Caitlin Doughty's Blog, page 41

Hey Funeral Directors, Get the Hell Out of the Way!

I had a woman come in for her mother’s cremation. She was the only person to show up. No one else was comfortable doing a visitation or witnessing her cremation. Our witness package includes a one hour visitation. She took 20 full minutes just setting up the crystals, sage smudge, river water, music, and Tibetan singing bowls. She spent a great deal of time cleansing her mother’s spirit, the space and her own grief in, what was to me, a very curious manner. One of my peers said, “Wow, that’s pretty over the top, what the hell was wrong with her?” Though this is not usually my style, I lashed out at him. I said “YOU KNOW WHAT?! At least she’s doing something. I wish that more of the families would take this kind of interest; what she’s doing may be odd, but she’s taking on her mom’s care, which is more than we can say about most families!” Taken aback, he thought about it for a second and said: “You know what? You’re absolutely right.”

As of now, the funeral industry does a horrible job at collaborating with families. Most people in the industry believe that if we give consumers the power to collaborate and join us as equals, somehow there’s no value in the services provided by directors. Or worse, no profit to be made. Low cost providers don’t want to take the time to walk a family through the funeral process because it could reduce their overall volume of business. And the majority of directors believe consumers are either too stupid or too squeamish (or both) to run a funeral on their own.

I know that this will be a shocking reality to hear – there are VERY FEW families that want, or have the capacity, to transport and care for their dead on their own. People don’t want to haul grandma to the crematory in their Honda. I also don’t know of anyone that has a personal cooler capable of storing a body, nor the cremation equipment. Regardless of the popularity of the home funeral movement, funeral directors aren’t in danger. Home funerals are definitely possible (and are encouraged!) but many people find it too difficult or too foreign relative to their traditions. People want to find things that they can do, where they won’t be told “no.”

One of my favorite stories comes from when I first started Elemental. I had a family that wanted to do something more meaningful with their mother’s service and they had been shopping multiple funeral homes. I told them that I would come to their home to talk to them about the options and see if we could find something that would fit for them. After an hour of discussing possibilities, we went from a stale, traditional graveside service to the family having mom come home to her own house for a visitation in her dining room. I took mom (on dry ice) to her home and her family helped me to carry her into the house and set her up on the dining room table (in a casket) and I went on my merry way. They brought mom back later so she could be refrigerated. They returned the following Monday to put her in the back of their pickup truck to head to the cemetery.

Here was a family that at the outset, didn’t think they wanted to, or could, engage in that level of involvement, and yet they developed this plan with a little coaxing from me, and a strong sense of needing to do something that had meaning and earnest involvement in the process of shepherding their mom to her resting place. All I had to do was give them permission and a couple of pointers.

Like the woman that I opened this article with, I’ve seen a rise in the number of people coming in and wanting to be a part of even simple cremations. Just an hour visitation before the cremation. Or the opportunity to witness the placement of the deceased into the cremation chamber. People in the United States have a tendency to raise an eyebrow or shudder at the notion until I explain that, for all intents and purposes, it is the exact same function as witnessing the lowering of the casket into the grave at a graveside service.

There were the two women that flew in to Seattle from Tokyo to spend an hour with an aunt of theirs that passed away quietly without any family to care for her after she died. They wanted to be there to witness her cremation so that she could have the respect and honor that they felt she deserved. They came in and sat down in front of their aunt with no fanfare, decorations, chanting, monk, or music. They told stories, they laughed, and they enjoyed having the three of them all together one last time.

A family came to me recently after they lost their son in a tragic accident. All they wanted was to create some kind of meaning in the face of the total chaos of emotion that they were swimming through. They had gone to another low cost funeral home that had no interest in listening to the family’s questions or entertaining any kind of notion out of the standard operating procedure: pick-up, cremate, return ashes.

The family only had a couple of needs: They wanted to be sure they got their son back from the mysterious cremation process, and they wanted to make the container that he was going to be cremated in. It wasn’t a very tall order – they just needed us to walk them through the exact process of identification, transport and cremation, so they could have the assurance that at every point there was a procedure to identify him. The family did not want to use the cardboard container used for most cremations, as they strongly felt their son needed something more personal. After 45 minutes of brainstorming options the dad came up with a brilliant idea – he was going to handcraft a surfboard shaped cremation tray. The family could come together to decorate the surfboard and write messages on it. What they came back with was beyond my wildest expectations. It was a beautifully handcrafted surfboard that was perfect to be used as a cremation tray. It was decorated with as much precision, love and care as anyone could ever muster and it was covered in loving handwritten messages to send him off on his next journey. This wasn’t another numbered body being shuttled into the cremation chamber, this was a life cut way too short, and he was riding a stunning example of craftsmanship and dedication on a wave of love to the other side.

