When Fido Croaks...

Alright folks, this is going to be short and far from academic; I’ve written way too much about death today.

            While scrambling to find something to blog about, I looked up “pet funerals” half jokingly, and came across a very interesting (amusing) newspaper article, and an even more interesting (hilarious) website.  As you may have gathered at this point, I am in no way convinced that society needs this business as another drain on their bank accounts! 

Regardless, let us explore what a pet funeral entails…

According to the Vancouver Sun newspaper, Coleen Ellis of Indianapolis runs a pet funeral home – the first ever set up in the United States.  I couldn’t determine specifically what sorts of services Coleen offers, but learned that a woman with a similar franchise right here in Victoria charges between $275-$450 for the ceremony. 

Obviously there are people who grieve differently from myself, and I suppose you could even argue that this is a nice alternative to leaving your pet to be cremated after its demise in the Veterinary clinic.  However, I feel as though this is over the top – do we really need to anthropomorphize our pets to the point where we call ourselves “parents” to them? 

However, outside of cats, I am NOT an animal person. I loved all the cats I have ever owned, and I have a tattoo of some cats on my shoulder – No matter how much I love a pet, I just wouldn’t be able to 1. justify spending the money on a funeral and 2. take the whole process seriously.  Maybe these people feel as though honouring the pet in some way helps put to rest, or maybe it is a purely selfish ceremony, I just do not understand it.  But like I said, not an animal person; maybe I’m missing something here!

I went to this woman’s website, and was astounded at the complexity of her company.  Not only does Ms. Ellis offer services, but she has expanded to include lessons for veterinary hospitals on how to grieve council properly, and how to set up similar institutions to her own. Her video messages were very sweet, and she seems to genuinely care about her work and her clients, but it just seems so obsessive to me.

Anyway, that’s enough about that I think. Peace out.

Vancouver Sun article: 

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/funerals+When+four+paws+feet+under/3665190/story.html

Coleen’s site:  

http://www.twoheartspetlosscenter.com/

Archaeology News Forums: My Cat Knows More

Disclaimer: I am feeling rather silly today – got to love that end of semester/runner’s high – so look out for some rather bold sarcasm!

Oh boy oh boy, I’m going to do a post on death and archaeology today!          

I'm assuming this is one of those "buildings" discussed in such great detail

            Just a few days ago was a Roman cemetery site uncovered underneath St Dunstans St. in Canterbury UK.  I thought it would be interesting for this post to compare a popular media source’s interpretation and discussion of the site with a more "academic" media source’s perspective. For your sake, I hope I’m right and don’t bore you to tears!

            The first article is from an unspecialized web/news site called “Digital Journal,” and is entitled Archaeologists Unearth 150 Roman Graves in Canterbury.  The article describes both the contemporary history of how the site was found as well as a more in depth history as to its origins.  The article goes on to explain a few archaeological aspects of the sites, such as the fact that all the bodies were facing East-West indicating Christendom.  The article concludes with a statement given by a member of the research team emphasizing the difficulty of completing an excavation to its fullest potential.¹

            The second article, from a site called “Archaeology Daily News” wrote a brief article on the same site entitled Roman Graves Uncovered in Canterbury.

 (Not going to lie, the first article’s usage of quantity makes it sound more interesting!)

The statements made in the article are more or less identical to the first one, but they present their interpretations as possibilities rather than as fact.² 

            I found it absolutely hilarious that an article contained within an archaeology webpage used REALLY generic terms such as “buildings” rather than giving ANY detail as to what types of buildings they were.  I also laughed when I read one of the quotes – made by the site director – the second article decided to include:

           

            "It is not surprising that we have found a cemetery here as it is just outside the outskirts of the Roman town,"

[sarcasm] WOW! What an incredibly informative quote; as we learned in my last post, a cemetery is outside a town, and what do you know, a cemetery was found outside a known town!?!?! What a concept. Thank you, Mr. Site Director Bennett for explaining why I should not be surprised [/sarcasm] I think they were just trying to fill up the page.

