[Cz-L]Re:czernowitz-l digest: June 05, 2009

The dead have no voice and so they tend to get kicked around more than the =
living.
I visited Santo Domingo with my younger son around 1982 and we were approac=
hed
on the street by a former officer in the Dominican Republic army who had in=
jured
a foot, had been discharged from the army (without a pension it seemed) and=
 
wanted to show us around, to act as a guide, in the hope of getting some "d=
inero"
- trinkgelt.

His English was quite good and he certainly knew the town, particularly the=
 
colonial section which goes back to the time of Columbus. There was an orna=
te
mini-mausoleum in a large church in which Columbus is buried. I then recall=
ed
that Columbus had died in Spain and I had read something about a building=
 
having been erected over his grave. So I asked our guide, "Wait a minute,=
 
Columbus died in Spain. He was buried in Spain. What's this here?" Our gui=
de
shrugged and said, "A few bones here, a few bones there."About eight years =
later,
while doing research on the age of discovery, I came across an item that
corroborated our guide's flippant remark about the bones. Columbus had been=
 buried
in Spain but back in Santo Domingo they petitioned the crown to have his re=
mains
shipped to the new world so that he could be buried in the city that he had=
 
founded.
Havana was the hub for Spanish shipping in that period. Ships would bring c=
argo to Havana and then the different items would be sub-distributed to vari=
ous ports on the mainland or
to other islands. There were three caskets in a shipment and some confusion=
 as to
which was to be shipped where. They opened the caskets and found three legs=
 in one. of them, two in another, and one in the thirdThey might have flippe=
d a gold doubloon to decide which went were.

After several generations the dead get little attention or respect. Any of =
us knew
some of our dead ancestors in the Cz cemetery. It would be nice if we could=
 clean
it up and keep it maintained to show our respect. But it will take particip=
ation by
more than two or three.

[remainder of digest deleted]
 
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Received on 2009-06-06 17:18:09