A SAD WALK THROUGH A POTTER’S FIELD IN NEW ORLEANS: Part One

Many cities have long had cemeteries known as potter’s fields, used to inter the indigent, the nameless, unclaimed,  suicides, the unidentified, and strangers. Many are buried in layers, and in a few there are mass graves of those lost in epidemics or war. Some, potter’s field cemeteries have suffered from neglect, vandalism, and grave robbers.

I first encountered a potter’s field cemetery in the book of Matthew.  Here’s that Biblical account in Matthew 26:14 and 27:3-10 (American Standard Version).

Then one of the twelve who was called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests and said, What are ye willing to give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they weighed unto him thirty pieces of silver. . . . Then Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood. But they said, What is that to us? See thou to it, and he cast down the pieces of silver into the sanctuary, and departed; and he went away and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, It is not lawful to put them into the sacred treasury since it is the price of blood., And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field to bury strangers in, Wherefore that field was called, The Field of Blood [Akeldama in Aramaic] unto this day, Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.

HERE is an excellent blog article about Potter’s Field Cemeteries.  This post is Part One of a post describing how Cora, a character in my novel Persephone’s Underground, experiences a walk through Holt Cemetery in New Orleans. Part II will be an excerpt from my novel, Persephone’s Underground.

(Photo is from Holt Cemetery New Orleans Facebook page.)