Frozen people

When thinking about looking at monuments around Victoria the first thing that popped into my head was stone statues. Sure the images floating through my head were those of ancient Greece and I don’t seem to recall any of those floating around our fair city. No, the real life interpretation of these grand thoughts fell upon the stone statues of Ross Bay Cemetery. I recall going on a ghost tour or two in a younger form of myself and seeing the weeping angel and the beauty of the sculpted, frozen people. But why are there so few? Surely, more than a handful of people or families would want those beautiful monuments to adorn their graves. This logic lead me to believe, that though I could not recall more than a few statues, there was sure be copious amounts of them through-out the cemetery. Yes, indeed these statues would make a perfect object of study for my class assignment.

On a sunny, seemingly warm day my group entered the cemetery to hunt down all the beautiful sculptures. It turns out the style was not so popular as I had imagined. No, through the whole cemetery, among the numerous family plots, there were only five humanesk statues standing tall watching over the still world. We widened our data set to include contemporary family monuments surrounding the statues (one urn type and one obelisk type: all with the earliest member in the mid-late 1800s, as close as possible to the statue in question). Neither the Pooley family angel or the nunnery saint had these contemporaries around them so data on these was solely collected on the statues. 

Check out the who and the what on our map:

                  
                                                                                                         View Statues of Ross Bay Cemetery in a larger map

St. Clare, monument for the
St. Ann nunnery

All the statues were for groups of people, four for family groups and the other a special piece, a statue of St. Clare donated to the St. Ann nunnery. The Saint, as our group dubbed her, was unique, it stood tall, the only tall monument in the near vicinity. The Saint may, then be a monument to honor and thank the sisters of the nunnery for their service, not as a power play, or a show of wealth/standing; things that the other four statues may have been created to do.

Pooley Family Angel

I wonder how many of the statues were created to draw people in, it has been noted that statues can be tourist attractions, drawing in people from far and wide to see the monument (Frazier & Ritz, 2008). The Pooley family angel may be a perfect example of this. This angel was placed close to an entrance, directly next to a path, facing said path. Those entering from that particular entrance cannot help but see the giant, graceful angel. In fact the angel is part of local ghost tours (there is a story of how the angel can sometimes be seen crying).

What did the Pooley angel say about the living people? Was there a connection created/earned through the placement and use of the angel? If I went back and reconstructed the society of the past what would it tell me about the dead (Parker Pearson, 1993)? Would this delving into the living tell me why these family statues were so different from the obelisk and urn monuments surrounding them? I think that it would. I believe that there was something to set these families apart, from wealth to religion, even how many generations had been born here, something made these four families different. I assume that these families may have had more wealth than the others, just taking in the sheer time and effort needed to make such pieces. It seems likely that these are from wealthy families and not copy-cat 'lower' status, due to the limited number of the statues. There was not a huge time gap between the statues and there are so few that it would seem unlikely that people would have had the time to copy the style (or, possibly, the want). 

I do think religion had a role to play in the choice of statues. The Saint was located in the Roman Catholic area, while the Pooley family angel and the Woods family statue are located in the Anglican area, and finally, the Bossi family angel and the Deans family statue are located in the Presbyterian section. I do not completely know the connections between these there sects of Christianity, but there may be something at play here for why someone of this sect would opt for a statue over an obelisk or urn (both were plentiful throughout these sections, particularly the Anglican and Presbyterian). (website to see the sections: http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_sec.htm)

Graham Family Urn
As you can see the work on the
kerbing is intense & would have
taken a lot of time.

The kerb style found on the statues (with the exception of the Saint) and the urns, but not the obelisks may also indicate status differences. Both the statues and urns would take more time and care in carving, while the obelisks are simpler in construction, even if they are just as tall and imposing as the other two types. These differences may be linked to money once again, while the kerbing means more material would have needed to be bought, prepared and more labour put in to build it.

I also wonder if these statues are part of a change in ideals and beliefs. It has been noted that you can see changes in types of head stones as a cultures changes beliefs/ideas/etc (Dethlefsen & Deetz, 1969). It may be that these statues where created at a turning point in the society, or maybe the families trued to create a turn, but failed as there are so few statues.

So many questions arise as to the differences between the statues and the urns/obelisks that are their contemporaries. What was the wealth gap between these families? Who in the surviving family created/ordered the monument? Who was allowed to be added to the monument as time went on? How did the society feel about the statues? Where they seen as amazing, beautiful artworks or as people trying to grasp at power/status? What are the nationality backgrounds of all these families? Where they in similar circles? What types of goods were the different monument styles buried with? What were the grave goods that accompanied these individuals? Would we see significant differences between statues, urns and obelisk styles? Or are the only differences to be seen by the survivors? Etc…

Other than excavating the site (which I find highly doubtful to be able to gain permission to do), a thorough background research may help to unravel many of these questions. One may be able to look at other cemeteries from the same period, both in the New World and of the countries of origin for the families (can we track down trends to the Old World?). What did these people say about themselves? I wonder if one could find a newspaper article about the burials and see if there is mention of the statue. What kind of tone was the piece written in? So very many questions, but luckily these monuments are from a fairly well documented time.

References:

Dethlefsen, E. & Deetz, J 1969, Death’s Heads, Cherubs and Willow Trees: Experimental Archaeology in Colonial Cemeteries. American Antiquity, 31, 4, pp. 502-510.

Frazier, M & Ritz, J 2008, Monuments: Landmarks and Reflections of the Past, Technology Teacher, 68, 1, pp. 12-17.

Parker Pearson, M 1993, The Powerful Dead: Archaeological relationships between the living and the dead. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 3, 2, pp. 203-229.