Cemetery « Murray Foote

St Kilda, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Day 19 , 17th July.

This is the entrance to the cemetery at Village Bay, Hirta, St Kilda. It predates the village of the 1830s and may be many hundreds or even thousands of years old, though the wall may have been rebuilt several times.

Here we are inside the cemetery. It is roughly oval, approximately 25 meters by 18. The rocks you see poking up are tombstones of an unknown age. There were probably never any inscriptions on them as few islanders would have been literate before the nineteenth century. We saw the same thing at Baille Na Cille in Lewis, earlier in this blog.

In 1851 there were 105 people on St Kilda, comprising 40 aged 0-14, 28 aged 15-29, 20 aged 30-44, 10 aged 45-59 and 7 aged 60+. There was a similar distribution and total in 1822. The population had previously been higher than this as we saw in the last post, though it was to fall later. The island was settled for 5,000 years and the main settlement would always have been at Village Bay where there is the best harbour and the best farm land. If we assume an average population of 150 and a life expectancy of 40 for those who got past 5 years old, and if people were always buried here, then there could have been very approximately 3,750 burials here over a 1,000 year period. Burying in damp soils with no coffins (due to lack of wood) probably meant that even the skeletons would disappear after some hundreds of years.

When the street replaced the old village in the early 1830s, a couple of “faerie mounds” were demolished. These may have been prehistoric grave mounds.

Another view, this time in infrared. The plaque in the left foreground was erected by a former islander, Alexander Ferguson, in the 1930s or 40s in commemoration of both his parents. The infrared makes the stones stand out in a different way from the grass.

Here lie
the remains of
Margaret Mackay
native of Jeantown,
who departed this life
at St Kilda Manse on the
(?) day of February 1874
aged 44 years.
This stone is raised over her
remains by her brother
Minister of St Kilda.

So the most impressive tombstone in the cemetery was not for a native of St Kilda but for the sister of the Minister. Jeantown is the old name for LochCarron village, on the shores of Loch Carron, on the mainland not far from Skye.

This one is for a native St Kildan, though.

In
loving memory
of
Finlay
the only son of
Angus Gillies
crofter St Kilda,
born 8th January 1878
died 22nd January 1898
aged 20 years.

“With Christ which is
far better”

Surnames of residents of St Kilda included Gillies, McDonald, McKinnon, McQueen and Ferguston.

The cemetery in Hanga Roa, right beside the Tahai Complex, is a curious mixture of Spanish Catholic, Polynesian and traditional Rapanui influences.

View over the cemetery from near the front

We came past here after we stopped in town for lunch as we travelled between Orongo and Ranu Raraku. Not perhaps your typical cemetery….

Petroglyph on the back of a tombstone

The image to the right shows the back of a tombstone with a petroglyph of a tangata manu (the birdman) as we saw in the Orongo post. My guess is that it’s genuine.

It’s probably a bit hard to see unless you know what you’re looking for. It’s a man’s body with the head of a frigate bird. The head of the bird (above the body) is round, with a big round eye inside that, and above that is the hooked beak of the frigate bird.

Hanga Roa

Hanga Roa itself is a nice laid back friendly little place. You can sit at a seaside cafe and watch the surfers and the bathers (depending on the weather). The food is surprisingly good, especially the seafood, and there are lots of restaurants.

It might not be a good place to get drunk at night because the drains in the gutters are about three feet deep and have concrete covers but many of the covers are missing. Many of the roads on the island are pretty good but some of the minor paved roads in town have as much pothole area as road surface.

There many dogs roaming around in Hanga Roa and they are surprisingly friendly and well-behaved. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where in the late afternoon when the roads are warm, you may have to drive especially carefully to avoid running over dogs asleep on the road.

However, the recent history is not pretty. From the annexation by Chile in 1888 to the mid 20th century – I think, 1964 – those few Rapanui who had survived syphilis, smallpox, kidnapping, murder and rape were confined to the village of Hanga Roa and commonly treated savagely by their farmer, colonial or naval overlords (depending on the period). The population of the island is approaching 5,000 and the vast majority of that remains in Hanga Roa.

Murray Foote

Tag Archives: Cemetery

Cemetery at Village Bay, Hirta

22nd April: Easter Island (Cemetery in Hanga Roa)