New Orleans marches to a different beat

American Visions, Oct-Nov, 1998 by Gary W. Bloom

Mark Twain once said that New Orleans had no real architecture except what was found in the cemeteries. The expansive above-ground cemeteries, with their tombs and cenotaphs, some 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 styles represented, from Gothic to Baroque. Many of the tombs resemble Greek temples or Egyptian pyramids. Others have ornate columns and look like Southern antebellum homes, only without windows.

The early settlers of New Orleans didn't set out to be different. They tried to bury their dead 6 feet under. The problem was that water flows 2 feet under in this city built below sea level, Weighing down the coffins with bricks didn't help. The few Protestants in New Orleans then, whose tombs were relegated to the back of the cemetery 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 some humor in this predicament. No one, however, saw much humor in the ghastly food chain that was taking place. The cemeteries were often flooded, and the submerged bodies were readily devoured by crawfish and crabs, which eventually made their way to someone's dinner table.

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

Oven vaults, Stacked three or more high and sized t6 snugly accommodate a single casket, usually serve 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 decomposed, they are pushed to the back, and the vault is ready for a new casket. The tablet at the mouth of the vault dutifully records the names of all who have been interred there. (The names on the lower oven vaults at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 are now nearly covered by dirt, providing a gauge of the city's slow but steady sinking.)

New Orleans in the 19th century presented considerable risks -- war, yellow fever cholera -- which resulted in an early form of health insurance. Groups were formed., usually along ethnic lines, to take care of the living, as well as the dead. For small monthly dues, these "benevolent societies" would help the sick and pay for burials. After the war, former slaves established their own benevolent societies to assist one another with medical bills, life insurance and other costs that would otherwise have been prohibitive.

Many black social-aid clubs paid for brass bands to perform at parties, weddings anti funerals. These bands flourished from the 1880s through the 1920s, until the Great Depression curtailed their activity. But even after the dawning of insurance companies and the subsequent decline of benevolent societies, jazz funerals remained a vital part of New Orleans' black community.

"Only in New Orleans was a style of music so intertwined with daily life and death as to give not only 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 Press, 1998), photographer Leo Touchet's new 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 1940s. His splendid photographs, accompanied by the poetic musings of Playwright and actor Vernel Bagneris, honor the dying tradition of jazz funerals. In the excerpt below, Marsalis describes the old-time jazz funeral.

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

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

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