July 14, 2004

• I can't remember what blog linked to this (sorry!) but there's a young woman who works in a mortuary and has her own photoblog. My favorite mortician/bishop/musical hero? Definitely this guy. I wonder if he'll sing at my funeral if hired as my mortician? *crosses fingers*
• Uh... This one?
• Ummmm, uhhhhhhhhhhh no! It was some...other...blog...
• I searched, I swear it! Apparently you have to look for the right words or somesuch thing.
• Fascinating reading, highly recommended for everyone: The American Way of Death, Revisited by Jessica Mitford. Really fascinating reading about death as an industry, very well written and updated just before the author's own death in 1996. She started writing it through researching collective funeral plans for a union led by her husband. As a result she received DEATH THREATS from those working in the industry because of her expose (expose-ay - don't know how to do the accent grave) of some of the more nefarious yet commonplace practices (it is a business, after all). Very detailed about the explict process of embalming, etc. Not for the squimish but funny touching and relevant. So maybe not for your daughter quite yet, mercurious? /end Pepsi Blue-ish comment
• How different are cultures other than the US regarding the after effects of death? I know that Muslims bury the body as quickly as possible, and that Jews think having the body present in a funeral is shocking, and some cultures expose the body to vultures so that it re-enters the cycle of the earth. But really, are we collectively all that differt?
• complex question: the laws about disposal of human remains in the US for the most part take into account various religous beliefs, including Jewish and Muslim requirements for burial within a certain time frame (Parsi I am not sure about, though I know they are having increasing problems with actually finding the vultures in India due to urban sprawl and other factors and are forced in some cases to resort to cremation). What kind of differences are you refering to? Rituals differ greatly, and reflect a whole variety of concerns: method and manner of death, connection to spiritual realm, reintegration of family/spouse to functional, "living" society (in some places requiring complete denial of the departed person's existence). These rituals construct and delimit the spectrum of socially acceptable reactions to death; the funeral industry and the creation of the "funeral" itself as a required ritual in many Western communities instructs us as to how we ought to react and give space for that reaction. Therefore, as the rituals differ, so do our reactions (a self-fullfilling circle of course; as our reactions differ so do our rituals).
• Perhaps if we say "underbunny" she'll come out and talk.
• ilyadeux - but that was what I was asking. Do the Canadians, or the Brits, or the Asians, or other religions, or all the other folks we talk to here, think about death the same way US dull normal honkies do? As I mentioned earlier, I know that there are different ways of dealing with the physical body, but how do the rites differ? How does mourning differ.
• I adore the word "cremains." Imagine how clever some bastard must have felt the day he coined that.
• Great post mercurious. Your daughter sounds like a neat young woman. My dad claims that when he goes he wants to be propped up in the ice tub with the keg at his backyard barbeque funeral. ilyadeux, thanks for the book recommendation.
• (i had posted this -- late -- in another thread and thought it might be of interest...) i volunteered in the intensive care unit of george washington university hospital here in d.c. -- that's where reagan went after he was shot, ashcroft had his surgery, etc. anyway, i did a little of everything, including preparing bodies for the morgue. i'd never been in contact with a dead body before, ever. i was curious just to see how i'd react. i found it a very moving experience, actually. i was acutely aware that i was among the final persons to ever physically touch this human. the bodies are cold, but not particularly so. there's a post-mortem kit that includes strings to tie their hands and feet (to keep them on the gurney), a bag to zip them in, several tags to tie on their toe, their hand, any belongings (such as a bible) going with them to the morgue. it's a very quiet task. i felt honored to do it. and it made me realize that i'm not at all afraid of death or dead bodies. and of that, i'm glad. i think every human needs to face death and accept it. it's a basic task of being alive. and i think it's one many people shirk.
• Back in college, I used to get high with a couple of MortSci guys. Both were scions of long held private undertaking families, learning the trade to eventually take over their respective family businesses. I once asked them about it, and they said that the vast majority of students in the department from similar backgrounds - future undertakers getting ready to join the family business. Anyway, they had the most *outlandish* textbooks you'd ever care to flip through. Fascinating and monstrously gross, similar to those illustrated dermatology texts every junior high library has for the edification and titillation of the pre-puberty boys.
