Ever since his death in 1966, stories have circulated that Walt Disney’s corpse was cryogenically preserved and stored below the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland for future resuscitation. This, however, is an urban legend. In reality, Disney was cremated and interred in the Court of Freedom section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
Green Burials
If you are a concerned, ecologically aware citizen who cares deeply about environmental issues (in other words, a tree-hugging hippie), you’ll want to look into the increasingly popular form of interment known as “green burial.”
A relatively recent outgrowth of the back-to-nature movement that first sprang up in the late 1960s, green burials dispense with all the costly and elaborate accoutrements of traditional interments: fancy coffins, heavy-duty burial vaults, ostentatious memorials, “perpetual care” cemeteries as neatly manicured as suburban lawns. Instead, they offer a simple, back-to-the-earth form of burial in bucolic settings: lush meadows, grassy fields, and shady forests.
DEATH DEFINITION: Excarnation
THE DEFINITION OF EXCARNATE IS “TO DEPRIVE OF FLESH”—FOR EXAMPLE, TO REMOVE THE MEAT FROM bones. (The word is the opposite of incarnate, which means “to invest with flesh,” “to give something bodily form.”) Stripping flesh from skeletons is, of course, exactly what carnivorous beasts do to their prey. Hence, the term excarnation is sometimes used to describe the funerary practice of disposing of dead bodies by feeding them to wild animals.
As Kenneth Iserson documents in his exhaustive volume Death to Dust: What Happens to Dead Bodies? (Galen Press, 1994), this method has been used by people throughout the world from prehistoric times to the present. In ancient Egypt, dead slaves were tossed into the Nile as croc chow. Elsewhere in Africa, corpses were carted off to the desert for the jackals and hyenas. The ancient Bactrians who resided in what is present-day Afghanistan kept dogs for the precise purpose of body disposal (the elderly and infirm were also occasionally fed to the hounds). And tribal people from Australia to North America have placed their dead in trees or elevated platforms to be devoured by vultures and other scavengers.
Nowadays, the practice is still carried out by the Parsees of India, who—to avoid polluting the sacred elements of earth, fire, and water—refrain from burial, cremation, or casting corpses into rivers. Instead, they erect stone parapets known as Towers of Silence and place dead bodies within to be consumed by vultures. Some modern-day serial killers have also favored excarnation as a means of eliminating incriminating evidence. In the 1930s, a sociopath named Joe Ball disposed of his female victims by tossing their bodies into an alligator-stocked pond behind his seedy Texas roadhouse. More recently, a Canadian pig farmer named Robert Pickton, accused of murdering more than two dozen women, allegedly got rid of the remains by feeding them to his porkers.
The practice originated in Great Britain, which currently boasts more than 150 “green cemeteries.” In our own country, the acknowledged pioneers of the eco-friendly funeral movement are Billy Campbell—a small-town physician in the farming community of Westminster, South Carolina—and his wife, Kimberly. In 1996, the Campbells turned a thirty-eight-acre stretch of Westminster woodlands known as the Ramsey Creek Preserve into our nation’s first back-to-nature burial ground (or, in the somewhat more pretentious phrase preferred by its founders, “memorial ecosystem”). The strict environmental rules enforced at Ramsey Creek have become the model for other natural cemeteries that have begun to appear across the United States:
Bodies may not be embalmed (to prevent any toxic fluids from leaking into the groundwater).
Coffins must be made of biodegradable materials (simple wood, wicker, cardboard, papier-mâché). Shrouds made of natural fiber are also permitted.
Tombstones are not allowed. A flat rock from the preserve can be placed on the grave and, if the family wishes, engraved with the name of the deceased. (A person can also choose to leave his or her grave unmarked, in which case the site is entered into a database to provide a permanent record of its location.)
Flowers or shrubs can be planted at the gravesite but only if they are native to the area. (A checklist is provided by the preserve and runs the gamut from heart-leaved aster to hairy yucca. You won’t be pushing up anything as mundane as daisies at Ramsey Creek Preserve.)
Besides protecting the planet from embalming-fluid leakage and nonbiodegradable caskets, green burials are easy on the pocketbook. Nowadays, an average funeral costs in the neighborhood of $6,500, not including the price of the cemetery plot. By contrast, being planted in a beautiful woodsy area such as Ramsey Creek Preserve will set you back less than half that amount. Plus, it serves the purpose of land conservation since no one is going to turn a cemetery into a condo development.
As Billy Campbell says, “By setting aside a woods for natural burials, we preserve it from development. At the same time, I think we put death in its rightful place, as part of the cycle of life. Our burials honor the idea of dust to dust.”
Or dust to mulch, as the case may be.
RECOMMENDED READING
Mark Harris, a former environmental columnist with the Los Angeles Times syndicate, has written a highly readable book on alternative, ecofriendly burials, Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry (Scribner’s, 2007). For someone whose sympathies are clearly on the side of the green burial movement, he’s also pretty fair and balanced, noting, for example, the dubious environmental advantages of “air-freighting a body to a distant woodland ground for shrouded interment, as has happened.”
