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| NORTH SHORE CEMETERY DECORATION PROJECT |
To view photos from the North Shore cemetery Project, click here.
In the summer of 2004, I contracted with TRC Garrow Associates Inc., an archaeology and cultural resource management company, to
undertake research and documentation of the cultural tradition of cemetery decoration in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. My
co-researcher has been Philip E. Coyle, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Western Carolina University, and we used the
Ethnography Laboratory of WCU’s Anthropology and Sociology Department as our office and home base. My wife, Karen Singer Jabbour,
joined me in the field research as the project photographer. Archaeologist Paul Webb of TRC Garrow, in addition to managing our contract,
contributed to the project in many ways as a researcher.
The project is one component of an array of research initiatives leading to an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed North Shore
Road running through Great Smoky Mountains National Park in western North Carolina. The proposed road runs roughly parallel to
Fontana Lake, the large lake created by Fontana Dam in the early 1940s. That early construction project caused the displacement of a
large number of families who had been living in this part of the Smokies. Many of them still visit the cemeteries where their relatives are
buried – 27 cemeteries lie within the boundary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Shore of Fontana Lake. The visits are
now confined for the most part to Decoration Day visits – Decoration Day being scheduled at one or another cemetery on various Sundays
throughout the late spring and summer. This practice, with adaptations for contemporary circumstances, continues a long-standing
Appalachian custom of cleaning and decorating cemeteries as a spring religious ceremony.
At the end of 2005 the North Shore Cemetery Decoration Project Report was published, as a component of the published Draft
Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed North Shore Road. The study documents in detail the cultural tradition of cemetery
decoration and the customs associated with Decoration Day in this area of the Appalachians, past and present, and it profiles in detail the
features of the regional cemeteries of the Smokies as cultural constructs. It also offers a fresh view of the relationship between the
Appalachian folk tradition of Decoration Day and the national Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day, that focuses on remembrance of
the fallen in battle. And it reviews the history of the powerful cultural movement by local families in the North Carolina Smokies that caused
the National Park Service in 1978 to begin providing a boat to ferry people across Fontana Lake to decorate the graves of their ancestors,
and that ultimately generated the Environmental Impact Statement of which this study is a part. Finally, it offers an analysis supporting the
argument that the 27 North Shore cemeteries are a Traditional Cultural Property (TCP) and that the people associated with the North Shore
cemeteries are a Traditionally Associated People (TAP) -- categories warranting governmental protection.
The study, as well as the entire Environmental Impact Statement, is available online from the National Park Service, Great Smoky Mountains
National Park. Following is a full bibliographical citation, as well as a link to the Park Service website:
North Shore Cemetery Decoration Project Report. Authored by Alan Jabbour, Philip E. Coyle, and Paul Webb. National Park Service, Great
Smoky Mountains National Park, 2005, 229 pp. with photographs, maps, and charts. Also published as Appendix G (vol. II) of the North
Shore Road Environmental Impact Statement (6 vols., National Park Service, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 2005) and available at
the following website:
http://www.northshoreroad.info/deisappendices.htm
undertake research and documentation of the cultural tradition of cemetery decoration in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. My
co-researcher has been Philip E. Coyle, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Western Carolina University, and we used the
Ethnography Laboratory of WCU’s Anthropology and Sociology Department as our office and home base. My wife, Karen Singer Jabbour,
joined me in the field research as the project photographer. Archaeologist Paul Webb of TRC Garrow, in addition to managing our contract,
contributed to the project in many ways as a researcher.
The project is one component of an array of research initiatives leading to an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed North Shore
Road running through Great Smoky Mountains National Park in western North Carolina. The proposed road runs roughly parallel to
Fontana Lake, the large lake created by Fontana Dam in the early 1940s. That early construction project caused the displacement of a
large number of families who had been living in this part of the Smokies. Many of them still visit the cemeteries where their relatives are
buried – 27 cemeteries lie within the boundary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Shore of Fontana Lake. The visits are
now confined for the most part to Decoration Day visits – Decoration Day being scheduled at one or another cemetery on various Sundays
throughout the late spring and summer. This practice, with adaptations for contemporary circumstances, continues a long-standing
Appalachian custom of cleaning and decorating cemeteries as a spring religious ceremony.
At the end of 2005 the North Shore Cemetery Decoration Project Report was published, as a component of the published Draft
Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed North Shore Road. The study documents in detail the cultural tradition of cemetery
decoration and the customs associated with Decoration Day in this area of the Appalachians, past and present, and it profiles in detail the
features of the regional cemeteries of the Smokies as cultural constructs. It also offers a fresh view of the relationship between the
Appalachian folk tradition of Decoration Day and the national Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day, that focuses on remembrance of
the fallen in battle. And it reviews the history of the powerful cultural movement by local families in the North Carolina Smokies that caused
the National Park Service in 1978 to begin providing a boat to ferry people across Fontana Lake to decorate the graves of their ancestors,
and that ultimately generated the Environmental Impact Statement of which this study is a part. Finally, it offers an analysis supporting the
argument that the 27 North Shore cemeteries are a Traditional Cultural Property (TCP) and that the people associated with the North Shore
cemeteries are a Traditionally Associated People (TAP) -- categories warranting governmental protection.
The study, as well as the entire Environmental Impact Statement, is available online from the National Park Service, Great Smoky Mountains
National Park. Following is a full bibliographical citation, as well as a link to the Park Service website:
North Shore Cemetery Decoration Project Report. Authored by Alan Jabbour, Philip E. Coyle, and Paul Webb. National Park Service, Great
Smoky Mountains National Park, 2005, 229 pp. with photographs, maps, and charts. Also published as Appendix G (vol. II) of the North
Shore Road Environmental Impact Statement (6 vols., National Park Service, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 2005) and available at
the following website:
http://www.northshoreroad.info/deisappendices.htm