I think that I have reached a conclusion on the legitimacy of an “archaeology” news site: 

Although the tone is slightly more formal, the terminology, level of depth, and even detail is equivalent to that of a general news forum.  I therefore conclude that forums such as these are made to make members of the general public who went to a museum once feel smart. 

References

1.  http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/201103216307/Roman-graves-uncovered-in-Canterbury.html

2.  http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/305063

Pictures

1.  http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/fotos/image6307_b.jpg

2.  https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirATLIs-jZsT7vUv3u1NDgl7JljiQQ8IIe1ymZRU-89XzbJJCZR0_v8eC-UKLZa-J12eFuXoGbEcuYAgvPnF_X5pIqS3uETre4vZOCLtJI43z0ITktSmL2USXFfQ7S1lZxNPJWe-wck9k/s1600/archaeology.gif

I'll be back in a few days, just got to carry this body into the city...

Fear of death is a part of human existence that has been, and always will be, a part of our lives.  We spend so much time throughout our existence emphasizing things such as safety, health/medicine, spirituality etc. that in a way it seems as if we’re living to die.  My own morbid take on things, I suppose.  Anyway, for this post I want to take a look at the taboo people place around the dead themselves; specifically, I am going to talk a bit about the concept of mediaeval “corpse roads”.  People certainly think up some bizarre things when contemplating death!

A fairly boring image of a British corpse road

The origin of the corpse road (church way, burial line, coffin line etc.) coincides with the spread of Christianity across Europe in the late mediaeval period.  The need for pathways being built between remote villages and larger city centres arose due to special permissions needed to complete a proper Christian burial.  Parishioners had the lovely duty of transporting corpses from an isolated town through these segregated pathways to the larger city where the body was to be buried. 

To add to this creepy concept of a road built exclusively for corpse transport, the parishioner usually had to carry the body for the entire distance unless the deceased’s family was wealthy enough to provide him with a carriage.  Fun times, 1500 style.¹

Where this becomes even more interesting is with the absolutely crazy – and quite unchristian I might add – tales people would make up about these pathways.  Here are a few popular myths:

1.  Corpse roads became equated with “spirit paths,” meaning that the spirits of the dead travelled up and down the paths, and could be encountered as one ventured through them.¹ 

2.  “Corpse candles” are characterized by a blue light seen to travel down church ways between the house of the deceased and the cemetery and back again.²

3.  Related, “corpse fires” are a phenomenon thought to occur right before a death occurred.  Lights would rise above the ground of a graveyard where a burial was to take place in the near future; creepy, no?²

              

            Interestingly, many of the spiritual connections made with these very religious, Christian pathways drew from Pagan folklore and mythology.³  It may seem strange that such a serious practice was given so many magical qualities during a time when the Catholic Church was fighting reformation through inquisition across the Holy Roman Empire, but as mortal beings, making meaning out of death seems to come naturally. 

A final tidbit that I learned about corpse roads is how prominent they were across Europe – though particularly in Britain.  In Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the imp, Puck makes reference to these paths and their dual purpose as spirit paths.³ I just thought it was interesting how much of an impact these paths had on society culturally and religiously!  Here is Puck’s passage:

Artist's depiction of Puck of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

“Now it is that time of night,
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide”

I love finding things like this in literature; it amazes me how humans are able to transcend and make relevant ancient folklore and ideas in contemporary times!

References

1.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpse_road

2.  http://corpse-road.co.tv/

3.  http://www.pagancouncil.co.za/node/227

Pictures

1.  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/%22Corpse_road%22_-_geograph.org.uk_-_591702.jpg

2.  http://tinybitsofred.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/plf98-060_a_midsummer_nights_dream.jpg

Graveyard Shift at the Cemetery?

I learned something new today! About two minutes ago I had no idea that a graveyard and a cemetery had different definitions; I was under the impression that a graveyard was simply a smaller cemetery.  So, because Wikipedia has taught me so well this morning, I think I will do a blog post on the history of the cemetery and how it came to replace the graveyard in the 1800s. Lucky you guys.

Another Fun Fact: Googling “Shift from graveyards to cemeteries” gets a lot of bad jokes about cemetery employees working the graveyard shift haha. 

