"There are two reasons for a year and a day," he says. "The traditional Christian mourning period, when you'd cover the mirrors and wear a black armband, was a year and a day. But the second reason is a little more practical. During that year and a day, the tomb is going to pass through one of our brutal summers. The sun will bake down and cause the temperature inside to rise to 350 to 400 degrees for days on end, and it creates a rudimentary form of cremation."

When the time of mourning has passed, Raphael says, the remains are scooped into the caveaux -- an area below the shelf where the body first rests -- joining the bones of the ancestors who went before.

The question Raphael is most often asked, he says, is, "But what if someone in the family dies before a year and a day has passed?" The answer is a temporary wall vault -- which guides sometimes jokingly call a "condo." The family pays rent until the body can be moved to its final resting place.

New Orleans cemeteries have quite a reputation for their roles in films like "Easy Rider" -- no, the Catholic diocese didn't read the script, Raphael says -- but at St. Louis No. 1, the biggest attraction is the tomb of "voodoo queen" Marie Laveau. Visitors who think they've found her grave leave behind candles, coins and other offerings and scratch Xs onto the marker itself as a way of seeking good fortune -- and Laveau's power. Raphael says it's a huge source of frustration to cemetery conservators, who are trying to save the tombs for posterity.

It's not unusual for folks in Northwest Arkansas to pay a visit to Evergreen Cemetery or the Confederate Cemetery in Fayetteville to seek the peace and silence found within their walls. Don't expect that tranquility in St. Louis No. 1. The dead -- and the living -- all have too much to say.