"A Mourning Dirge was Sung": Community and Remembrance at Mission San Gabriel

Summary

Recent research at Mission San Gabriel (CA-LAN-184H), conducted in collaboration with descendant communities, has identified two major types of Mission-period features related to communal mourning. In addition to the known practice of interring and memorializing the deceased in the Mission’s cemetery, archaeological data recovery excavation has identified a series of artifact-filled pits that have much in common with prehistoric and historic Native American mourning features that have been documented throughout the greater Los Angeles area. While the cemetery reflects burial practices and mortuary rites under the purview of the mission’s Catholic priests, the possible mourning feature suggests a concurrent ceremonial practice that may have derived from indigenous ritual traditions with a long history throughout the region. Taken together, these practices allow for consideration of the complicated power dynamic within the mission setting and the ways that group identity and community may have been formed and transformed on multiple levels. When paired with documentary evidence, particularly the mission’s burial journal and ethnohistoric descriptions of traditional Gabrielino burial and mourning practices, these data can provide invaluable insight into the interplay between Native American and Catholic traditions as practiced within the mission community.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Forging of Communities in Colonial Alta California, 1769-1834

Keywords

Spatial Coverage