Traditional graveyard - notice how cramped it is!

First off, I was very interested to learn that the English term “graveyard” is actually derived from two Anglo-Saxon words: “graf” – pit and “yairden” – open area or garden.¹ Graveyards are usually characterized by their proximity to the place of worship – i.e. the church – and plots are marked with gravestones.¹ While it is tradition within Christian faiths to be buried as close as possible to the church, it is an expensive ritual which many of the poorer classes could not afford.  Due to a lack of funds to be buried within or under the churches, the concept of a graveyard was formed so that peasants could at least be near their place of worship.  ­­

While Graveyards work well within small towns or villages, having so many decaying bodies so close to where you eat, sleep and worship can certainly be considered an issue of public hygiene!  More significantly, are issues of mass death, population increases and quite simply, space.  Here is one example of why the graveyard is no longer the major type of burial ground seen across Europe and North America today:

1.  The bubonic plague that swept Europe multiple times over the centuries had devastating effects on the European population; approximately 1/3 of Europe is thought to have been wiped out in the 1300s’ outbreak!  Imagine 43 million people worldwide being packed tightly together close to where the living dwelled.³  It’s no wonder the Europeans could not stop the spread faster – that and the fact that they killed all the cats who were helping to keep the rats at bay...

After the devastating effects of the plague in the late middle ages, the population began to rise again, and it continued to rise up to the industrial revolution.  Around this time it finally occurred to the public that maybe, just maybe having huge amounts of dead right next to every aspect of daily life was a bad thing!  So, we see the shift toward cemeteries (hooray!)

Ross Bay Cemetery - Located in a public park, and not a church in sight!

A cemetery is defined by the Oxford dictionary – via Wikipedia – as “A burial-ground generally; now esp. a large public park or ground laid out expressly for the interment of the dead, and not being the ‘yard’ of any church”² In other words, people were being buried in much the same way as in traditional graveyards, but in much more open areas, separated from living quarters and places of worship.  

Another little fact about this shift from graveyard to cemetery burial was an increasing resentment held by avid Christians to less-than-committed individuals being allowed burial in the same Christian graveyard as them!² I thought that was interesting because it really shows how seriously people take their burials.  Considering that these people were angry to be buried among people of the same belief system and community as them makes it so much easier to understand why people get upset about being buried in cemeteries today among people of a multitude of faiths!

References

1.       1.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard#Burial_in_graveyards_after_the_19th_century  

2.       2.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemetery

3.       3.  http://books.google.ca/books?id=GKoS6pB_3RQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lindberg+reformations&source=bl&ots=XUT2IfsKoC&sig=LmvXfbzqe7UDwXdPZDlyyZPmRX8&hl=en&ei=ZKOUTdCJEMTTiAKxhsicCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Pictures

1.  http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQGu8YlnII7AZCYFc2CI-oZo19p8oJMWitOn-udWX3GX4cG3kCI

2.  http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQpM4GFk82-7K8zDo6xx0nVnBe7yfJcpcH7pFeph7lqAICo3qb30Q

3. http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRksAdc_o_mXDLfWJaUyTa17qqYLIQyB1XetDkwhd1haJWpbcS0&t=1

Conflicting Worldviews: Me vs. Ritual

Hmm, these have been rather formal posts lately; time for something a bit more personal.  Something that I find challenging is being able to understand the need for a proper – whatever proper is to you – burial and send off.  It’s an added stress for you while you arrange your death and service, it’s a cause of strife for your family as they try to do everything according to tradition as well as your will, and it is a cause for concern among alternate religion/culture groups in that you are being buried “incorrectly.” 

Personally, I don’t have any real preference as to what happens to my body once I’m gone; it can be dissected by goof-off medical students, rot in a pit, or be turned into one of those museum exhibit specimens in the Body Works exhibit (that would actually be pretty sweet!).  So whenever I read articles about ethical issues on burial or about conflicts over scandalous events where bodies were laid in the wrong orientation, I find that I have to try really, really hard to get over my nonchalant perspective on death, burial and respect for the dead – maybe I should lay off the zombie movies for a while?

