Where more poignantly than in a small country graveyard can a traveler fathom the flow of history and tradition? During the past twenty years, Terry G. Jordan has traveled the back roads and hidden trails of rural Texas in search of such cemeteries. With camera in hand, he has visited more than one thousand cemeteries created and maintained by the Anglo-American, black, Indian, Mexican, and German settlers of Texas. His discoveries of sculptured stones and mounds, hex signs and epitaphs, intricate landscapes and unusual decorations represent a previously unstudied and unappreciated wealth of Texas folk art and tradition. Texas Graveyards not only marks the distinct ethnic and racial traditions in burial practices but also preserves a Texas legacy endangered by changing customs, rural depopulation, vandalism, and the erosion of time.
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"...throw away your inhibitions, forget the ghost stories, and travel with Terry Jordan through the fascinating world of tombstones and epitaphs, the departed, the remaining, and the odd, revealing ways in which we honor the dead... Jordan treats his subject with respect in both words and pictures." Southern Living "...Jordan's wonderful Texas Graveyards is a tour of Texas history in quite a unique way... The book is a genuine masterpiece." El Paso Times
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tx Graveyards--another excellent resource,
By A Customer
This review is from: Texas Graveyards: A Cultural Legacy (Elma Dill Russell Spencer Foundation Series) (Paperback)
For anyone interested in rural graveyard history, this book has it all. Even though it is slanted toward Texas Germans (Jordan is a 6th gen. Texan) and their particular way of burying their dead, southern, black and hispanic rituals are treated justly.
Tidbits:
-in the southern Texan tradition (East, Southeast), sinners and thieves are buried facing south. Everyone else faces east to receive the morning sun, and the second coming.
-All burial rituals in Texas are basically based on pagan theology, but Germans apparently take this idea farther than most - they employ, among other things, pentagrams and other sun symbols popular with satanists.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A superb wealth of information,
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This review is from: Texas Graveyards: A Cultural Legacy (Elma Dill Russell Spencer Foundation Series) (Paperback)
This book is a must have for anyone interested in the Texas graveyards. Written with a more cultural and social viewpoint, it immediately began as an excellent read with many places that you can actually visit for yourself!
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