• my attempt at path's question: I think the answer is yes, American rituals of death (including the wide variety of cultures/religons) do differ from other places, but like many things the differences are a reflection of the power of the market. The business of death encourages lavish, ostentatious displays meant to demonstrate the depth of love for the departed (families are told that elaborate coffins/floral displays/graveside ceremonies/etc will provide a catharthic effect in allowing the grief to be expressed through spending money). Particularly among the elite (celebrities like Ronald Reagan or Marlon Brando), the celebration of death is a very public process meant more for public consumption than person grief [just have to look at the contentious RIP RWR thread here; there was great criticism of Ron Reagan Jr.'s remarks, and similar criticism of Pat Tillman's brother's intensely personal remarks during their respective funerals]. This public exposure/display of grief, measured in many cases by the level of finanical sacrifice, is not at all unique to America. But, the industry is better developed in the US, and the industry (with its vested interests) is what has created the particular rituals (the necessity of embalming, costly reconstruction for open casket viewings, satin-lined mahogany coffins with gold trim fittings with floral tributes, long term maintenance contracts at expensive private graveyards, etc.)
• wow, ily, did you major in funereal rites in college? you're quite well-versed in the subject! interesting stuff.
• ...Hi Wolof (& everyone. :) ...I'm a little late, but I'm always happy to answer questions if there're still any! ...mecurious-- the first step for your daughter is to find apprenticeship at a funeral home. ...there are so many stories, I wouldn't know which one to tell first-- interesting things happen pretty much on a daily basis. ...the greatest misconception is that we work with the dead all day long-- when actually, we deal more with the living & quite often (understandably) badly behaved than the dead. ...& I'm too careful with my words for a blog, so I let my flickr photoblog speak for me. :) The link was already posted up there. ...& ilyadeux, your last comment is just bewildering to me-- very Jessica Mitford, that. Was it taken directly from her book(s)? ...the argument that undertakers are greedy & manipulative to the grieving makes me feel tired. For if I was in this business only for the money, I'd not be here. It consumes my days & nights & is utterly draining & demanding in every way. ...I don't give a shit if a family selects an inexpensive direct cremation or an expensive funeral service. I don't encourage 'lavish, ostentatious displays meant to demonstrate the depth of love for the departed', rather-- I encourage them to choose what is best for themselves &/or their loved one, & they do.
• underbunny, thanks for coming here. The only time I had to participate in setting up a funeral there was no pressure. My mother selected a cowboy themed coffin since my step father loved horses, and roping in rodeos, and cattle, and having fun. It was her tribute to him. She also buried him in the plot next to his second wife, which pissed her off a bit, but it was his wish. His trek toward death took about 10 years, and he dealt with better than I would have, so I think he deserved the honors, even if he couldn't participate. Or, could he? Maybe funerals are a part of the mourning process, and for the survivors. There may be funeral directors out there who are the equivalent of used car salesmen (and I worked for a car dealer a long time ago, and can tell you that many of them are everything you've heard), but I think the general run are members of the community who do their best to help,
• *waves at underbunny*
• wow, way delayed response from me. underbunny: what I know about the funeral industry in the US is alas not from direct experience but from a great deal of anthropological research in the UK that includes ethnographic studies of the US, Mexico, India, China and Canada. In my life I have only ever met 3 funeral directors, and 2 of them in the cause of business rather than research. As I am interested in the commingling of ritual and business in death, I would like to gain more first-hand exposure. I should not make such delarative sweeping statements, as I do not believe that 90% of people carry-out their day-to-day livelihoods for the sole sake of money; but I do think that structurally many industries are so inclined. That having been said: This is a discussion about a recent Oklahoma case where the Supreme Court up-held the monopoly of funeral homes to sell caskets (and only caskets). These are the kind of institutional conditions to which I should have more explicitly referred. They reflect not malicious exploitation, but the culmination of wandering policies without supervening objective assessment. also: underbunny, your photographs are really wonderful. um, just to say.