FUN FACT: If you look up “Christian burials” on Google images you get this as your first result          ---->

One of many reasons that I feel the need to better understand – if not relate to – the significance of funerary ritual to adherents of various traditions is my fascination with religion.  I feel that if I cannot get into the heads of believers, I really can’t hope to learn anything of real value.  After all, what use is a text like the Bible without the emotions, faith, and spiritual realness felt by Christians around the globe? It is the personhood and community that makes the religion, not the guidelines (in my opinion).

Shiite Muslim Casket

I was looking around for a non-Wikipedia article on Christian perspectives on sea burials – not much luck – and came across a webpage which inspired this post.¹  The page is part of an institution called Christian Research Institute and it goes over why burial is the ONLY Christian option for Christians.  Their sources are biblical, and I would say that their arguments around biblical passages are quite sound if the reader is already a Christian.  As the article is written for an exclusively Christian audience, I would say that it is well written, informative and well argued.  However, when I read through it, I couldn’t believe the intricate ties the authors made between varying and distant portions of the Old and New Testament in order to prove their point: that burial is the only option. 

Buddhist monks preparing for funeral ceremony

My point with all this is more of a reminder to myself – and maybe anyone else out there with similar views on burial – that death and burial is incredibly important to a lot of people, and the fact that individuals are willing to spend months devoting themselves to proving the biblical importance of burial proves its significance.  Although I do not hope to ever fully appreciate the emotional and cultural importance of funerary ritual, I am ready to accept and view with respect the rituals and specifications demanded by others.  Hopefully I’ll be able to learn more with an open mind.

Reference:

1.  http://www.equip.org/articles/christian-burial

Pictures:

1.  http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/3d/65/8b/early-christian-burial.jpg

2.  http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQJ19FMGth6D-48xg20CScUB31FdZqHgEjBBcbGRE4Ru9LWpUMx

3.  http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR27T5QVSvigFjlv7zBfiS6Lkit_NJ3UKoD8vwol14TPf1-Sorr

4.  http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRAjEUZe2vIAhJFKoqKHBtids-oPJ-GTa7mimSNuY-6ZKa_aqi9sg

Something Fishy in Archaeology

Drawing from Jay Miller’s Indien personhood III: Water burial, I want to discuss the significance of water that Miller found in both the ethnographic and archaeological record among Native American groups across North America.

A brief article, Miller goes over a belief that is found in many Native American groups: that the way in which the body is buried or the way in which the person dies is a reflection of how they entered and were during their life¹.  Miller goes on to discuss how the archaeological record fails to properly observe the existence of Native American water burial practice, and gives readers a few examples.  The concept of water as being both a giver and taker of life seems to be a common theme among many Native American groups, and in quite a few folktales this idea of water renewing life and strength shows up.  In sum, Miller’s article serves as a friendly reminder to archaeologists – and anthropologists – not to come to conclusions too quickly as there are some pieces of the archaeological puzzle which cannot physically be accounted for.

I thought it would be interesting to write up a few questions on the article and answer them briefly; hopefully they will be broad enough that my readers can come up with their own answers (not necessarily related to the Miller paper… I’m sure you all have better things to do than read obscure scholarly articles!)

1.  Miller describes a site called Windover in central Florida; at this site over 150 bodies – male, female, and a variety of ages equally accounted for – were uncovered during excavation of a peat-filled pond.  Archaeologists were able to find information about the group’s funerary ritual and the grave goods given.  The kicker? This site was only discovered due to an expansion of a space launch pad.  What does this say about archaeology’s attitude toward water burials?

I would argue that archaeology has traditionally been about physical, topographical burial!  Once a body or its ashes are tossed into a body of water we are powerless to find it and must rely on purely folklore or – in some lucky cases – modern practices to realize the existence of these practices.  I definitely feel that in the past archaeology has ignored the possibility of water burial which could certainly have taken away from a more holistic understanding of social and political ranks of individuals. 