Do I sound cheesy? You bet your ass I am. And I mean every word of it, because I will go to my own death remembering the time where I got the hell out of the way so that a family could send their son surfing.

What do all of these little stories have in common? Almost nothing, save for the fact that these people chose ways to give the death a little more significance. Someone they cared about had left this world, and they aren’t going to return, so they took the time to honor them in the best way that they knew how.

Their way.

I’ll say right now that I don’t have a secret sauce to make the consumer happy in all cases. The biggest way to fight back with the industry is to plan your own death (which doesn’t mean you need to pre-pay). Here’s my promise to you, North American Consumer: the funeral industry will listen to all of your needs when you start talking with your family to make a plan for death. Because when you do that, you can go into the funeral home while everyone is still alive and do it on YOUR terms, not theirs. There’s a lot of grey area that you get to dance in (and write down in proper legal documentation) when you aren’t bent over a barrel in the darkness of grief.

You have the ability to research the funeral homes around you and find one that wants to collaborate with you and walk the path alongside you, not leading you by the nose. We can change the way that this society cares for it’s dead, and it starts with your family and your dialogue.

Hey Funeral Directors, Get the Hell Out of the Way!

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Funeral Procession: Public Nuisance or Sacred Tradition?

© Los Angeles Times

There are a few components of American funeral rituals that reliably agitate funeral directors and the public alike. Funeral processions—those lines of cars following the hearse and rolling through red lights—are one of the biggest. If you question whether these automotive convoys are appropriate, necessary, or safe, you can be sure that your character, lineage, and civic virtue will be insulted.

Bill Mayeroff is a blogger at ChicagoNow.com who wrote a post questioning the practice of funeral processions. It was picked up by the funeral-industry news aggregator site, ConnectingDirectors.com. All comments [sic].

“Let me guess, Bill Mayeroff is: 1. A baby boomer 2. A narcissist 3. An idiot.”

“I think this blogger should have this discussion face to face with the thousands of people who mourned and processed with any number of our fallen soldiers.”

“Although the article is so sophmoric that it doesnt earn the time of a reply, I feel I have to. It is all about respect of the dead. Something that the author probably knows very little about. He is an NPR listening, liberal, candy ass moron.”

“In today’s society, death rituals, etc. are often viewed as “inconvenient” to those involved. But, death should NOT be convenient – if it is, that person’s life didn’t mean much.”

So, commenters have established that Bill Mayeroff is a narcissistic, soldier-hating, un-patriotic baby boomer with a candy ass he keeps glued to National Public Radio in between ruining everyone’s Grief Work(TM). Except no, they haven’t. I too question the place of funeral processions. Many undertakers would say that’s because I’m an anti-funeral director outside agitator who hates sentiment and religion and wants to force families to bake-and-shake their loved ones. Or something.

The question isn’t whether funeral processions have value. The question is whether the value families find in them ought to outweigh their practical effect on public roadways and safety. That is a reasonable question to ask, and reasonable people ought to be able to discuss it.

Funeral directors are sharply defensive when the necessity of their business practices is questioned. This often leads to projecting cynical and misanthropic motives onto their conversational partners. Everyday, non-funeral-industry folks get their noses out of joint too. Readers wax indignant over the Downfall of Civilized Society wrought by selfish baby boomers/gen Xers/millenials/kids/liberals/narcissists/heartless conservatives.

Too many people confuse what grieving families need with what the general public is obliged to do. When someone close to us dies, it’s often the worst day of our lives. Sometimes the very most important person in our world is gone. I’ve been there. If I could have made the whole world stop when my close friend died young from cancer, I probably would have. But we also know that as dear to us as that dead friend is, the wider world doesn’t feel the same way we do.

Funeral procession of George-Étienne Cartier.

This isn’t cruelty or heartlessness. It’s the normal state of human affairs. Private loss does not compel public participation.

When someone says, “But, death should NOT be convenient – if it is, that person’s life didn’t mean much,” they’re making a leap. I know what the commenter means: That we too often neglect death and try to sanitize it away, perhaps losing some very meaningful family time.

