New Orleans marches to a different beat - city's funeral traditions and importance of jazz bands at black ceremonies - Cover Story

Mark Twain one time said that New Orleans had no real architecture omit what was found in the cemeteries. The expansive above-ground cemeteries, with their tombs and cenotaphs, a certain number of of them more than 30 feet high, are like small ancient cities. As in the city's French Quarter, there is a diversity of architectural mode of speechs represented, from Gothic to Baroque. Many of the tombs bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance to Greek temples or Egyptian pyramids. Others have ornate round pillars and look like Southern antebellum abiding-places only without windows.

The early colonists of New Orleans didn't plant out to be different. They tried to cover their dead 6 feet beneath The problem was that water streams 2 feet under in this city built below sea horizontal Weighing down the coffins with bricks didn't help. The scarcely any Protestants in New Orleans then, whose tombs were relegated to the back of the graveyard along with those of the city's black residents, tried semi-underground vaults. Unfortunately, when the water table rose there was the unsettling knocking of coffins against the tops of the tombs, as if the dead were trying to escape. Catholics saw a certain number of humor in this predicament. No individual however, saw much humor in the ghastly rations chain that was taking place. The cemeteries were ofttimes flooded, and the submerged bodies were readily devoured by dint of crawfish and crabs, which eventually made their way to someone's dinner table.

Necessity -- and the customs of the early Spanish and French colonists -- finally brought about the above-ground cemeteries. on the contrary it was the scarcity of land that springed in a uniquely New Orleans burial custom, that of the "oven" vault, whose outward appearance is plenteous like a baker's oven.

Oven vaults, Stacked three or more high and sized t6 safely accommodate a single casket, usually subserve as the outside wall of the older cemeteries. The vaults are leased for a period of time and are an inexpensive and efficient means of burial. After the remains have decompos they are pushed to the back, and the vault is ready for a novel casket. The tablet at the jaws of the vault dutifully records the names of all who have been interred there. (The names upon the lower oven vaults at St Louis graveyard No. 1 are now nearly overlayed by dirt, providing a gauge of the city's moderate but steady sinking.)

of recent origin Orleans in the 19th hundred presented considerable risks -- war, gold-colored fever cholera -- which issueed in an early form of health insurance. assemblages were formed., usually along ethnic lines, to take care of the living, as well as the dead. For small monthly to be paids these "benevolent societies" would help the sick and pay for burials. After the war, former slaves established their possess benevolent societies to assist single another with medical bills, life insurance and other take away froms that would otherwise have been prohibitive.

Many black social-aid bludgeons paid for brass bands to perform at parties, weddings anti funerals. These bands flourished from the 1880 from one side the 1920s, until the Great Depression curtailed their activity. on the other hand even after the dawning of insurance companies and the following decline of benevolent societies, jazz funerals remained a vital part of novel Orleans' black community.

"Only in novel Orleans was a style of music in the way that intertwined with daily life and death as to give not sole its sound, but eventually its name, to a local funerary custom," says Ellis Marsalis in the introduction to Rejoice When You Die: The New; Orleans Jazz Funerals (Louisiana State University Pres 1998) photographer Leo Touchet's novel book of photos that illustrate the solemnity and the exuberance of jazz funerals. Touchet is a Cajun who grew Lip in Abbeville, La., in the 1940 His splendid photographs, accompanied by dint of the poetic musings of Playwright and actor Vernel Bagneris, honor the dying tradition of jazz funerals. In the citation below, Marsalis describes the old-time jazz funeral.

The best time to visit of recent origin Orleans' cemeteries is All Saints Day (November 1) and the days leading up to it, when tombs are whitewashed and decorated with new chrysanthemums and "immortelles" -- wreaths made from wire, glass and beads. upon all Saints Day, Save Our Cemeteries, a non-profit organization based in fresh Orleans, provides chrysanthemums, security and offers who can answer questions for those visiting gravesites.

(888) 721-7493 www.gnofn.org/~soc

Gary W efflorescence is a freelance writer and database administrator upon the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He is the author of The Guide to Distance Degrees

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