Over the Memorial Day weekend, Mary Alice and I, along with our daughter and grandson, visited a local cemetery. As we were meandering through the older part of the cemetery and taking time to read the names on the headstones, our grandson had been looking at one of the older trees and asked what kind it was. I told him that the tree was a cedar tree. His then asked why cedar trees were planted in the cemetery. |
An old Cherokee story went like this: “In the beginning, when Cherokee people were placed on the earth, they imagined that life would be so much better if there were no night and it was sunny all the time. They went to the Creator and asked him to please give them daytime all the time and forget about the night. The Creator listened and removed the night and it was day all the time. Before long, the forest had grown so much the Cherokee could barely find a path to walk; they worked endlessly in the gardens ridding their gardens of weeds, and it became extremely hot. Since the day never ended, many people began to have problems going to sleep; arguing with each other and being unable to tolerate the extreme heat. They decided once again to speak to the Creator since they had made a terrible mistake. They asked the Creator this time if he would please make it night all the time. Once again, since he loved the Cherokee so much, he gave into their request. Before long, it became very cold, the crops quit growing, and no one could gather food since they were spending all their time in search of wood for fires to keep them warm. They were not only cold, but since they could not gather food, they were hungry and many died. They once again asked the Creator to return their world to the way it was originally and thanked him for life and the food they had to eat. The Creator felt so bad for the many that had died during the time that it was only night that he created a new tree for their spirits upon the earth. The tradition of the a-tsi-na tlu-gv {ah-see-na loo-guh} cedar tree is that it holds powerful protective spirits for the Cherokee.
In early time, periwinkle and cedar trees were always planted in cemeteries. Periwinkles provided a ground cover, which did not need mowing. Cedar trees were planted to help mask the smell of decomposing bodies before embalming was used. Back then many older people referred to a cedar tree as a cemetery tree.
Naturally, the vast majority of the plants found in cemeteries symbolize eternal life. Others represent everlasting love, achievement or completion (in life) and peace.
Our Eastern red cedar’s scientific name is Juniperus virginians. Juniperus is the classical Latin name of the junipers, while the species name means of Virginia. Our Eastern red cedar is known simply as a cedar and a red juniper, which is a more appropriate name because the tree is really a juniper and not a true cedar. The red cedar is a favorite in old cemeteries because our forefathers imagined that the tree’s shape pointed to heaven, and the evergreen boughs symbolically spoke of eternal life.
The earliest explorers to the Atlantic seaboard spoke of the cedars as being the most handsome, fragrant and tallest they had ever seen. The early colonists used the cedar wood for fences, shingles, benches, tables, coffins and the superstructure of boats. The wood was easy to split and when planed the wood became very smooth. The first log cabins in America were often built with red cedar because of its endurance when exposed to the elements. The fragrance of the wood kept moths away (Mary Alice often puts mesh bags of cedar shavings in with our winter clothes when packed away.)
The red cedar was the favorite wood used by pencil makers. It was a perfect wood for this purpose because of its lightness and the ease at which it could be sharpened. However, only the clear knot-free heartwood was used in pencil making, with seventy percent of the wood wasted. For nearly a century, our cedars supplied the world with pencil wood. In 1900, three million feet of fine quality cedar was sent down the Cumberland River on great timber rafts. Ten years later the cedar lumbermen had depleted the last virgin stands of red cedar. With their cedar trees gone, they turned to buying the old log cabins, barn floors and cedar rail fences to supply the pencil industry. The pencil industry switched to a western cedar, and this saved what was left of our red cedar.
However, the final blow to the cedar tree was that it often is disfigured by a fungus disease known as the cedar apple rust. Spores from this fungus infect apple trees producing damaging yellow blotches. The easiest way to control the fungus and save the apple trees was to cut down all of the cedar trees. Apple growers of the Shenandoah Valley pled to their legislators for help and were successful in having cedar-eradication laws enacted, which permitted the destruction of all cedars in a large area in the Shenandoah Valley.