But that has precisely nothing to do with what strangers think and do. Even if you believe death “shouldn’t be convenient” for mourners—which is rather presumptuous—you need to explain why you believe the general public is obliged to shoulder that burden too. We’re not talking about public funerals. We’re not talking about national grief after an assassination, or the public solemnities we confer on dead soldiers. No one is saying that public mourning of important figures should be outlawed or scoffed at.

That’s why the question of funeral processions rankles some people so much. Common courtesy and decency require us to pull over for a funeral procession. I pull over for them because my mom raised me right, just like yours did. They do not require us to refrain from questioning the overall practice of funeral processions and proposing change.

So, are funeral processions truly dangerous or inconvenient enough to justify outlawing them? I don’t know because I don’t have objective data on the traffic hazards. But I do know it’s within the bounds of civil discourse to ask.

On my way to work this week I got stuck behind a procession. It was almost ¾ of a mile long, traveling down a two-lane road already littered with blind curves, speed bumps, and frequent semi-truck traffic. It’s a frustrating and potentially dangerous road on the best of days.

As the procession approached a four-way traffic light it was obvious that neither the mourners nor the other motorists had any idea what to do. Cars crept hesitantly, unsure of whether the motorcade would run the red light. It did, and very nearly drummed up some more business for the cemetery. It should be plain why some of us raise the question of whether this is the best public policy.

The problem is not rude, hateful, selfish people who “don’t respect the dead the way they used to.” The problem is that we don’t travel by horse and buggy, yet any time someone questions funeral processions we act like we live in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, circa 1876. Do we really believe that any death, regardless of time or circumstance, should be able to commandeer public roadways? Do we really believe that the needs of all motorists to get their kids to school, to board the city bus, and to do so safely with predictable road behavior should just naturally be ignored because our most important person in the world died?

No one is trying to deny families rituals for grieving. Surprisingly few people actually hate America, soldiers, and funeral directors. We are asking a relevant and appropriate question: Is there a better way to balance private grief with public administration and safety?

 

Joshua Slocum joined the Funeral Consumers Alliance staff in 2002 and became executive director in 2003. He has appeared as an expert commentator on funeral issues in national media such as 60 Minutes, the New York Times, CNN, AARP Magazine, and CBS News. In 2009, he testified before a Congressional committee on the need to bring cemeteries, crematories, and all death industry vendors under the Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule, the only national protections funeral consumers enjoy.

Funeral Procession: Public Nuisance or Sacred Tradition?

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The Macabre Mystery of the Deathly Cameos

Grand Tour Cameos, c. 1820

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the well-to-do in Europe sent their scions off to travel the Continent, see the civilized world, and round-out their classical educations. These so-called ‘Grand Tours’ became the rage, and people being then as they are now, souvenirs were sought at each of the stops to commemorate the journey.

In the past, I’ve run across the rare set of cameos or intaglios from this period. Unlike the mass-produced tchotchkes that we recognize today as ‘old lady jewelry,’ these were instead small custom-made keepsakes to be displayed in the dens and libraries of the upper classes. Some are portraits of the travelers themselves, made in those pre-photography days to memorialize a stop in Italy on the way back home. Sometimes the seals are of mythological figures, or famous generals, philosophers, or kings. All have in common their beauty and exquisite attention to detail.

Recently I was at the Brimfield Antique Show in Massachusetts. For those who have never gone there, it is a mind-boggling assortment of junk and very high end items; the problem is that everything is mixed together, and it’s up to YOU to sort the wheat from the chaff. Caveat Emptor and Good Luck.

“I ran across a small pine box with a fragile paper label…”

As I was sorting, I ran across a small pine box with a fragile paper label on the lid. Written in what appeared to be old quill ink on the label were a pair of names. Inside were two lovely plaster cameos with delicate gold edging, their subjects being very elegant Regency-period young women in profile. And on the inside of the lid were two more small pieces of paper, written in Italian in the same 19th century hand, both with the date ‘1824.’ Charmed, I negotiated with the seller – he admitted it was a slow day – and soon I was heading home with the new possession.

“Inside were two lovely plaster cameos with delicate gold edging…”

Things took a bit of a dark turn, however, once I got back to my computer and could use Google Translate to figure out exact what was written.

 “Miss Bathurst, who drowned in the Tiber, March 1824”

“Mrs Hunt, who was killed by bandits at Paestum, December 1824”

This was obviously no ordinary Grand Tour souvenir.

A quick Internet search did, in fact, turn up details of these two unlucky women’s demises.

Rosa Bathurst was born the middle of three children to the late Benjamin Bathurst and his wife Phillida.

