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This chapter interweaves the roles that religious requirements and cultural tradition have had on cemeteries in North America (Canada and the U.S.); Europe (France); South America (Peru and Bolivia) and North Africa (Morocco). In North America, several religious organizations created their own cemeteries which, together with the notion of burial in perpetuity, have resulted in a vast amount of land use devoted to the dead. In Montréal, two adjoining garden park cemeteries, Catholic and Protestant, have emphasized religious over cultural differences. In Barre, Vermont, a small town with formerly much ethnic diversity, a secular organization founded a burial ground showcasing granite art. In North America, the rapid rise of cremation as funeral practice has accelerated the decline of cemeteries, pointing to massive abandonment in the future. By contrast, in France, cemeteries are few because they have not ordinarily provided plots in perpetuity and because graveyard space is under the control of municipalities. In that laicized system, believers and non-believers are buried in the same cemetery and in proximity. In the Andes of Peru and Bolivia, though municipalities own the graveyards, religious manifestations are ubiquitous. In Morocco, the notion of burial perpetuity reflects Islamic interpretations. Larger meanings derived from these examples are: (1) religious manifestations in cemeteries everywhere indicate a range of devotion (just as in life); (2) over the past half century in North America, secularization has led to the convergence of previously divergent religious categories; (3) societal shifts in the religious commitment are not necessarily reflected in cemeteries; (4) laicism sets strict limits on cemeteries, but does not intend to prevent religious expression; and (5) burial practices can be explained by how societies separate or conjoin culture and religion.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6_31

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