One of the streetcar lines that we rode ends at an area of New Orleans given over entirely to vast cemeteries. One of them has a huge, neo-classical mortuary that claims to be “certified haunted”. I’m not sure I’d want my relatives buried somewhere that the dead had a reputation of not staying where they were put, but each to their own, I suppose.
Anyway, there they all are, in serried ranks, the houses of the dead. There are so many that they have street names. But they are not all alike. I spotted an obelisk. And several of the larger tombs bore a distinct resemblance to Celtic burial mounds. There is something odd going on here. New Orleans is, after all, something of a multi-faith city.
Talking of which, the police cars all bear a symbol of crescent and a star, and the local NBC affiliate’s offices look distinctly like a mosque.
No doubt, New Orleans is weird. It is the Crescent City because of where it is located on the Mississippi. The River forms a Crescent around the city. Which is why flooding is so easy.
Crescent and Star are Masonic symbols as well as Muslim. I think that’s where they got it from.
And all the “burials” need to be above ground because the ground is so swampy and acidic. It does weird things to bodies. And the cemeteries are situated where the ground is least suitable for building, ie the swampiest areas.
All cemeteries are haunted. People tend to hang around where their bodies are. Some are just more famous than others.
Still New Orleans has an atmosphere which makes things weirder than just about any where in the US. I think it is the French Cajun and Caribbean swirling around and making it so exotic.
Mm. The dead have a reputation for not staying where they are put I think just as much because when it floods sometimes there are er, exhumation problems.