[Incidentally Mr. Bathurst, the Sec’y of the British Legation at Livorno, disappeared in November 1809 traveling in disguise through Perleberg while heading back to the Foreign Office in London. His body was never found, and it remains unknown to this day if Napoleon’s spies, or highway robbers, finished him off.]

Rosa Bathhurst

In 1823-24, fatherless Rosa – renowned for her beauty and sweet disposition – was staying with her uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Aylmer, at their estate in Rome. It had been a severe winter, and the first warm days were melting the snow as spring started to burst forth. On the morning of 16 March 1824, the Aylmers, Rosa, and the French ambassador, the Duc de Montmorency-Laval, gathered to enjoy a horseback ride.

Rosa and the Duc were in front on their mounts, with Lord and Lady Aylmer next, and a female friend of Rosa’s along with the Duc’s groom bringing up the rear. The riders made their way past Villa Borghese. Rosa fell back toward the rear. The party reached a vineyard – a shortcut according to the Duc – but found the gate locked. The Duc then suggested a narrow path, one that circumvented the locked gate, which lay between the vineyard and the Tiber River. The path was windy and overhung with trees and bushes. Lady Aylmer suggested that the girls dismount and lead their horses along the path, but they did not listen.

Lord Aylmer had ridden back to assure the women that only a few yards ahead the path widened and was much easier going, but as he did so, Rosa’s horse took fright and tried to turn around. Lady Aylmer called out to Rosa, warning her not to let the mare turn, but it was halfway around when it lost its footing and started to slide off the path and down the steep bank into the Tiber. Lady Aylmer jumped from her horse and tried to grab Rosa, but it was too late. Still in the saddle, Rosa fell into the river, which was swollen with spring melt water from the mountains and running swiftly.

Lord Aylmer dove into the freezing water to attempt to reach his niece, but the current was too strong for him. Back on shore, he ordered the party to remount and ride for help. Men and boats were sent out to search for Rosa. A reward of £50 was posted, but there were no signs of the girl. The expat community in Rome went into mourning. The Aylmers felt they could no longer live so close to tragedy, so with Mrs Bathurst and Emmeline, Rosa’s sister, they retired to Geneva.

The following October, two peasants found Rosa’s body buried in the sand along the banks of the river, not too far from where she had fallen into the water. The body remained dressed in her blue riding habit, with her bonnet still knotted under her chin and her rings still on her fingers. It appeared she was sleeping, according to those who saw her. Officials took charge of the corpse until the family was notified by courier and had arrived back in Rome. Rosa was then buried near the spot where she was found. Her mother placed a monument there in her honor, which reads:

“BENEATH THESE STONES ARE INTERRED

THE REMAINS OF ROSA BATHURST

WHO WAS ACCIDENTALLY DROWNED IN THE TIBER

ON THE 16TH OF MARCH 1824

WHILST ON A RIDING PARTY

OWING TO THE SWOLLEN STATE OF THE RIVER

AND HER SPIRITED HORSE TAKING FRIGHT.

THE DAUGHTER OF BENJAMIN BATHURST

SHE INHERITED HER FATHER’S PERFECTIONS

BOTH PERSONAL AND MENTAL

AND HAD COMPLETED HER SIXTEENTH YEAR WHEN

SHE PERISHED BY A DISASTEROUS FATE”

Caroline Hunt

Regarding Caroline Hunt, Rosa’s boxed companion, she was the daughter of the Rev Charles Euseby Isham. Caroline and her new husband, Thomas, were doing the honeymoon Grand Tour ten months after the nuptials. Apparently the Hunts were quite wealthy, having estates in London, Northamptonshire, and Cheltenham. The couple had probably already visited Paris and Geneva, and they were working their way down the Italian peninsula in the footsteps of Keats, Shelley, and Byron. Naples has its architecture, music, cuisine, and extremely active volcano, plus nearby Paestum is home to uniquely well-preserved ancient Greco-Roman ruins. It would be the perfect stopping point for culture hungry aristocratic lovers.

Whether Caroline and Thomas had much of a chance to marvel at the Doric columns before being launched into eternity is not known. They might have appeared lost – unfamiliar with the terrain and roads – and too well-dressed and appointed for their own safety. They accordingly attracted the attention of the wrong types, and were accosted by banditti – thieves – while at Paestum. In the course of the ensuing robbery, they were killed by the same bullet, possibly as Thomas was shielding his bride from the attack.

