History Main / IndianBurialGround

* Despite being found in parodies of ''Film/{{Poltergeist}}'', ''Poltergeist'' itself averts this trope. When Steven tries to get answers from the [[CorruptCorporateExecutive greedy land developer]], his answer is along the lines of, "What's the problem? It's not like it was built on an Indian burial ground." (He's technically correct, as the subdivision in which Steven and his family reside was actually built over a regular cemetery; the curse-and-vengeance aspects of the trope still seem to apply, however.)

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' ("Petergeist") parodied the film ''Film/{{Poltergeist}}'' ([[ShallowParody despite it being a regular cemetery in the film]]). Peter builds a multiplex in the back yard, then discovers that underneath is an Indian burial ground. He then finds an ancient Indian skull and uses it as codpiece. And then uses it to pee in. You'd think building a multiplex over an Indian burial ground would be enough to get him haunted for life, but noooo...

* In the state of Kansas, only Indians get to run true casinos, with a handful of exceptions which are mostly in DevelopmentHell. Indian casinos must be on Indian land. Kansas City, Kansas had an Indian burial ground right in the heart of downtown; once gambling became entrenched on the Missouri side of the KC metro area, the Indians who owned the burial ground built a casino right on top of it. KCK tried to shut the place down, but failed... All casinos are cursed regardless, so it doesn't matter quite as much.

* Land belonging to California State University Long Beach was found to contain an Indian burial ground/sacred site when development unearthed human remains. There have been occasional plans to turn it into a mini-mall or parking lot, but after the college endured protests it has been left undisturbed and undeveloped. (The remains that were revealed in the initial development were reburied by modern descendants of the tribe.)
* Protests have been ongoing over a developer being allowed to build his retirement house over a First Nation burial ground on Grace Islet on Saltspring Island, Canada, especially as BC law is meant to give legal protection to funeral cairns. So far construction has been ongoing, although the case is being brought before the Supreme Court of Canada, so perhaps the trope will be averted.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', the Venture compound was built over an Apache burial ground. Their ghosts rise from the dead and wreak havoc every year. Usually Dr. Orpheus, necromancer extraordinaire, takes care of it.

* When construction began on the Superdome in New Orleans, the graves of the victims of yellow fever turned up. Some claim this was it took the Saints so long to have a winning season, though the Saints were a losing team before the Superdome was even conceived.

** This is not, incidentally, an example of Native Americans practicing burial at sea; the wind farm is to be built on a shoal that's all that remains of a peninsula -- where the Wampanoag buried their dead -- that began to sink beneath the waves about six thousand years ago. To the Wampanoag, this is like building a power plant on top of Stonehenge.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** In the very first "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween special, it turns out the Simpsons' new house is cursed because it was built on Indian burial grounds (pictured above). When he discovers this, Homer calls the realtor who sold the house to him and angrily accuses him of keeping it secret. He apparently mentioned it five or six times.

** Variant: "Night Game" had a site where ancient Native American spirits fought a war every five hundred years. In the present day, a minor-league baseball stadium was built over the site, so the latest skirmish between good and evil took the form of a baseball game...with ''Winston'' as shortstop.

* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', the episode "Pangs" concern a tribal spirit that gets released when Xander excavates some land for a building site. Amongst other things, it gives him a venereal disease. Which one? ''{{All of them}}''.

** Variant: "Night Game" had a site where ancient spirits fought a war every five hundred years. In the present day, a minor-league baseball stadium was built over the site, so the latest skirmish between good and evil took the form of a baseball game...with ''Winston'' as shortstop.

* ''Within the Woods'', a short film that Creator/SamRaimi made in order to secure funding for ''Film/TheEvilDead1981'', has Creator/BruceCampbell disturbing an Indian burial ground.

* In ''Discworld/TheLastContinent'', Rincewind asks if the cursed beer warehouse was built on an [[LandDownUnder Aboriginal Burial Ground]] or other sacred site. Subverted because he's told the natives said the builders were welcome to the land, it was completely unwanted and unsacred.

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/PetSematary1989'' has a well-marked Indian Burial Ground that could resurrect the dead. As one might expect, they [[CameBackWrong Come Back Wrong]]. It's also something of a subversion, because it's implied that the burial ground was possessed not by the spirits of the dead natives, as in most Indian burial ground stories, but by a {{wendigo}}, a cannibalistic [[http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/io9/2009/10/wendigo.jpg demon]] that could possess humans. Well before the white settlers move in, the Indians recognized the danger of the place and stopped using it.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Pinball]]

--->'''Frankie''': The camp is built on an Indian burial ground and-
--->'''Raz''': Oh my gosh! Indians buried their dead here?!
--->'''Frankie''': Ewwww! I hope not. No, stupid, they buried their arrowheads here.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* Also parodied in [[http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2011/10/13/how-to-tell-a-scary-story-rerun.html this strip]] of ''Webcomic/BasicInstructions''.
** And inverted in [[http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2009/8/19/how-to-create-an-original-story.html#comment6394557 this one.]]

--->'''Lisa''': An ancient Indian burial ground!
--->'''Bart''': Wow, this place has everything!

--->'''Mr. Burns''': This house has quite a long and colorful history. It was built on an ancient Indian burial ground and was the setting of satanic rituals, witch-burnings, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking five John Denver Christmas specials]].\\
'''Homer Simpson''': (shivers in fear) [[FauxHorrific John Denver]]...

