Sacred Burial Grounds in California
One of the favorite things to do (especially at Halloween) is take cemetery tours, often sponsored by cities. Some tours create an element of thrill with flashlights and night-time viewing, while others are simply historical journeys, re-enactments of the deceased played by local citizens, or history lessons involving who lived and died there, and what their contributions may have been. Here’s a link to last year’s grave tours in California.
When the Catholic church recently purchased the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove which includes a cemetery, some congregants were faced with tough decisions. One lady ponders if she should be buried next to her husband in her pre-purchased plot there. She is not Catholic and the idea of being buried in a Catholic facility bothers her. For her it has been an agonizing time, filled with questions and concerns.
People come, they go, and the living remain for a time, remembering those they have known. We look at our cemeteries as historical markers verifying via gravestones that someone lived during a certain time frame, and in rare cases, a body is even exhumed to answer unsolved questions.
In native cultures the burial grounds are considered sacred places. Many cultures and tribes believe there are spirits and gods watching over the grounds where deceased have been buried. They believe that those places should never be disturbed, removed or dug up. One anecdotal story with a theory that bad things happen when you mess with cemeteries appeared on Unsolved Mysteries. Houses built on bulldozed Indian burial grounds were said to be haunted. Nearly everyone purchasing houses or even renting there abandoned their houses, according to the story, because of odd and scary occurrences such as haunting creatures frightening them and their families.
In my own city a developer built homes on burial grounds within the past several years and one of my friends involved in the project told me she believes the homes are haunted. She was dead serious.
Throughout California there continue to be projects that pit citizens against cities and builders. Several are located in Vallejo, Fallbrook and Huntington Beach.
- FALLBROOK – A project east of Interstate 15 and north of State Route 76 near Fallbrook is a roadway that is to be called Horse Ranch Creek Road is being built with Proposition M money. Large bulldozers and earthmovers continued to grade the road slated to be traveled by hundreds of cars per day. Native Americans say it is land that contain burial grounds.
- VALLEJO – A project Glen Cove has received many protests, and an organization was formed to protest and try to stop the development, including a park. protectglencove.org
