Epitaphs are the briefest memoirs ever written

Graveyards are libraries of the past, and epitaphs are the briefest memoirs ever written. In these open-air archives we find many things – longing for someone you fell in love with at school, the loss of your parents or a child.

FAMILY AND LINEAGE

Gravestones trace family trees, migrations, and social change. You just have to wander around to see how some surnames cluster - marking the presence of certain families or ethnic groups - or how women’s identities were once recorded only in relation to their husbands.

By reading birth and death dates, you trace the rhythms of epidemics, wars, or poverty. There is not a town in South Africa where the graveyard does not tell this silent history. For example, a single cemetery might hold British soldiers from the Anglo-Boer War, Boer commandos, and later MK or SADF veterans - the entire century of conflict and change carved into stone.

Family plots reveal who lived and died together, but also who was excluded - the forgotten child, the unmarked servant or the poor, unnamed relative.

EPIDEMICS AND DISASTERS

Rows of identical dates tell of natural disasters, bus accidents like those at Westdene and Henley-on-Klip, mining incidents such as Marikana, floods such as in 1981 in Laingsburg. Or pandemics.

Even before COVID-19, many South African cities were struggling with cemetery space. In Johannesburg, for instance, only a few of the city’s cemeteries still had available land for new burials. In several urban areas, grave “re-opening” (reusing family graves or re-digging old ones) was already practiced, because new plots were becoming scarce. In 2022, Avalon Cemetery (Soweto / Johannesburg area) was reported to have reached capacity. The system was under strain even before COVID arrived.

As early as April 2020, South African municipalities and the South African Cemeteries Association (SACA) warned that burial land was running short, and asked municipalities to identify extra land, prepare for emergency burials, or even prepare for mass graves if needed. Because cremation capacity is limited in South Africa, municipalities seriously had to consider alternatives such as mass burials, communal trenches, or reuse of graves. A graveyard can reveal how a community faced catastrophe - who died first, who was spared, and who had to be buried apart.

CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF

Symbols carved into headstones, such as crosses, Stars of David, broken columns, doves, lilies, or clasped hands, speak volumes of the family’s traditions. African, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish graves in one space show coexistence and change. Rural cemeteries often keep older traditions: seashells on graves, bottles or stones left as offerings, or trees planted as living memorials. Each practice encodes a worldview about life, death, and the afterlife.

TRACES OF GENERATIONS

The language of epitaphs tells the onlooker who had social worth. Men are often praised for their achievements and women for their devotion and beauty. The absence of women’s full names, or the anonymity of an epitaph like “infant daughter,” shows what a specific society, in a specific timeframe, valued or silenced. Reading a cemetery through gender makes for interesting reading to see who had untold stories

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MIGRATION AND BELONGING

Tombstones are the passports of the dead. They record birthplaces - “Born in County Cork,” “of Italy,” “of Qumbu” - showing the movement of people through slavery, colonisation, labour migration and exile. Even unmarked graves, those of indentured workers or anonymous soldiers, point to entire migrations erased from the official record.

EPITAPHS ARE THE BRIEFEST MEMOIRS EVER WRITTEN

“In loving memory of Sarah van der Merwe, called home 14 June 1902.”

“Faithful unto death,” – often seen on Anglo-Boer War soldiers’ graves.

“Mother, you taught us how to pray.”

“Gone too soon.”

WRITE YOUR LIFE STORY YOURSELFEach epitaph, wherever it may be, outlines and echoes a tiny piece of history, a small sigh in the vast expanse of our being.

If you would like to write your memoir or life story and need coaching and a writing guide, contact me.