Old ways help women find old graves

Historian Cate Culver uses straightened wire hangers to dowse unmarked graves in the Pioneer Cemetery outside San Andreas. Maggie Beck/Union Democrat

Cate Culver, a Calaveras County historian and artist, and her friend Diane Heliotes, president of the Calaveras County Genealogical Society, use them to find bodies.

Self-described “grave dowsers,” the two employ a technique many associate with looking for underground water.

One recent day, on the outskirts of San Andreas, the grave dowsers walked the hillside around the small Gold Rush-era Pioneer Cemetery. There, the investigators practiced their unusual way of mapping out lost, unmarked graves.

Culver, of Murphys, and Heliotes, of San Andreas, met with historical archaeologist Julia Costello to investigate the Pioneer Cemetery, fenced in to house the Camanche cemetery, flooded with the town in 1962. Before the flood, the cemetery was long abandoned on a small corner of a piece of private property on Highway 12, after one of the county’s earliest settlements, Iowa Log Cabin, was moved to San Andreas.

Dowsing is a practical, inexpensive method of locating underground objects of interest, yet its lack of scientific support contributes to a stigma of being superstitious, said a study conducted by the Iowa Office of State Archaeologist.

“I’m a scientist. It’ll take more than this to make me believe,” Costello said. “But it is interesting.”

Costello conducted a study on the land years ago and said if someone ever wanted to do anything with the land the boundaries of the cemetery must be determined. Laws protect cemeteries and even private cemeteries on people’s own land are ruled by them, if there are more than seven graves, Costello said.

The fence around the Pioneer Cemetery likely does not circle all the graves on the hillside, Costello said.

“The fence is not science,” Costello said.

So, the women’s goal was not only to get an idea of more accurate grave boundaries on the hill but to practice their hobby.

Heliotes heard about dowsing through the genealogical society two years ago and then taught Culver, and the two plan to keep practicing and find ways to test dowsing including going to mapped, but unmarked cemeteries. In their prior blind tests on known cemeteries, they’ve had about 85 percent accuracy, Heliotes said.

To grave dowse, take a stick or rod — Culver and Heliotes use flattened coat hanger with a 90 degree bend at one end for a handle — and hold it in your hands, like vertical clenched fists with thumbs away. Then walk forward, arms stretched, holding the wires level.

When you cross over a grave the wires move towards the dowser and cross. They uncross and straighten back out as you continue, crossing again at each new supposed grave.

“It does it very deliberately,” Culver said, as she moved across the field slowly. She tries to not think about anything while dowsing and just concentrates on feeling “very grounded.”

Dowsing is claimed to be used to find water, pipes, gold, minerals, archaeological sites and many other things, the Iowa study said.

“Essentially, dowsing is used to find whatever the believer wants to find below ground,” the study said.   

Culver and Heliotes say the only way to prove it would be to dig up the site. That, however, would be difficult to impossible, as permission is needed and digging up a grave is expensive.

Other methods of searching for graves include ground-penetrating radar and heat detectors. None of these methods are reliable for use in the Mother Lode region because of the rocky terrain, Costello said.

The soil in the area is too complex for magnetic gradiometers (basic magnetic anomaly detectors), she said.

“If this works, it could be a useful tool,” Costello said of dowsing.

“The problem is getting someone to believe you,” Heliotes said, laughing.

They know some say dowsing is “weird” and “creepy,” and others have claimed dowsing is something supernatural. Still others say dowsing is a hoax, the Iowa study said.

“I was a total disbeliever,” Heliotes said.

Only minimal testing has been done with graves, the study said.

The practice of dowsing goes back to ancient civilizations. According to the American Society of Dowsers, dowsing was widely practiced on the Island of Crete as early as 400 B.C.E.

In fact, many biblical passages allude to dowsing, especially in the case of Moses and his son, Aaron, who used a dowsing stick, the rod, to locate and bring forth water, the dowsing society said.

Even the famous English philosopher, John Locke, wrote an essay in 1650 about dowsing rods and how one can find water and precious minerals.

Costello said she has heard of dogs that could smell graves that were centuries old. In one case, on Highway 50 in El Dorado County, dogs sniffed out graves on a piece of property. The owner didn’t believe it, Costello said, and bulldozed the land, unearthing several unmarked graves.

Culver’s friend Bev Burton, of San Andreas, joined the adventure to see dowsing firsthand.

“I think there’s something to it,” Burton said.

Culver said she successfully tested it on her own small, pet cemetery, but Heliotes said it didn’t work at a pet cemetery next to Cave City.

A common explanation is dowsing detects soil disturbances, however in the case of Iowa, the whole state has been plowed, the study said, adding that explanation does not address how dowsing has been known to find water tables.

Culver also says she can tell the sex of the person buried by hanging the wire over the grave. After a while it starts to slowly make circles — counter-clockwise for a man, clockwise for a woman, Culver said.

Culver said she enjoys grave dowsing and would offer her free services to anyone.

“It’s not like I can prove it — unless they dig it up,” she said.

Costello said power outside of science can scare people.