The GFG goes international (part 2)
Whilst my fellow directors were attending and leading workshops at the Good Death Festival in the Czech Republic I was off on an adventure of my own – a spur of the moment life’s too short trip to Vietnam but of course I couldn’t quite resist having a little look at how death is done […]
Window shopping in Lubeck
Yeah yeah, it’s a rubbish photo, I know, I’m not blind. It’s the best I could do. It’s an undertaker’s window. In Germany. Me and the missus have been holidaying there. This undertaker is in the ancient city of Lubeck. As you can see (through a glass, darkly) the display is a series of objects […]
Making the best
From Being Dead Is No Excuse: Southern women always want to look their best — even if they happen to be dead. Our local undertaker, Bubba Boone, understands this. We brag that Bubba can make you look better than a plastic surgeon can, though, unfortunately, you do have to be dead to avail yourself of […]
Stonehenge and sky burial
Posted by Ken West The archaeology at Stonehenge is all about digging up funerary artefacts so is it possible to consider how those funerals occurred? Stonehenge is unique, the only certain stone circle in Britain aligned to the solstices. Forget the Druids, as they did not exist in the Neolithic period and never had any involvement […]
Fusion funerals: Cockneys, immigrants and Hackney hipsters
Posted by Richard Rawlinson The story of T. Cribb & Sons is one of business resilience in the cultural quicksand of London’s East End. A family-run firm of undertakers since 1881, its heritage is Cockney: close-knit, white, working class communities celebratory of both their roots and the material trappings of wealth: pie and mash and the […]
While you’re at it, why not lob another ancestor cult into the pot?
As you don your sad-rags, zombie gear, horror clobber, skeleton onesie or whatever it is that floats your boat at this season which sees the ungainly coupling of All Hallows Day, Samhain and the Mexican Dia de los Muertos enhanced/corrupted by commercialism and rendered incoherent by cheap thrills and facepainting, the team here at the […]
Should women be allowed to go to funerals?
I don’t suppose there can be many ‘indigenous’ funerals held these days which prohibit the presence of women. There may be one or two redoubts in Presbyterian Scotland. Bucking the trend in the wider community, though, many Muslims prohibit their presence. Why ban women from funerals? To spare their feelings, mostly. Or put it another […]
Historical perceptions of a disreputable trade
The following is extracted by a PhD thesis by Sarah E Bond. It describes the social status of funeral workers in earlier times, particularly in ancient Rome where, we discover, FSOs were often employed, also, as executioners. According to an inscription from Puteoli dated to the first century BCE: “The operae (workers) who shall be provided […]
In the borderlands
Posted by Jenny Uzzell There is a very useful word frequently used by anthropologists and students of religion and mythology to describe something that is neither one thing nor the other; something that is ‘in between’. The word is ‘liminal’. Classic examples of things that are ‘liminal’ are marshes or other places at the water’s edge, […]
Those whom Agni has tasted
3rd post in a series by Jenny Uzzell examining the question: What is a funeral for? For those in Ancient India, it appears that funerals were vitally important, not only to the dead, but also to the smooth running of society. Most of our knowledge about this period comes from the Rg Veda, arguably one […]
