Texas Graveyards: A Cultural Legacy

This book is a must have for anyone interested in the Texas graveyards. Written with a more cultural and social viewpoint, it immediately began as an excellent read with many places that you can actually visit for yourself!

For anyone interested in rural graveyard history, this book has it all. Even though it is slanted toward Texas Germans (Jordan is a 6th gen. Texan) and their particular way of burying their dead, southern, black and hispanic rituals are treated justly. Tidbits: -in the southern Texan tradition (East, Southeast), sinners and thieves are buried facing south. Everyone else faces east to receive the morning sun, and the second coming. -All burial rituals in Texas are basically based on pagan theology, but Germans apparently take this idea farther than most - they employ, among other things, pentagrams and other sun symbols popular with satanists.