Mon, 17 Oct 2005

Hmong Clan: Cemetery Insulted Customs

I can see how their religious beliefs would be offended by this: if the fellow occupant were not my kinsman, mine would be, too. But further, I think this is a clear case of fraud:

Ray Giunta, a former executive with the California Cemetery Board, testified last week that cemetery officials told him in 1995 that they only had two grave sites left. Since then, the cemetery has sold about 4,500 plots.

There's nothing inherently wrong about being buried with others, if your religious traditions aren't trounced in the process. But there is something wrong with selling someone a "recycled plot" while representing it as an unused one. It's called criminal fraud, and I would hope that the local prosecutor has taken note and has plans to file criminal charges in this matter.

Fresno, Calif. (AP) -- Xia Yang's relatives were shoveling dirt on their matriarch's grave, performing the last rite of a traditional Hmong burial, when they saw something that made them scatter in panic.

The plot, they said, already contained rusty casket handles and decomposing human bones. Under the family's religious beliefs, burying their grandmother with someone else's bones could prevent her from journeying to the spiritual world.

(link) [Wired News]

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