Honoring the Dead
W hat began as a slave cemetery once occupied this site. In that tradition, prized possessions, symbolic items and everyday objects to help the dead in the afterlife were placed on graves. Burial plots were then allowed to return to nature rather than being 'manicured' as was the practice in Euro- American cemeteries.
Unfortunately, cultural misunderstanding can reach beyond the grave. Because miscellaneous objects were found in this seemingly untended environment, the site was not recognized as a burial ground until it was too late: the many "grave goods" were cleared away in the 1970s. Since that time, our knowledge and appreciation of the culture that created this cemetery has grown.
Artifacts recovered from the cemetery
"As the procession moved slowly toward the lonesome graveyard down by the side of the swamp, they sang...
When I can read my title clear To the mansions in the skies I bid farewell to every fear And wipe my weeping eyes
the corpse was lowered into the grave, each person throwing a bandful of dirt into the grave as a last farewell act of kindness... A prayer was offered."
-from A Peculiar People: Slave Religion and Community - Culture Among the Gullahs by Margaret Washington Creel