Ritual- Remembrance: For Those Whose Bodies Lie Beneath The Earth, Known and Unknown

5-6pm, Washington Sq Park, New York, NY, Saturday, November 3, 2018.

This ritual acknowledges Lenapehoking and is dedicated to the bodies buried below Washington Square Park. The ritual was presented in memory of Rose Butler. It consists of intuitively created symbolic movements that end in a prayer for healing. The ritual recognizes human suffering in the forms of injustice, illness, and neglect, in order to summon better ways of thinking and being for humanity.

The area was once a small settlement called Sapokanikan by the Lenape and has been drastically altered since the arrival of settler colonists. In 1797 part of the land was used as a Potter’s Field. It holds the burials of thousands of people, some who died of yellow fever and others referred to as indigent. By 1827, in an effort to raise property values, mayor Philip Hone received approval to cover the grounds with what’s known today as Washington Square Park.

Commissioned by