The secret cemetery / Doris Francis, Leonie Kellaher, and Georgina Neophytou ; with a foreword by Sir Raymond Firth.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [277]-294) and index.

Burial sites have long been recognized as a way to understand past civilizations. Yet, the meanings of our present day cemeteries have been virtually ignored, even though they reveal much about our cultures. Exploring an extraordinarily diverse range of memorial practice - Greek Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, Roman Catholic and Anglican, as well as the unchurched - The Secret Cemetery is an intriguing study of what these places of death mean to the living.

Foreword: The body in the sacred garden -- Studying the living in cemeteries -- The dynamics of cemetery landscapes -- Planting the memory : the cemetery in the first year of mourning -- The grave as home and garden -- Negotiating memory : remembering the dead for the long term -- Keeping kin and kinship alive -- Cemeteries as ethnic homelands -- Change and renewal in historic cemeteries.