In Wadenhoe remains a memorial plaque:

“SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

THOMAS WELCH HUNT, ESQ

LATE PROPRIETOR OF THE ESTATE AND MANOR OF WADENHOE

AND OF CAROLINE HIS WIFE;

ELDEST DAUGHTER OF THE REVD CHARLES EUSEBY ISHAM

RECTOR OF POLEBROOKE IN THIS COUNTY;

WHO WERE BOTH CRUELLY SHOT BY BANDITTI,

NEAR POESTUM IN ITALY,

ON FRIDAY 3RD OF DECEMBER 1824.

HE DIED ON THE EVENING OF THE SAME DAY,

HAVING NEARLY COMPLETED HIS 28TH YEAR;

SHE DIED ON THE MORNING OF THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY,

IN THE 23RD YEAR OF HER AGE.

AFTER A UNION OF SCARCELY TEN MONTHS,

AFFORDING AN IMPRESSIVE AND MOURNFUL INSTANCE

OF THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN HAPPINESS

THEY WERE LOVELY AND PLEASANT IN THEIR LIVES;

AND IN THEIR DEATH THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED.”

‘Not Divided’ because Caroline and Thomas were buried together in a single grave in the English Cemetery in Naples, where they lie to this day.

The two unfortunate Englishwomen I had uncovered are not apparently related, aside from their year of death and country of passing. The wooden box in which is found their cameos was undoubtedly custom made for that purpose – but to what purpose? Why did their visages wind up together? A morbid souvenir of causes-célèbre of the day? A cautionary warning for tourists? A simple memento mori? Or nothing more than a lovely example of a long-forgotten artisan’s portraiture skills?

Likely, this part of the story will remain forever unknown.

The Macabre Mystery of the Deathly Cameos

Talkin’ Transi Tombs with Caitlin & Elizabeth

Tomb at St. Gervais et Protais in Gisor

Elizabeth

I loved that cadaver tomb you posted on Facebook the other day. (Cadaver tomb always sounds redundant to me but whatevs.) It reminds me of this bad boy who’s been lurking in my “things to write about” folder. Thought you might like him.

Caitlin

I guess “cadaver tomb” is kind of redundant, as tomb implies that a dead body is found within.  But I’m going to make the bold declaration that cadaver tombs get a pass on the extra emphasis because they are tombs with actual cadavers on them.  Best of both worlds!  Did you find this beauty on your travels?

Elizabeth

It’s at St. Gervais et Protais in Gisor, France. It’s set into the wall, lurking in the shadows under a window. Kids have scratched their names right below it as if a little lively mischief could take away the pall the sculpture casts over this corner.

What’s crazy about this particular piece is there is no dead body. When I saw it thought it must be a cadaver tomb (which I learned is also called a transi tomb sometimes- as in transitioning from death to eternal life) but after a little research, I found out it’s not. I guess you would classify it more as a memento mori? It’s so similar to the one you posted though and they’re both French. Do you have any more information on yours?

Tomb of Cardinal Jean de la Grange, c.1325 – 1402.

Caitlin

Today is your lucky day.  Mallory, who sent in the tomb (like you and I, Mallory is a fan of deathstinations) had a ton of info.  It’s the tomb of Cardinal Jean de la Grange, c.1325 – 1402. This is considered an early example of a transi, or cadaver tomb, because his body is really in there. +1 for body. Body or it didn’t happen.

Our Cardinal de la Grange was a Benedictine monk who lived through the Black Death in France, at a time where 50% of people in his town of Avignon died.  This is how the inscription on the tomb translates: “We are a spectacle to the world. Let the great and humble, by our example, see to what state they shall be inexorably reduced, whatever their condition, age or sex. Why then, miserable person, are you puffed with pride? Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return, rotten corpse, morsel and meal for worms.”

I like that he calls us “rotten corpse” at the end there.  It’s good strong death acceptance rhetoric.  Transi tombs are great, but you know what my favorite are? DOUBLE DECKER TRANSI TOMBS.

 

Transi Tomb, c. 1435-40

Elizabeth

Well now it’s YOUR lucky day! Because Cardinal de la Grange’s tomb USED TO BE A DOUBLE DECKER! I just found that little nugget out while I was searching for more info on my memento mori. According to a conservationist at the Louvre, the tomb used to show the Cardinal in life above the corpse part of the tomb but it was knocked down during the Revolution. The salvageable pieces were split up and the corpse stayed in Avignon. So we’re only seeing half of it. The double decker transi tombs are so awesome—business up top, naked decomposition down below. Truly the mullet of tombs (and I mean that lovingly).

