Gravesites from My Archives

These photos were taken in the days before digital. I didn't go quite as crazy taking pictures then, because of the cost of film and development. I scanned a selection of photos a while back, including these. I know there are more hiding in my boxes of slides and negatives. Eventually I'll dig them out and go through the slow process of scanning them.

The cemetery in Salzburg was amazing - small, but look at those markers! My traveling companion wasn't much into graveyards, so I didn't get to explore it as much as I'd have liked. We also breezed through a small cemetery in Killarney. I love Celtic knotwork, and was thrilled to see so many examples on headstones.




While in New Orleans, I went on a cemetery and Voodoo tour in the French Quarter. It wasn't one of the cheezy sort. The guide was very respectful of Voodoo, and dispelled a lot of misconceptions about it. We got to visit a Voodoo temple, where the grandmotherly priestess greeted us and explained a bit about her faith and the significance of the individual altars. It sounds like a nice combo of Catholic and Earth religions.

The Lafayette Cemetery is a wonderful example of what to do when you live and die on top of a swamp. Each tomb contains the remains of many people: There's an upper chamber for the recently deceased. After a couple of years, the body has decayed, and the bones can be transferred to the lower chamber when a new body needs to be interred. Some are/were family tombs, but space in the cemetery is at a premium, so many hold a multitude of people who have no strong connection to each other. Plaques on the side tell visitors who lies in the tomb, and some have extra plaques on the sides.

      

Marie Laveau was a self-proclaimed Voodoo priestess living before the abolition of slavery. She was responsible for the popular misconception of Voodoo, using scare tactics to keep other slaves (and perhaps some whites) in line. She's still quite popular, and admirers leave grave presents and mark her tomb with Xs - I can't recall if it's a protective sign or something else. The locals are apparently not happy about the defacement of the tomb, especially those who have ancestors sharing the space.


The cemetery in Whitianga, New Zealand is a basic modern cemetery, but I loved it when someone came visiting in a Parlour Ice Cream car.










In the highly geothermal region around Rotorua New Zealand, the Maori bury their dead as do the New Orleans folk. Tikis are posted around, I'm supposing as protection. Non-Maori were not allowed within, so I could only see a little.

      


While posting these few photos, I am reminded of so many cemeteries I've visited. I need to go through my boxes and get some more pictures ready to share. In the meantime, there will be an overabundance of more recent, digitally memorialized graveyards to show off.