-->''In our house, safe and sound-
-->Built on Indian burial grounds''

-->'''Didi''': Looks like someone's finally taking the [[Literature/PeytonPlace Peytons']] [[ParentalBonus place]].
-->'''Betty''': Yep, must be nobody told them about the house being built on an ancient Indian burial ground.
-->'''Didi''': Oh, Betty, that's just a myth.
-->'''Betty''': Yeah? [[NoodleIncident Tell that to the Peytons]].

--> '''Princess Clara''': Genocide is easily rectified through inadequate compensation!

* In the new Winnetou movies, Karl's companions disturb one. This results in an attack by the living Natives.
* The Australian film ''Kadaicha'' concerns a suburb that was built on top on an Aborigine burial ground where several tribesmen were murdered by white settlers. In the present, teenage residents of the town find themselves being haunted in their dreams by an eerie medicine man who marks them for death (usually at the hands of possessed animals) by leaving "kadaichi stones" on their nightstands.

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/petergiest_6.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/petergiest_6.png]]]

%% Image kept on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1368144959094160100

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/treehouse-of-horror-i1_5292.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Mahatma Gandhi?! "Wrong Indian, idiot."[[note]]Quote from the poem "Oriental" by Aimee Nezhukumatathil[[/note]]]]

Compare GypsyCurse and HollywoodVoodoo, similar curse-related tropes with similar ethnic baggage.

* ''Webcomic/GoblinHollow'': [[http://www.rhjunior.com/GH/00201.html Why Beltane claimed to want to perform a rite there.]]

* The movie ''Film/PetSematary'' has a well-marked Indian Burial Ground that could resurrect the dead. As one might expect, they [[CameBackWrong Come Back Wrong]]. It's also something of a subversion, because it's implied that the burial ground was possessed not by the spirits of the dead natives, as in most Indian burial ground stories, but by a {{wendigo}}, a cannibalistic [[http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/io9/2009/10/wendigo.jpg demon]] that could possess humans. Well before the white settlers move in, the Indians recognized the danger of the place and stopped using it.

** "Margorine" parodies ''Film/PetSematary'' when Butters' dad buries a dead pig (who he thinks is the dead Butters) in an ancient Indian burial ground to resurrect him. When Butters (who was FakingTheDead the whole time) returns, his dad assumes he CameBackWrong and locks him in the basement.

* ''Radio/PetticoatJunction'': In ''Hooterville Valley Project'', Uncle Joe briefly tricks a state official into believing that the Shady Rest Hotel is the site of an Indian Burial Ground. Not to scare him off, but to set up a archeological dig that would derail Mr. Bedloe's plans to flood the area with a dam.

** This is referenced hilariously in both "Buffy vs. Dracula" ("I'm sick of being [[ButtMonkey the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis!]]") and "Once More With Feeling" ("His penis got diseases from a Chumash tribe!")

** Considering the staggering number of massacres and atrocities the original settlers inflicted on the native population, the entire city is basically built on their mass graves.

* Lampshaded and subverted in ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'':
-->'''Frankie''': The camp is built on an Indian burial ground and-\\
'''Raz''': Oh my gosh! Indians buried their dead here?!\\
'''Frankie''': Ewwww! I hope not. No, stupid, they buried their arrowheads here.\\
Thus neatly [[HandWave handwaving]] why so many psitanium arrowheads, the currency of the game, are buried around the camp.
** And then further played with during Vernon's story about the Ancient Indian Summer Camp built on top of a Caveman Burial Ground.

* In ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'''s fifth Scream Fortress event, the Mann brothers have died and the mercs job is to push the other brother's corpse into a portal to Hell. Said portal was discovered by a mining operation taking place in an Indian Burial Ground, which the Mann brothers {{facepalm}} over and ask why they didn't move the operation to a less haunted place. Said discovery also caused an army of skeletons to rise, acting as the neutral enemies for the map.

* Shows up in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' on two separate "Treehouse Of Horror" stories:
** "Treehouse of Horror": It turns out the Simpsons' new house is cursed because it was built on Indian burial grounds.
*** When he discovers this, Homer calls the realtor who sold the house to him and angrily accuses him of keeping it secret. "He says he mentioned it five or six times."
---->'''Lisa''': An ancient Indian burial ground!
---->'''Bart''': Wow, this place has everything!
*** The graveyard (see page image) includes tombstones for Geronimo, Sacajawea, [[OddNameOut and]] UsefulNotes/MahatmaGandhi.
*** Hilariously, when the Simpsons try to negotiate with the house to live amicably together, it decides ''to destroy itself'' to escape them.
** "Treehouse of Horror V":

** It was also used in the main continuity when Krusty the Klown reveals that Kamp Krusty was built on an Indian burial ground. Subverted in that this fact is actually a sign of the camp's dismal quality, rather than actually affecting it. In the Simpsons' world, Krusty merchandise tends to be extremely shoddy and poor quality, if not outright dangerous to use.

* Mentioned on ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' when the Carmichaels move in across the street from the Pickles:

** At the end of the episode, Randy Carmichael jokingly wonders if "that ancient Indian curse" their realtor warned them about has manifested in their next door neighbor Stu.

This is a mostly a DeadHorseTrope these days. If it gets used, it's often at least slightly tongue-in-cheek, humorous, {{lampshade|Hanging}}d or {{subverted|Trope}}. In any plot with something weird happening, a GenreSavvy character may make the ObligatoryJoke that it's due to an ancient Indian burial ground, even outside the Americas. On a more serious note, much like how CampbellCountry is the non-American counterpart to LovecraftCountry, this trope can also be extrapolated to tombs and ruins from ancient cultures more appropriate in a given non-American setting. For example, stories set in UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} may use Celtic, Roman, Saxon, or Norse ruins to similar effect.