Objects past, objects present: materials, resistance and memory from the Le Morne Old Cemetery, Mauritius

Summary

The body of literature on slave artefacts and consumptive waste highlight the nuances and complexity of slave life-ways. Despite this, these represent small concessions traded against much greater losses, with the notion of ‘social death’ poignantly expressing a slave’s inevitable disconnect from ancestral practices. Allied to this, but fundamentally different, is the development of numerous syncretic belief systems that have their origins in a marriage between African and European faiths. Thus, burial practice in the past, and syncretic belief today, both represent manifestations of resistance.

This presentation focuses on the Le Morne Old Cemetery, Mauritius. It centres on two material assemblages, both representing resistance but in markedly different ways and at different times. It also introduces a new regional comparative of African religious syncretism, longanis, a belief system that developed within slave communities, and offers both insightful similarities to Atlantic counterparts, as well a unique features in its own right. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Directions in African Diaspora Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 598