounts of weeping sculpted angels and telephones in mausoleums, feature cemeteries as their primary setting. Sad to say, even destructive forms of behavior such as cemetery vandalism may be viewed as essentially folkloric activities, especially when practiced—as is most frequendy the case—by age- and gender-specific groups as rituals of initiation, bonding, and status enhancement. In America, as elsewhere, cemeteries are outdoor museums—of history certainly, but also of art, architecture, ethnicity, regionalism, and a host of other elements of cultural evolution. For the folklorist, they represent a substantial body of readily available resources whose full potential has been barely explored. Richard E.Meyer
References
Farrell, James J. 1980. Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830–1920. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Jackson, Kenneth, and Camillo Jose Vergara. 1989. Silent Cities: The Evolution of the American Cemetery. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Linden-Ward, Blanche. 1989. Silent City on a Hill: Landscapes of Memory and Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Meyer, Richard E., ed. 1992. Cemeteries and Gravemarkers: Voices of American Culture. Logan: Utah State University Press. ——. 1993. Ethnicity and the American Cemetery. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. Sloan, David Charles. 1991. The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.