I’ve also got to hand it to the Cardinal’s tomb for having a badass epigraph. My tomb at St. Gervais is a little more tempered. It translates to “Whoever you are, you will be overcome by death. Stay here, take care, and weep. I am what you will be, a heap of ashes. I implore you, pray for me.”

The sculpture is probably from around 1526.The conservationist points out that people weren’t dissecting corpses yet, so the anatomy is always a little impressionistic. Our dead friend in the wall here has too many ribs, for example.

Here’s some of the reading material I dug up on our transi tombs, if you want to peruse. The first link is choice.

Représentation du corpse- le transi by Geneviève Bresc Bauthier (link)

The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture, Volume 2, edited by Colum Hourihane

John FitzAlan, 14th Earl of Arundel 1435

Caitlin

The mullet of tombs!  Truer words were never spoken.  And yes I will absolutely peruse any and all cadaver tomb information.

I’ll leave you with one of my fave double decker transi tombs, John FitzAlan, 14th Earl of Arundel (much better than the 13th Earl).  I use this picture in talks all the time, to silence any naysayers on the point that late medieval tombs were the realest and best of all tombs.

So I am, so you shall be!  Look upon me, one in the bloom of life, now a rotten corpse, ravaged by death.  I just made that one up, but it’s pretty to form. We could use more of these now, instead of flat grave markers that try to hide that people are buried and make cemeteries look like parks.  I’ll take my corpses and the reality of death, please.

Can I post this to the Order? I feel like people will love a good transi tomb.  How can they help but capture a deathling’s black heart?

Elizabeth

Yes, definitely post this to the blog!

I’m having so much fun over here learning about transi tombs. No really. The More You Know rainbow-star is shooting out of my house right now. And I’m right there with you. Let’s bring back the transi tomb. They’re beautiful, they’re unflinching, they’re personal and still universal. What more could you ask for in a memorial?  Maybe transi tombs were like Medieval art therapy– a way to come to grips with the fact that you’ll become ashes and dirt without believing you are ashes and dirt.

Talkin’ Transi Tombs with Caitlin & Elizabeth

The Dead Sea Necropolis of the Future

There’s nothing more pleasing than a well designed necropolis, or city of the dead. When you think necropolis, you likely imagine the ancient burial grounds of the past. But let us look to the necropoli (necropoleis? necropoles?- there’s a lot of debate about what the plural is here) of the future.

Welcome Yarauvi, a necropolis designed by award-winning architects Miró Rivera, to be built smack in the center of the Dead Sea. Significant location not only because of the symbolism of the Dead Sea (emphasis on dead), but because of its precarious position, Jordon to the east, Israel and Palestine to the West.

In spirit it would be, “a place where any person—regardless of nationality, race, religion, age or affluence—can be laid to rest.”

Like the International Space Station of corpses. Reminder that we are all human, especially in death.  We decompose the same, turn to bone the same.

The Dead Sea is hypersaline, roughly 8.6 times saltier than the ocean, which makes it extremely buoyant. The design of Yarauvi is based on constructing a giant floating bowl of the dead.

The body to be interred in Yarauvi would be ferried across the sea, like Charon symbolically ferrying a soul across the River Styx. Once inside Yarauvi, the structure is rings of sarcophagi facing one another in concentric circles.

Here’s the architect’s description of how it would work:

“Families will bid farewell to their loved ones from a dock at the southern banks of the Dead Sea. From there, the dead, accompanied by a few mourners, will be transported to Yarauvi by boat. The boat enters the necropolis at its base and travels through a ceremonial unicursal labyrinth that leads to the center point of the necropolis, where the dead are lifted to the space above. The accompanying mourners will also enter the necropolis this one time, during the interment of their loved ones.”

If Yarauvi already existed (and if I didn’t have to be embalmed and shipped halfway around the world) I would say sign me up. At least it’s a bold attempt to redefine multinational death and aesthetics, one “ceremonial unicursal labyrinth” at a time.

Yarauvi is not being built, and it likely never will be. But it’s worthwhile to dream of such a place. Not only for the possibilities of the architecture of death, but for what it would mean as a metaphor for life in seemingly awful times.

Official Yarauvi website

The Dead Sea Necropolis of the Future

Enon Chapel: London’s Victorian Golgotha

“And as for their dancing, was ‘dance’ the right word for it? Nothing about that dance to cheer the heart. The dance was the dance of death. They danced it for the wretched of the earth that they might witness their own wretchedness.

