The African Burial Ground Museum

While reading Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa by Katherine Dettwyler, all you can think is “what if I had had to live in a culture like this?” Katherine Dettwyler is an ethnography that primarily study how children feeding and weaning customs, and continuing malnutrition directs to a higher likely hood of children being more likely to perish from life threatening childhood illnesses, for example: malaria, tetanus, diarrhea, diphtheria, kwashiorkor, marasmus and measles in Mali. She also talked about a wider array of topics ranging from culture shock, breastfeeding, population control, child care, female circumcision, women’s role in the house and communities, and the dangers of fieldwork. This novel really makes you think about what it would be like to live in a world without common knowledge of disease and how to prevent them. It also really gets your attention about the different culture customs, for example female circumcision, I feel like that would be a culture shock to any American.

This act reflects the strong ties between birth and death because the same act is done to a newborn baby in Ashanti tradition. After washing the corpse, the body will be dressed and laid in state on a bed with corpse dressed in varies with age, wealth and religion. A corpse from a royal family is covered in kente cloth with a cigarette placed between his lips and another between his fingers, follow by a coin on his forehead. While the corpse of a non-royal family will be buried with the objects or symbols that is very significant to the individual placed with dead person in death. When burying women or men, women are often buried with their pot while men are buried with their bows and quivers.

The research done on the African Burial Ground has strengthened the public’s knowledge of 17th and 18th-century black heritage in New York. The comprehensive research done integrates scientific approaches and the intellectual, educational and political insights of African American communities. Blakey and the Howard research team conduct research to publicize the lost narrative of Africans living in New York during the 17th and 18th-century. The research conducted adds to the history of the United States and is a reservoir of knowledge about the time period and the deceased. The research does not attempt to speak for the dead but rather allow their findings to speak for themselves. However, when presenting history on a systematically marginalized

“Cave burial was one of the most common ways to put a body to rest. Placement of the bodies were in lava tubes, rock shelters, or hitches that contained several bodies inside. Burying the deceased in sand dunes or in earth was another common but preferred method. Majority of the sand dunes in Hawaii have some kind of history with burial” (Kirch 240). Apart from buried in the earth, surface burials they had also conducted included cremation, which was performed by burning the corpse over a fire until the bones had charred into ash. “When referring to sea burials, bodies of fishermen would be wrapped in red cloth, then put in the ocean to be eaten by sharks. It was believed that the essence of the fisherman would inhabit the shark’s body” (Redmond 4).

The African Burial Ground National Monument in New York recognizes the free and enslaved Africans buried in a 6.6-acre burial ground from the 1690s to 1794 (NPS, 2015). Over time, as the population and modern development proceeded, the cemetery became forgotten. A landfill created over the top of the site, sealed it off from the public’s knowledge. In 1991, contractors were prepping the land for a 34-story, 276-million dollar federal office building (GSA, n.d.). To go forth with construction, contractors worked in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (GSA, n.d.). Together, these acts require publicly funded projects to be surveyed by archaeological field-testing methods,

As children growing up in the United States, educated through our public schools, we learned about the institution of slavery, which was an integral part of life in our country for nearly 300 years. We do not usually question the historical facts we learned about slavery or ask how we know so much about the history of these people (the enslaved Africans in America) who left behind so little written record. In the classroom, archeologists do not receive much credit, but it is largely through their work and research that we have been able to learn about “America’s diverse ethnic heritage” (Singleton 155). In the 1960’s, excavations of slave cabins

The United States is known for the “American Dream”, the material items, our breakthroughs in medicine, our employment opportunities, etc. These are just some of the things the United States has to offer, but the United States also has a downfall to all of the “good” things in life: we think our way of life is better than everyone else’s, and we often judge other countries, especially Africa, for their way of living. We often ask the questions, “What if we go to help them?” or “How can we help them?” when the real question is: “What can we learn from them”?

On October 9, 2015 I went to the Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art along with attending the Million Man March down in Washington D.C. The experiences were wonderful and I was very excited to be at both events. While at the museum I took two tours one at 10 am that was led by a woman named Nkechi Obi. She talked about docent African Arts. The next one was shortly after at11 am that was led by a teen ambassador named Nicholas Stewart, who was very intelligent. He talked about numerous pieces throughout the museum that had some significance to younger minds so I found that very helpful. After the tour I spent some time down at the mall in DC in which faced the Capitol. This was the Million Man March that was a very popular event that brought out many people. I would describe both events as lectures that were powerful and time put to good use.

The graves of many famous people are at Arlington Nationel Cemetary. It did not start out that way. In 1861, a Confederate General and his wife owned the house and the land. That General was Robert E. Lee. His house was across the river from Washington, D.C. The Union Army took over the land at the start of the Civil War. Union soldiers that were killed in the war was buried near the house. These soldiers were poor. Their families could not pay for them to be buried. Arlington was called a "potter's field." A potters field is a place where poor or unknown people are buried. After the war, something odd started to happen. Union officers asked to be buried at Arlington. They wanted to be near those men who had been in the war with them. Americans

For both members of the Native American and African American communities the disturbance of the remains of those believed to be their ancestors might represent not only a spiritual upset but also a further example of racial and cultural discrimination (Sayer, 2010: 71). In addition, failure to properly connect with the two communities led to members of both communities voicing their feelings of discontent over issues of civil rights and discrimination. Thus, as a result of the failure to communicate and reach a common ground in both cases led to the many costly and lengthy legal battles. In both scenarios, the human remains that were uncovered became a political symbol that was used by both parties. Once this happens, there issue of how to

A great many books have been written about cemeteries in Dallas, Texas. More specifically, many of these books are based on the pioneer cemeteries of Dallas's founding families. Many of Dallas's older cemeteries are not in use today for anything more than tours or an occasional local history lesson in a quiet park, and some of these cemeteries have been absorbed by large funeral companies while others are protected by private organizations. Dallas's rich history contains a variety of cemeteries that tell us how burial practices in Dallas have reflected Dallas’s societal changes.

First, indians were disrespected. Their burial grounds were disturbed and often built over(indian burial grounds). The citizens showed little respect to the dead. This only rose when the grave creek mound was found and they charged others to look at the bones(indian burial grounds). The researchers did not consider the culture of the native americans or that the remains were once people. They uncermouly dubbed these remains the king tut of the west Before the us passed a bill that after study the bones must be reburied again. (Indian burial ground). The bill was only passed in 1990 and it shows the lack of though the Government had for the indians. More recently in 1998, they removed 154 indian remains only to build a walmart. They were not only getting their burial grounds disrupted, but their culture was also getting disrespected. They had their children forcibly removed from them and put into a

The funeral procession took up the bulk of the ceremony, and stretched from the deceased’s home all the way to their grave. Graves were not allowed to be

17. On my museum experience, I took it in like every other visit to the museum I have ever had: much like other children expressed wonder and amazement at a circus performance or sports game; I was awestruck and mesmerized by the colors, the atmosphere, and the same restrained joy that I felt evident in the eyes of all the other observers. My girlfriend and I made our way through the museum, blending in with crowds of other viewers to see Cezanne, Gauguin, Brueghel, O’Keefe and the like in the permanent collection, making time to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. But my heart has always had a soft spot for

The poet uses different techniques to bring the out the impacts of slavery on the affected individuals (the slaves). The “grave/slave(s)” rhymed couplet recurs at