Status in the Graveyard

A few years ago, my wife and I took a mini-roadtrip through the interior of BC.  A friend of our was working at a mine by a town called Likely, and he suggested we go and check out a ghost town called Quesnel Forks.  The area was in the midst of a bit of a rebuilding... I suppose in order to entice tourists to travel way the hell out of their way, in the tradition of Barkerville.

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There was nothing there, except some run down houses and the old cemetery, perfect for archaeological poking around.  The cemetery, for me, was a real eye opener in that one always knows, or assumes, some kind of racist colonialism touched every part of Canada.  This town was no exception, as clearly evidenced in the graveyard.  Separate areas, with signage, for "whites","Chinese", and "Indians".  The status implied here was blatantly obvious...

More to come... It's Earth Hour

...ok, where was I.  The status implied was blatantly obvious: the "whites" area had a white picket fence, upkept white crosses (still to this day) and, spatially, was front in center;  off to one corner was the "Chinese" area, crosses were there, but not kept; in the opposite corner was the "Indian" area with no upkeep, graves were marked with wooden plaques on the ground, barely visible from where we stood.

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Seeing the actual physical separation, even in place where one could carefully assume each deceased was given a "proper Christian burial", was quite interesting.  Equally as interesting, is how we can look at this kind of spatial distribution to investigate something as important as colonialism.  This cemetery can certainly be used as a metaphor for racist attitudes not only during BC's gold rush, which is when the town was at its most vibrant, but also for attitudes across the country.  Unfortunately, I think it would be optimistic at best to think that these attitudes no longer exist.  As anthropologists and archaeologist begin to consider and acknowledge the world's colonial past, let us not forget that we, as academics, hover dangerously close to realms of (neo-)colonialism in our work.

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Ethnicity is still listed on the modern documents out for show.  Let's hope it's to keep the original  narrative intact.  First few lines are pretty telling.

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Interesting... the Chinese immigrants were able to maintain some of their tradition.  I wonder about the First Nations...

(Note: these are not my pictures.  Digital cameras were still REALLY expensive when I travelled here.  I don't really have time to try and dig up (HA!) my pics and scan them.  This person, who took almost 300 pictures, doesn't have a single one showing the "Indian" burial area.  Pity.)