Austrian households maintain their graves across generations. This
paper tries to describe and analyze the continuity and transformation of
Austrian household-graves, emphasizing the social relationship of
household members involved. It will be shown that woman's services
are indispensable in the maintenance of the continuity of the
"household-grave" (der Grab des Hauses). My fieldwork was carried
out in south-east Carinthia in Austria (identified as N parish) in 1986-7
and 1988-9 for 15 months.
Austrian households may own more than one grave. However,
household members give a special recognition to one of their graves as
their "household-grave", to which they have a particular sense of belonging.
The distinction between heirs and non-heirs used to be crucial
in this context. In Austrian households, heirs were allowed traditional
marriages and inherited household-graves from their parents. The
non-heirs were excluded from marriages and could not form their own
households. They were buried in the graves of their natal household
over which they did not have any control.
This distinction between heirs and non-heirs has blurred since the
1960's, as a result of increased opportunities of wage labor outside of N
parish. The non-heirs began to found their own households and
household-graves through their incomes from wage labor. This process
is reflected in the social relations underlying the scenery of the
churchyard. First, the number of household-graves among graves in the
churchyard increased rapidly since the 1960's. Second, the social relations
inscribed on epitaphs have transformed. Most names carved on
gravestones used to be the name of the heir only, or the heir and his/her
spouse. However, the epitapfs constructed after the 1960's carry the
names of an increased number of people, who are related through
parent-child rlationship.
However, women's roles in maintaing graves remain crucial despite
these changes. It is a woman's daily practice that distinguish graves of
her household from those of other households. Graves can remain
within a household only when a housewife takes care of them
regularly. It is within her decision-making whether she keeps a certain
grave within her household or gives it away to other households, if
the grave is not the household-grave. She keeps daily services to her
gaves, because she has looked after dying household members to their
last moment, and has given them a funeral. At the same time, she
remains the core of a diffusing solidarity of her family, since she
provides occasional hospitality to her own children who have already
married out, particulary on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.
Thus, it is possible to say women's roles underlie the continuity of
the household-grave across generations. While the distinction between
heirs and non-heirs in the continuity of household-graves has blurred
through the introduction of wage labor, women's role as a key figure in
maintaining household-graves remains intact.
オーストリア農村における「家の墓」と女性のサービス
KH_016_2_001.pdf
(2.75MB)
