Some geocaches are placed in memory of people that have died on that location.
In this case, the geocache is a form of memorial, or spontaneous shrine.
western PA
1944 plane crash
Sherri Memorial
memorial cache
Flight 93 memorial
Simulacra definition
Similar to roadside crosses found along a road after an accident, or in a dark alley after a crime has occurred. There is a book on spontaneous memorial shrines, it describes the location as acting as conduit to pass messages from one person to another. Some become actors in mass grieving.
Santuario del Divino Amore, about 15 km south east of Rome, Italy (not far from the Via Appia). This church is also visible in the end of Federico Fellini's film "The Nights of Cabiria". The most important "shrine" in this sanctuary are the earphones of the radioman of the airship "Italia", that crashed in the artic sea in 1936. The wood panel has carvings depicting the various episodes of the drama. Eventually, a Soviet icebreaker reached and rescued the survivors, including its leader, Generale Nobile. During the ordeal, the radioman prayed and pledged that should he survive, he would make an offering to this sactuary, a pledge which he followed up.
Santuario del Divino Amore. Many expressions of thanks are by survivors of horrific traffic accidents, as shown with pictures and newspaper clippings.
The stone plaques of "grazia ricevuta" as Thank-You notes, placed on the walls of the sanctuary.
In a street of San Marzano sul Sarno, provincia di Salerno, near Naples, Italy. A small memorial in memory of a deceases in a traffic accident (most likely someone on a moped or small motorbike).
Via Fani, Rome, Italy. Location where former prime minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped by the terrorist group Brigate Rosse. All the seven members of his security detail were killed.
Small marble plaque ("lapide", from "lapis", which means stone in Latin) in honor of a judge that was killed by political terrorists in the late '70s or early '80s. Trionfale neighborhood of Rome, Italy.
Spontaneous shrine in memory of a teenager that was killed in a motorbike accident. Via Garibaldi, Trasterevere neighborhood in Rome, Italy. The red and yellow colored memorabilia reflects the fact that the memorialized was a fan of the soccer club A.S. Roma.
In a back alley siding the railroad tracks near the Via Tuscolana, southeast of Rome, Italy, a small shrine in memory of a young "Carabiniere" police officer, who probably died in the line of duty, probably killed in a fire-arm exchange with drug dealers at a night-time security check. Because of the improvised quality of the memorial, this "lapide" was probably placed by the family of the deceased (and not by an institutional governmental body).
Plaque in the Tiburtina train station, Rome, Italy, in memory of the deported to Nazi concentration camps. Placed on location fifty years after the event occurred.
Burial location and grave site of pets, probably dog or cat, made by a homeless person living in the "tufo" caverns in the Parco della Caffarella, Rome, Italy.
A staple of catholic countries, a form of saying thanks for a miracle is to place a note of "grazia ricevuta", or G.R. Sometimes these plaques are accompaigned by objects, such as crutches (person walks again), eye-glasses (person sees again), or photographs and/or newspaper clippings describing a horrific traffic accident.
book description
"Once again, editor Jack Santino shows his gift for seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Spontaneous Shrines and the Public Memorialization of Death
reveals an emerging, globalizing language of loss and memory that can deal with the unassimilable fact of unjust, untimely death. The new traditions documented here are moving, powerful and potentially subversive."--Susan Davis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
“It is a sad fact of our times that we should have so many reasons to mourn collectively. Wherever that may be (Madrid, Buenos Aires, Oklahoma, Derry, New York, Pouch Cove), for whatever reason (a car crash, assassination, terrorist attack, natural disaster, genocide), grief materializes itself in public in the most extraordinary ways. Just how that happens--and what it tells about who we are--is the subject of this life-affirming book, which examines spontaneous and self-organizing forms of mourning. These grassroots expressions offer an important alternative--and sometimes even resistance--to the formalities of church, funeral home, and civic commemoration. Ephemeral, tactical, and interstitial in the ways they locate themselves in public space, the spontaneous shrines examined in this book are worthy of the careful documentation and analysis provided by this important book.”--Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, author of Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage
“This volume fills the need for sustained attention to the ethnographic and aesthetic details of spontaneous shrines, and situates these observations within a broader theoretical framework for understanding public memorialization of death. Readers will be moved by integrity of those who mourn and provoked by the implications of public acts of mourning we often overlook.”--Peter Tokofsky, Education Specialist at the J. Paul Getty Museum and Adjunct Associate Professor of World Arts and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Praise for Jack Santino's Signs of War and Peace:
"Santino shows great evenhandedness in treating the sides in the conflict, and his study is informative, thoughtful, and thought-provoking."--Choice
This extraordinary ethnographic work sheds a fresh light on the capacity of popular tradition to create public space, and collectively fashioned art-driven by passion and intellect-to articulate what is unsayable in politics. Santino's superbly written work illuminates the range of ways in which popular artistic traditions in Northern Ireland make visible what is too often hidden from the view of politics: the personal impacts of political decisions.--Mary Hufford, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Santino provides a rarely available perspective on violence. He presents the perspectives of the people of Northern Ireland through their creative uses of traditional forms of expression. Responding to the threat and reality of death, present in their neighborhoods at all times, they respond with efforts to maintain their humanity and identities with shrines that memorialize specific individuals yet also serve to draw attention to the consequences of the conflict. Understanding the tragic consequences of violence for other human beings offers an alternative to the frustrations of diplomacy. Perhaps such an approach could prove to be a more fruitful route to peaceful solutions.--Beverly Stoeltje, Indiana University
Signs of War and Peace offers a fascinating excursion into the politics of popular art in an embattled land, where two incompatible versions of history coexist. In refreshingly readable prose, Jack Santino shows how public displays like drum-beating, litter-can rattling, handshaking, flag flying, and curbstone and mural painting operate symbolically to perpetuate a state of war. By so doing, he teaches us not only about the anguished inhabitants of Northern Ireland but also about ourselves.--Stanley Brandes, University of California at Berkeley
Signs of War and Peace is an impressive look at the range of display events associated with the war in Northern Ireland. As far as I know, there has been no other work on this particular side to the conflicts in Northern Ireland. Santino is an established scholar who has devoted a great deal of his time in the last several years to fieldwork in Ireland, and the manuscript that he has produced as a result is filled with important ethnographic data and revealing interviews with many people in Northern Ireland who have participated in the display events he seeks to analyze. I truly enjoyed reading this manuscript.--Meg Brady, University of Utah
Book Description
Spontaneous shrines have emerged, both in the United States and internationally, as a way to mourn those who have died a sudden or shocking death, and to acknowledge the circumstances of the deaths. The contributors to Spontaneous Shrines and the Public Memorialization of Death address events such as the Texas Aamp;M bonfire collapse, the Pentagon and New York City after 9-11, roadside crosses, a memorial wall in Philadelphia, and the use of Day of the Dead altars to bring attention to deceased undocumented immigrants. The first comprehensive work to examine and theorize the phenomenon as a whole, this book explores the origins, types, uses, and meanings of these shrines.
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