Image of a female Windover bog body

2.  Miller tells another story from the Kootenay about an individual - Ya’ukwekam – who was killed by his tribe and thrown into the water.  Due to his father’s close relationship with the water, Ya’ukwekam was rejuvenated by the element and able to come back to the tribe stronger than ever.  Do you think that traditions with folktales like this indicate the possibility of practices of water burial?

Reconstruction of what (above) bog body may have looked like

I feel that if there are stories about the rejuvenating, or even treacherous, powers of water in a tradition, the possibility for water burials cannot be overlooked.  Who knows, maybe there was a period when the dead were laid to rest in lakes, oceans, bogs, ponds etc. Who are we, really, to decide what normal practice is to an ancient cultural group with equally aged traditions?

Reference:

1.  Miller, J. "Indien Personhood III: Water Burial." American Indian culture and research journal 29.3 (2005): 121-4. Print.

Pictures:

1.  http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT0FfqV-NDmsliUvQyQ2gmRbK6oM772_fAvwImlUizjvdX3rk3V

2.http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR3tg4eFPJreBgq_dUm9aWypAYvsxtvHGFhhR7RdoJwakb2DPHnGw

3.  http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQzihOg-MIFeJcbVyjqN5gG5iSjmV1U_MAz9uyujLctlKfNbtCnJA

Gay Pride in the Archaeological Record

Something that absolutely fascinates me is how we attempt to commodify absolutely everything under the sun.  From place names on the expensive new rapid transit system in Dubai, to huge sports venues across the globe, to “designer” prescription drugs, we are truly an interesting species. 

More related to death, I was searching for something entirely different when I came across a “top news” story on a funeral home trying to increase sales by creating special send offs to reflect the deceased’s sexual orientation.  The Cologne funeral home offers caskets decorated in nude renaissance male figures, or simply with a rainbow pattern.  The send offs are customized to suit the desires of the deceased and their “life partner” and/or family but may include grave-side champagne toasts or a spectacular release of multicoloured balloons to properly honour the dead.

What I find interesting about this is how these burials – and the business behind them –  have come so far away from their religious roots in order to make a profit.  It is also an interesting reflection of how drastically Western society has changed over even the past century; from churchyard segregation based primarily on religion, to ethnicity, to sexual orientation?  I truly do not understand the significance of being buried in an area where you are guaranteed to be buried alongside only other homosexual individuals.  It seems to me as though this is a case of the funeral home taking advantage of the fact that humans strive to be special in some way, and by designating special plots of land for the gay community, they certainly succeed in making their clients feel entitled. (Quite genius really)

The next thing I thought about was how segregating gay and straight burials would affect the archaeological record.  It made me laugh thinking about how this could possibly be interpreted for what it is!  Although, I suppose that given the flamboyant nature of the caskets being designed by this funeral home, archaeologists may have a chance at finding the pattern.  But then the research team would have to ask themselves why the gay community – or straight population – felt the need to make this split.  Some possible explanations I can imagine would be incredibly negative despite its entrepreneurial, pride based origin. 

Below is my attempt at a mildly humorous, semi-serious taphonomic interpretation of the plots:

I would imagine that archaeologists would interpret this split as a reflection of negative relations between the two groups.  They could not, however conclude that one population was more entitled than the other because both would have equal access to ornately decorated caskets and tomb stones.  Perhaps residue from the elaborate send offs within the gay plots would remain visible (particles of balloons and champagne glasses buried with the casket maybe?) and researchers would interpret this as some ritualized way of sending off the dead in the gay community?  And from this is it possible that the team would conclude a split between two sexual orientations which evolved over time into reformed religious/ritual burial practices?

One would hope that some of the vast amount of written records we keep survive into the future so future archaeologists do not have to suffer through some of the more obscure things humans do with their dead in the West today.

Reference:

1.  http://www.thelocal.de/society/20101115-31177.html

Pictures:

1.  http://www.totallyfierce.com/.a/6a00e54fb092d5883401348927d17f970c-800wi 

2.  http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/01255/sarg_BM_Bayern_Koe_1255500p.jpg

3.  http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001345099/ab231_bright_rainbow_xlarge.jpeg