Angela Carter, “Night at the Circus”

Danse Macabre. Anonymous. Germany 16th century.

In Googling ‘dancing’ and ‘death,’ you are presented with a plethora of quotes on the two topics entwined. They seem to be somehow synonymous with each other: “Dancing with death” and “Dancing on someone’s grave” are two good, albeit metaphorical, examples, and we are all familiar with the iconic, allegorical imagery of the Danse Macabre.

But in a tiny, unassuming chapel in 19th Century London, dancing on the dead is literally what revellers did.

Enon Chapel was opened around 1822 in Clements Lane near The Strand in London. Like many buildings, it was situated above an open sewer. The Baptist Minister at the chapel was the unscrupulous and greedy Mr W. Howse, and the inhabitants of the parish belonged to a poorer class. Worshippers occupied the upper floor of the chapel for sermons and meetings for 4-5 hours a day, and below them in the basement the dead were interred, separated from the living by only a few thin wooden floorboards. There was none of the usual “lath and plaster” below, and the boards continually shrank, causing gaps to appear between them through which the odour of decomposition would escape. This intramural interment was the custom at the time within London, particularly directly beneath churches, but Mr Howse differed in that he offered this service for only 15 shillings (less than other parishes which charged around £117s) and had few morals or sense of decency towards the deceased. The overused basement soon became “…filled with coffins up to the very rafters, so that there was only the wooden flooring between the living youth and the festering dead.” [1]

Despite the fact that parishioners were already inhaling the noxious fumes of the putrefying corpses below, the enterprising Mr Howse realized he could continue to ‘inhume’ the dead provided he take a few shortcuts: coffins lovingly bought for the deceased by parish family members were chopped up and used by Howse as firewood in order for him to pack the cadavers more tightly together in the 50 x 40 ft pit. The bodies were covered by no more than a few inches of earth, if any at all, hence the stench. He realized he could also discard remains down the sewer and let them float through the sewer tunnels like so much garbage, ricocheting off the stone walls and becoming covered in viscid London feces.

Eventually this chapel and the area surrounding it became known as a modern Golgotha due to the unsavory characteristics noted by tenants and visitors. The stench was frequently intolerable and in the summer the chapel’s Sunday school, made up of local children who were taught for 6 hours, was often blighted by insects: one a long, thin black fly which crawled out of the coffins below, and the other a more common looking insect which the parishioners called ‘body bugs’. Samuel Pitts, a cabinet maker and regular attendee of the chapel, said he’d seen hundreds of these bugs flying around at one time, and that he took them home in his hat, and his wife took them home in her clothes.[2] One witness stated that he had a peculiar taste in his mouth during the time of worship, and that his handkerchief was so offensive that immediately on his return home his wife used to place it in water.[3] Residents living around the chapel were frequently annoyed by a disgusting smell, vast numbers of rats infested the houses, and meat left out for a couple of hours in the atmosphere very quickly putrefied. It became dangerous to sit in the church for faintings and sickness occurred every day, and many people returned home with headaches. A Mr Tumbleton (an undertaker who had attended a funeral at Enon Chapel) perceived a revolting stench during the service and within 40 hours was seized with a malignant typhus which confined him to his bed for 9 weeks. [4]

19th century cartoon showing the pollution the sewers caused in the Thames.

It wasn’t until 1834 that concern was raised, causing the Commissioners of Sewers to investigate further. They decreed that the sewer below the chapel should be vaulted over after they discovered human remains festering down there; however the corpses at this point were disturbed and mutilated, but unbelievably not removed.

The ever-enterprising Mr Howse continued to ‘inter’ the local dead in other ways (by now around 500 corpses a year). Over a period of time he was said to have moved 60 cartloads of dirt and human remains to Waterloo Bridge and thrown them in into the River Thames. However he carelessly dropped some of his cargo on one journey and a passerby bent down and picked out of it a human skull. [5] Another time it was a human hand, not buried a month, which surgeon George Walker described as “as perfect as my hand.” [6] Bartlett elaborates, “It was no longer safe to cart away the remains, and yet the Reverend speculator could not afford to lose his fine income from the burials and so his ever-busy intellect invented a novel mode of getting rid of the bodies – he used great quantities of quicklime!” [7] This nefarious practice continued until the minister died in 1842, at which point human bones were even discovered beneath his kitchen floor.

