11 April 2010

Hip bone no longer connected to the thigh bone

I found this photo of a "bone pile, Cuban cemetery" at Sloth Unleashed.  A search of the web resulted in two not-quite-compatible explanations.  Gering Citizen said that History Detectives on the Discovery Channel couldn't find any relevant information after months of research because they couldn't go to Cuba, and postulates that the image depicts terrible suffering of the Cubans under Spanish occupation, possibly leading to the Spanish-American War.

The second explanation, at Creating Pictures in My Mind, is that in Havana in the 1890s, graves were "rented" for five years, and after that time could be reused with the bones disinterred and discarded onto this pile. 

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 6, 2011 at 1:47 AM

    Cristobal Colon cemetery. Date 1895.
    Here you can find other pics: http://politicacubana.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
    Something interesting... the cemetery started working in 1868, less than 30 years is very little time really for so many deaths, and the cementery is HUGE... but the deaths because of the civil war were 225,000 (years 96-97) The naming for the "concentration camps" originated in Cuba, because of the "Reconcentración", during this time period. I think option number 1 should be given a second chance as reason for the pic. :/ (Flor)

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  2. MinnesotastanApril 6, 2011 at 9:13 AM

    Interesting comment, Flor. I've modified my post to take away the preference for the second option.

    Thank you for the information.

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