ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses differentiated forms of the cult of martyrs: the "Gardens of Heroes" designed and built under the auspices of central government and an instance of graves that contain martyrs whose remains were retrieved from their original resting place and given a reburial with all attached rituals. Other forms includes an example of a memorial erected in the place of a makeshift collective grave; and finally, through the example of the major hero Konis Santana, the debate that all the options raise in Timor-Leste. The cult of martyrs in Timor-Leste does not end with the offer of a new and dignified grave to those who died in the liberation struggle, but it evokes the victory of one's ideals. The chapter focuses on the diversified modes in which the process of honouring the dead, now conceived as martyrs, has been understood, paying a particular attention to the ways in which this is articulated with enshrined notions of territoriality.