Enon Chapel

The new tenants who took over the lease in 1844 knew of the chapel’s history and capitalized on it by appealing to Londoners’ obvious tolerance for the macabre. They placed a layer of brick over the original wooden floor, lay down new wooden floorboards, and opened the space as a ‘low dancing saloon’ for teetotallers, cheerfully advertising “dances on the dead” as well as gambling. An old leaflet stated: “Enon Chapel – Dancing on the Dead – Admission Threepence. No lady or gentleman admitted unless wearing shoes and stockings” The Poor Man’s Guardian, in 1847, described this new venture as a ‘Temperance Hall’ which held plain and fancy dress balls accompanied by an efficient band: “Quadrilles, waltzes, country-dances, gallopades, reels are danced over the masses of mortality in the cellar beneath” [8] The venue was particularly popular for its annual boxing day bash.

These dances continued until around 1848 when philanthropist, sanitary reformer and surgeon, Mr George Alfred Walker of Drury Lane, bought the chapel which was in the immediate neighborhood of his surgery. In 1839 he’d written, “My reflections upon leaving the masses of corruption here exposed, were painful in the extreme; I want language to express the intense feelings of pity, contempt and abhorrence I experienced. Can it be, thought I, that in the Nineteenth Century, in the very centre of the most magnificent city in the universe, such sad mementoes of ignorance, cupidity, and degraded morality still exist?” [8] At his own expense (£100 – quite a substantial sum for the day) he began having the bodies exhumed and buried properly in a single pit in Norwood Cemetery. (Mr Walker, who had studied at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, was passionate about the abolition of intramural interment and wrote many books on the dangers of disposing the dead among the living.)

The process of exhumation at Enon became a spectacle when the remains were piled up and a “pyramid of human bones was exposed to view” near the premises, visited by 6000 people.

It was at this time, with the human remains finally being removed, that it was calculated over 12,000 bodies had been given eternal ‘rest’ by Mr Howse.

Enon Chapel wasn’t the only place in London where this practice occurred (although due to the greed of its minister it was the worst). The London Medical Gazette stated, “A remarkable fact, showing the indifference of the community on this important topic, is that Enon Chapel is not the only place where children are actually taught in a room built over the mouldering remnants of humanity!” and goes on to list other similar establishments: Whitechapel Church, Spitalfields Church and St Georges in the East among many more, most of them written about by Mr Walker in his book “Gatherings From Graveyards: Particularly Those of London…” However it was the Enon Chapel affair which brought attention to the disgraceful state of many of the city’s burial grounds and a Parliamentary Select Committee was established to deal with the issue. The National Society for the Abolition of Burials in Towns, established in 1845, also added pressure with Mr George Walker. Eventually the new Burial Act of 1852 closed down burial grounds in metropolitan London and allowed larger cemeteries on the outskirts of London to be established.

London School of Economics

The area is now home to the London School of Economics, the original buildings having been demolished long ago, and even during this development more human remains were discovered. Do the students at the LSE have any idea of the gruesome scandal which occurred all those years ago beneath their floors, and do they hear the sounds of ghostly feet dancing on phantom wood during quiet evenings…?

 

Enon Chapel

The moon,

Like a pustule in the sky,

Oozes grey light over London’s blackened skin.

It bleeds through the jewelled chapel glass

Staining the rotting floor with pale petals of faded colours:

Anaemic red, putrid green, frozen blue.

On this corrupt confetti, they dance.

They are marionettes

Animated by frustrated spirits of those beneath;

Those who know no peace and cannot sleep.

Wildly they writhe,

Convulsing below the crucifix,

Their smiles too wide – their heads split like burnt flesh.

Their footfalls

A cacophony of demonic drumming,

Empty sounds

Beating for those hearts which cannot beat.

 

References

[1] Walter Thornbury, Old and New London: a Narrative of its History, its People, and its Places, 1872

[2] Jupp and Howard,The Changing Face of Death, 1986

[3] George. A. Walker, Surgeon Gatherings From Graveyards: Particularly Those of London: With a Concise History of the Modes of Interment Among Different Nations, From the Earliest Periods; And a Detail of Dangerous and Fatal Results Produced by the Unwise and Revolting Custom of Inhuming the Dead in the Midst of the Living, 1839 (really the book’s title…!)

[4] London Medical Gazette, 27th December, 1839

[5] Richard Guard, Lost London, 2012

[6] Horrors of London Burying-Grounds, The Tablet, November, 1842

[7] David W. Bartlett, London by Day and Night, 1852

[8] The Poor Man’s Guardian, 4th December, 1847

[9] George A. Walker, 1839

 

 

Enon Chapel: London’s Victorian Golgotha