Willowshore, like many remote villages, has its own set of laws. Grievous crimes were punished with exile unless the individual's skill or knowledge was needed— the punishment was then permanent imprisonment. Executions were rare, as being exiled into Specterwood was often a death sentence in itself.
Particularly vile criminals had a Mark of Crime tattooed onto their scalp, and after death, this tattoo was transferred to the bones through carving, meaning even in death and decomposition, the mark remained. Bodies with a Mark of Crime—be it from Willowshore, another village, or Lung Wa—can only be buried in this overgrown and unkept area.
While graves were unmarked in the past, a few wooden posts have been erected recently and paper shuriken hung off them, seemingly in silent protest that the ones buried beneath might have died an unjust death. Or perhaps this is an attempt to stave off the rise of a bitter, vengeful ghost.