By Elaine Rassel
On a trip to Sioux Dakota, while riding the 1880 train, not only this train played a part in South Dakota but so did the Chinese people. Somehow, we don’t think of the Chinese people being in Dakota but rather in San Francisco. So, why were these people located in South Dakota—and what were they doing there?
During the 1880’s, various population estimates placed the number of Chinese in Deadwood, South Dakota at between 250 and 500. The frugal Chinese worked for low wages in the mines and charged cheap prices in their cafes and laundries. Many anti-Chinese meetings were held because of the competition from the Chinese in the labor market. A local newspaper in an 1878 editorial, wrote: “The people of the Hills should take time by the forelock and the Chinese by the queue (a pig-tail—an important hair style for Chinese males), and save their country and its hard-working miners from inevitable ruin by flinging these nasty beasts on the other side of Jordan.”
The people of Black Hills were antagonistic toward many Chinese ways, including smoking opium and running brothels (houses of prostitution) in competition with their white brothers. Chinatown was accused of having many stenches that incense and opium could not mask. The Congregational church in Deadwood conducted a school where the Chinese were taught to read, write and speak English.
One of the most sensational murders in early Deadwood, South Dakota where a murder a day was not uncommon, was that of Yellow Doll, a beautiful Chinese prostitute, whose body was hacked to pieces. They mystery of her death was never solved. Chinese officials handled the tragedy with great secrecy and never revealed her burial place. This gory legend is recalled every year when little white girls vie to be chosen to play the part of the murdered Yellow Doll in the “Days of ‘76” parade.
According to the often illegible and incomplete records in the Record Book of the Deadwood Cemetery Association, there were about sixty Chinese buried in Mount Moriah.
Just how many Chinese are still buried there is a disputed question among Deadwood historians. About twenty removals have been recorded. The Chinese had a clause in their labor contracts that after about seven years, their bones were to be shipped back to China in zinc-lined boxes. Many Chinese undoubtedly did not have reliable employers or relatives with sufficient funds to follow these instructions. The Chinese had a superstition that if their remains were not buried in the sacred soil of China, the spirit of the departed would remain forever a wanderer.
The Chinese cemetery is on a steep hillside in Mount Moriah, and there is no accurate way of determining how many Chinese are still buried there. No wooden markers with Chinese inscriptions remain. Vandals and the weather have destroyed all of them.
The Chinese funeral was a picturesque ceremony in early Deadwood and well-attended, not only by the Chinese but also by the curious whites who never ceased to marvel at the bizarre and joyous processions to Mount Moriah cemetery.
The first public funeral for a Chinese was that Yung Set in September of 1878. As long as Chinatown existed in Deadwood until well after the turn of the century, the whites were close observers of Chinese burial customs.
The funeral procession began in Chinatown in lower Deadwood where first a gong had sounded in the Chinese church called a Joss House to signify that death had occurred.
A horse-drawn wagon bearing the corpse in a cloth coffin led the funeral procession, often followed by a brass band with drums, tom-toms, and cymbals. The Chinese mourners followed dressed in white robes with white streamers floating from their hats. Some carried joss sticks which were lighted and scented. Every Chinese mourner wore a pink ribbon around his left arm and some carried gorgeous banners with Chinese inscriptions.
While the noisy procession wound its way upward to Mount Moriah cemetery, the man sitting beside the driver of the hearse scattered hundreds of small pieces of colored paper which had tiny holes punched in them. The purpose of these papers was to detain the devil who must try to pass through each small hole before he could do any damage to the spirit of the deceased. Thus, this ritual gained sufficient time for relatives and friends to bury the dead and save him from the devil.
At the graveyard, the ceremonial costumes, banners and paper were piled up for a bonfire. The coffin was lowered into the grave to accompaniment of firecrackers being set off. All of these rituals were designed to appease the gods during the flight of the soul of the departed to paradise, the Flowery Kingdom.
Then the mourners poured whiskey and rice on the ground, set quantities of roast pig, cooked chicken and geese around the grave, and passed sugar cakes to all those assembled. Part of the meat was eaten by the funeral party and part of it was left in the cemetery. Apparently, the Chinese were never happier than when celebrating a death.
Many elderly Deadwood citizens can still recall how they, as children, hid behind rocks and tombstones in Mount Moriah during the burial ceremonies; then when the funeral party had left, they sneaked out to sample the delicious picnic left by the Chinese.
An often told tale of Deadwood is that an impertinent white man asked the Chinese when the dead would rise to eat the feast left as provisions for their journey to paradise. The Chinese replied, “Just as soon as the ‘Melican man comes up to smell his flowers.”
Even though the colorful and controversial Chinatown of Deadwood’s early years has long disappeared, many stories still recall the Oriental contributions to the Deadwood mystique. Visitors can find many reminders in the Adams Museum in Deadwood where pictures of the Mount Moriah cemetery are displayed. One picture from 1904 shows the cemetery divided with a larger oven shown that was for burning ceremonial papers and incense. The smaller oven was for roasting pigs and other food in preparation of the elaborate burial ceremonies. These ovens have disappeared. Vandals and weather have destroyed all of the wooden markers with Chinese inscriptions on them. While in this museum, close your eyes for a brief second and perhaps detect the odor of incense still wafting over the slopes of Mount Moriah cemetery.