Book of the dead

Setanta--



Last month I heard a self-appointed Local Authority insisting that the Defendant in a local rape case was obviously guilty--because otherwise the cops wouldn't have arrested him.

I remember people bitching when the television networks stopped showing the clips of the people jumping from the Twin Towers on 9/11.

Ethical progress is very slow--170-odd years isn't nearly enough time to perfect the human race.

People still try to get through the police lines at fires for a better look.

One hundred seventy damned odd years, you said a mouthful . . .

"Curiosier and curiosier," remarked Alice. Alice was a very flexible Victorian heroine.

I see what you mean about the kids looking angry at being photographed with htere dead brother or sister.Id imagine they would be too young to understand full feelings of the situation and are probably justannoyed at being dragged into having a photo taken.
I think the photos are more for the parents.

yea, thats what im sayin ^

im glad we had this discussion...

ok this was creepy to me. wow, the ones with the eyes open really get me. i am completely mortified of death, i for one started crying during the 9/11 documentary when they explained the noises you were hearing were people hitting the mezzanine. it took all of my strength to continue watching, it was horrible.

The entire book of the dead is morbid and fascinating. Some of the subjects of the photos look remarkably peaceful, some have smiles on their faces, some look merely asleep... but some of them are just disturbing. I have to wonder what they were thinking when they photographed the girl dead nine days, posed as if reading... and it was interesting how many babies were teh subjects, that was something of a statement of how poor healthcare was then.

Does anyone know of other eras/cultures where this was common practise?

The pictures go directly to my soul, bypassing all my bs it seems. So powerful.

This is truly fascinating to me. My first long-term relationship was the first time I came across this type of documentation of death. We were speaking about my bf's father: and he picked up a photo album that had pages and pages of his dad on his funeral bed. All different angles. His mother had one framed and in her bedroom. At the time, I didn't know what to say. I had been to wakes of loved ones and have seen my fair share of death - but I had never known of anyone choosing to preserve the memory of the death bed in photos. It was profoundly moving. I loved D. and felt closer to him after that. I can't explain it with words. It was very intimate and sacred.

Anyways, I always wondered where this practise came from and who else does it. Apparently, D's family had done it for generations and generations.

In the '50's a friend of mine worked part time for a photographer who was frequently summoned to take pictures of the Dear Departed, coffin and all.

Once she arrived at the House of Mourning and found no mourners, no corpse, no employer The light was so bad indoors they carried the deceased out in the back yard, the better to pose him with family members.

This is fascinating!

I recently learned of Oklahoma having these traditions with our old cowboys; Such as the John Wilkes Booth scandal where his supposed body was displayed for nearly 8 years due to the coroner's tiring of constantly being asked to show him off.

At least, that's what I was told. I didn't get a chance to ask how the bodies were perserved for such a period of time, but this is a very intriguing macabre pactice.

Weird and bizarre, yes. But dead or alive, these are pictures of real people. They don't creep me out at all. It seems odd to me the one of the baby sitting up with her eyes opened, or the girl with the book, only because of the whole physiscs of it. How? I understand rigor mortis but that isn't a permanant state so the body would have become limp. The baby, maybe. The girl 9 days?

From various things I have read over the years, it seems we have a completely different attitude to the passing of our loved ones than in days of yore. We are so 'sanitized' - as soon as the deceased is declared dead we call in the morticians, the body is removed, prepared for burial and unless we make a point of requesting an open coffin, all we see is the flower/flag/whatever bedecked coffin at the church and/or cemetery. (Cut and dried, life is for the living, closure, let's not think about it too much, don't upset the children, etc.)

Back then, it seems, the person was kept 'in the family' until the funeral. The womenfolk usually washed the deceased, the undertaker brought the coffin to the house where it sat, open, on a table or trestles for days sometimes with family members and friends taking turns to sit by it, keeping vigil.

In Victorian times, also, if the families could afford it they would have had nannies to look after the children while mother concentrated on her other duties, namely father, and it stands to reason that an older sister would have a proprietorial attitude towards a new sibling. (My mother had to spend months in hospital after the birth of my younger brother and at age nine I considered him to be my baby, and took almost complete care of him - I still think of him that way.)

Perhaps the young girls in the photos looked less than happy because they were grieving (note the hand of the girl in the first photo which seems to be gently caressing the baby's head) but appreciated the chance to have a keepsake to remember them by.

Or maybe not - but I do remember my grandmother telling me about such things when I was younger.

Greenwitch--

I agree. Good post.

A neighbor of my sister died in his home last year. He had lung cancer that matastisized quickly. He stopped radiation when it became apparent that it would cure him and took to his bed when he got too sick to do his usual gardening. They set up a bed in his living room and his wife would help him move so that he was comfortable and so that he could look upon his favorite paintings. When he died, he remained where he was until the burial. People came to sit with him at the house. My sister thought it was creepy. I thought it was lovely.

Anyway. Trying to decide whether I want to go look at the images......

I did look. Could it be that, in the early days of phtography, people didn't have photos of their loved ones and realized that this was their last chance to ever have one? Curious.