Epitaphs (III): Posthumous Letters in the Barbanza area

Last January I had the opportunity to visit several cemeteries in the area: Porto do Son, Xuño and Pobra do Caramiñal. As I said in an earlier post, cemeteries attract my attention beyond their function of disposal and mourning. 

They are really a "collective representation," a symbolic replica of the living community. W. Lloyd Warner (1898-1970), who conducted anthropological research of the Australian aborigines and later used that model to study Yankee City, a New England community, sees the material signs of the cemetery (lots, graves and markers owned by specific families) as a way to locate the transformed dead in living time and ordered space, and so symbolically help to maintain their on-going individual identities and affirm their continued social existence through memory. 

As Walter says (1959:285), ‘The cemetery is an enduring physical emblem, a substantial and visible symbol of the agreement among individuals that they will not let each other die’ (1959: 285). In this regard, the poems, sentences or Bible verses that people choose to include in their epitaphs tell us something about their outlook on life and/or death, their wish for the living, their hopes for themselves or even their character.

There were some very interesting epitaphs  that caught our attention and that I would like to share with you.

Simple yet powerful

I don't know how to take this one

Heartbreaking quote for Ramón Sampedro: "Una cabeza viva pegada a un cuerpo muerto"
Photo by Dolores Löpez

Sounds a little bit like a curse to  me
Photo by Dolores López

Paying homage with a poem

Reminiscent of Dr Seuss,
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened"

Reminiscent of Pablo Neruda's poem,
"Tu recuerdo es de luz, de humo, de estanque en calma!"

Quoting Manuel Antonio,
"Fomos ficando sós o Mar o barco e máis nós..." 
(There we stayed, only the sea, the boat and us)

Last wish: "Quero chegar ó final do meu viaxe, sen rencores, nin ataduras, nin efímeros dormidos. Quero mirarlle a cara á morte coa pluma que escribe a miña historia e tamén o meu destiño"
(I want to make it to the end of my trip without any grudges, nor ties, nor ephimeral slumbers. I want to see death's face with the pen that writes my story and also my destiny)