Death and burial places: the southern Andean region, Salta 18th Century

Abstract

Burials not only reflect the legal, social and ethnic status of individuals, they also show a network of social relationships among which we find signs of exclusion, subjection and personal and collective links. The complexity of burial places cannot be understood without considering peoples’ imaginary about death. We will focus specifically on spaces thought of as burial grounds on Salta city during the eighteenth Century in order to recognize “places” full of meaning to their inhabitants. The concept of place refers to the real and symbolic construction of space and Historians, without falling in an ethnographic illusion of transparency, are able to search for social markers and signs of identity, hierarchy and stratification as well as some clues regarding different imaginaries which give value and sustain those burial places in the town’s center.