Antonia Malan has opened an interesting new thread (or redirected an
old interesting one), and I hope we'll see some responses here. It
seems I have heard of numerous burials of African Americans with
tobacco pipes, but I'm not sure I've ever seen that formally
published. Kathy Beidelman recently excavated a late 19th-c cemetery
within the grounds of Virginia's penitentiary. Most interments were
African Americans, and many had clothing, funerary ornaments (jet
rings, etc.), and some had had coins placed over the eys. All very
typical Victorian stuff, I think, but she may have come to some other
conclusions as her research has progressed. (Hi, Antonia!)
 
Dan Mouer
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