Cemetery

The Cemetery of Tumacácori

Left image
An artist's rendering of cemetery and mortuary chapel.

Right image
Tumacácori's cemetery

 

• Funeral bells

  
  

  Epidemics like small pox, measels, and influenza ravaged the native populations in mission communities.
  Audio Transcript

  Church bells toll

 

How It Was

This cemetery was in use during the the early 1800s, when the community was under the managment of Franciscan friars. The first burial recorded here was by Father Ramon Líberos on October 1, 1822. Like the church, the walls that surround the cemetery were made of sun-dried adobe covered with lime plaster. There are fourteen niches in the cemetery walls which would have contained carved or painted depictions of the Stations of the Cross, a necessity for any Catholic church. A small door in the western wall was the only entrance to the otherwise fully enclosed space. Inside the cemetery there is an uncompleted, round structure, the mortuary chapel. This was a place where family members could spend time with their deceased loved one before burial.

 

How It Is Now

After the last residents left the mission in 1848, travelers used the cemetery as a holding pen for horses and cattle. Livestock and treasure hunters disturbed the land, scattering any evidence of mission-era graves. The graves that you see today probably date to the late 1800s through the early 1900s. The last burial, of little Juanita Alegria in 1916, is marked by a small monument. The redwood cross between the mortuary chapel and the church, marked “Soto,” was placed by the National Park Service in 1980 after members of the Soto family told park staff that they had buried family members there. Records kept by mission priests tell us that at least 680 people are buried at Tumacácori. The majority of these burials are under the floor of the Jesuit-era church and in its cemetery.