Unusual Death: Self-Mummification

Sokushinbutsu is the Japanese term for the practice of self-mummification done by some Buddhist monks and is unique to areas of northern Japan. It is unusual and I’m not really sure where it ‘fits in’ in terms of categorization, it’s not really burial since people don’t tend to bury themselves and the person is also not interned in the ground, instead in a tomb. Perhaps then it would fit into the category of accidental burials like Otzi, however it wasn’t really an accident, since it was self induced. Troubling....

Although there are not many cases of this practice, believed to be less than 40 mummies, it is thought that hundreds of other monks tried and failed. The monks began the process by fasting, easting only a diet of nuts and fruits combined with hardcore physical activities for 1000 days; this was in order to eliminate body fats. Then for another 1000 days they would eat bark and roots and drink poisonous tea. This step also involved self induced vomiting so that there would be loss of body fluids. The tea helped to poison the body to deter maggots. In the final stage of the process, the monk would enter a large stone tomb and sit in the lotus position to await death. He would ring a bell daily to let the other monks know he was still alive. When the bell stopped, the tomb was sealed for 1000 days. Then the tomb would be opened to see if the monk had been successful, more often than not they failed.

This practice was obviously done for religious reasons. Although the two elements together; (religious) suicide and intentional mummification/preservation, are common across the world, I think combining them in this way is unique to Japan.

IMAGE: http://s3.zetaboards.com/Tranquility/topic/628389/1/

Fantasy Coffins

A while ago while sitting in on a Friday night browsing Google for ‘weird dead things’ I came across the unusual fad in Ghana for unique coffin designs in the shape of all manner of things; giant fish, planes, cars, guitars and so on. Death and the passing of a love done is a highly celebrated event in the region and given a lot of though and effort. The 'fantasy coffins'  as they are called are designed by the deceased or their loved ones to have some sort of essence of the dead person and reflect their personality, or occupation.

This celebration of life and unique practice made me think about the choices that are made regarding death in our own society. It is still so sombre and austere, everybody in black, sullen and most importantly the black shiny coffin, which looks just like every other coffin. I wonder why we are still so reserved about death in our society, especially since we are so very individualistic in almost every other way; we love to personalise everything, difference and uniqueness is highly celebrated in our culture. Why then do we all insist on being the same when it comes to death and shunning the choices of those who want to be different?

I like these coffins; I think they celebrate the life of a person. I think I would probably be buried in a giant horse coffin, the horse would have fancy high heels (I love shoes) and be eating chocolate and there would with a union jack on it somewhere....

Graveyard Convention

I recently came across a BBC article documenting a huge argument over a graveyard that had began in a small English town between the city council, local residents and parents of deceased children. In short, after complaints the graveyard and the city council had banned the presence of a number of decorative objects including wind chimes, lights, balloons and teddy bears particularly on the graves of young children and the graveyard had been dubbed ‘tacky’.

It made me question what the protocol around death is and how to commemorate a loved one? And who gets to choose for us how it ‘should’ be done? I’m sure most of us believe we live in a particularly open and accepting society now, that we have moved on from the days of austere Victorian mourning and that one might be free to celebrate death how they see fit. However, I think that a lot of those century old ideas about death are still deeply engrained in us.

This article followed a recent English television documentary about the (Irish) traveller community in England; one episode showed a memorial that one father holds for his son every year at his grave. Hundreds of friends and family show up, they play ‘the son’s CDs’ from the car and there is lots of drinking. After this was shown there was huge uproar about how disrespectful and tacky such an exhibition was, yet I think we should all be free to commentate our loved ones in the way we see fit.

It made me wonder about such protocol in ancient societies and what the repercussions may have been for people breaking such protocol, additionally I wonder if such examples of going against social convention are visible anywhere in the archaeological record? What will future archaeologists think when they come across this particular grave site, with all these items, will it be an anomaly, how will they try to explain it in a similar manner as they do today?

This really made me re-address how I personally think about archaeological burials. There is obviously the tendency to distance ourselves from the dead in our society, particularly the ancient dead. I have often noticed that my ideas about the treatment of ancient remains differ quite a lot from my fellow classmate, a result I’m sure of being English and growing up exposed to a different set of social conventions about such things. For me now I find it important not to try and place distance between me and the dead, because the idea freaks me out. Instead I find myself wondering about their lives, who they were, who placed their particular grave goods with them and why? What did they mean to that person? What did they mean to the person who put them in? Do we have the right to take them away from that person, isn’t this like stealing. I had a very different approach to such things before, but when I sat down and really thought about it I began to think that we should really be a little more thoughtful to treat these burials as the people they were rather than just viewing them as objects without life.

Picture courtesy of; http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news-politics/should-graveyard-wind-chimes-and-plastic-displays-be-banned-t19290.html