An excellent online source of information about green burials is the Forest of Memories Natural Burial website at www.forestofmemories.org.
On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. Instead of the friendly union of life and death so apparent in Nature, we are taught that death is an accident, a deplorable punishment for the oldest sin, the archenemy of life. But let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous insuperable unity as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.
—JOHN MUIR (used as an epigraph for the Ramsey Creek Preserve website)
Ecopods:
Designer Coffins for the
Save-the-Earth Crowd
If you decide to take the green burial route, the simplest (and cheapest) way to go is inside a plain pine coffin. But if you’re looking for something more stylish than an unvarnished box, the Ecopod may be the right choice for you.
ISN’T IT IRONIC?
(PART II)
According to the London Daily Mail of July 4, 1997, a woman named Rolande Genève planted an oak tree in her garden in Isère, France, when she was six years old. Sixty years later, following a severe thunderstorm, the tree fell over and killed her.
Ecopod. Courtesy of ARKA Ltd.
The brainchild of British designer Hazel Selina, the Ecopod came into being when Selina was called upon to arrange the funeral of an old friend. A passionate environmentalist who ran a natural childbirth center in Devon, England, she was horrified to discover that traditional coffins not only relied on endangered species such as mahogany but allowed precious natural resources to go to waste by preventing dead bodies from turning into compost. On a train ride to Wales, she came up with the concept of a coffin made of papier-mâché and shaped like a seedpod. The result was the Ecopod.
A sleek, slightly curved container made of 100 percent recycled paper and toxin-free resin, the Ecopod comes in two different sizes and a variety of colors, with simple decorative devices made of natural silk-screened paper. Compared to ordinary coffins, they are such strikingly elegant objects that it almost seems a shame to hide them underground.
For more information on the Ecopod, go to www.ecopod.co.uk
How to Make a Mummy
You�
��ve probably always wondered how the ancient Egyptians turned corpses into mummies. Perhaps you’ve even thought about having your own body preserved in this traditional manner when you die. Well, here’s the authentic recipe as handed down from the time of the pharaohs!
INGREDIENTS
Natron (a mineral salt, also used to make
Bavarian pretzels; you will need 400
pounds, give or take a few teaspoons)
Juniper oil
Palm wine
Sawdust
Tree resin
Wax
1 human corpse
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT
Stone slab
Hooked embalming rod (a crochet hook
may be substituted in a pinch)
Obsidian knife
Jars (preferably of the beautifully sculpted
canopic variety)
Linen (approximately 1,000 yards)
Priceless gold jewelry such as rings, bangles,
amulets (optional)
PREP TIME
About 60 days
DIRECTIONS
Place body on slab.
Poke hooked rod through nasal cavity and extract brain in clumps until it is completely removed. Dispose of brain tissue. Rinse interior of cranium with palm wine, then pack with tree resin and sawdust.
With obsidian knife, open a small incision in the abdomen. Remove liver, lungs, intestines, and stomach and store in jars. Leave heart in place to be weighed by Osiris in the afterlife.
Cover body with natron and let dehydrate for 40 days. Rinse. Dry. Anoint with juniper oil.
Stuff body cavity with tree resin, sawdust, and leftover natron. Seal incision with wax.
Add jewelry, amulets, etc.
Tear linen into strips, 16 yards long and 2–8 inches wide. Decorate with hieroglyphic prayers. Spend next 15 days wrapping body in intricate geometrical patterns.
Voilà! Your mummy may now be outfitted with a gold mask, placed in a human-shaped sarcophagus, and transported to the burial chamber of your choice, where (barring the depredations of treasure-seeking tomb raiders) it will reside for all eternity.
You are young again. You live again. You are young again. You live again. Forever.
—Ancient Egyptian prayer for the dead
You, Too, Can Be a Mummy
(and So Can Fido)
Have you always envied King Tut? Harbored a secret yen to be eviscerated, anointed in oil, and entirely swaddled in gauze? Dreamed of having your body discovered in a perfect state of preservation by archaeologists of the future? Thanks to the miracle of modern “mummification” pioneered by an organization called Summum, that dream can now come true!
Summum was founded by a former aerobics instructor named Claude “Corky” Nowell, who subsequently became a licensed funeral director and legally changed his name to Summum Bonum Amon Ra, supposedly ancient Egyptian for “Worker of Creation.” (His friends still call him “Corky.”) Along with Salt Lake City mortician Ron Zefferer (who also adopted a moniker from Egyptian mythology and is now known as Ron Temu), Ra spent years developing a state-of-the-art “mummification” process. The two men began by experimenting on lower life forms before working their way up to Corky’s pet cat (which had died of feline leukemia). Having finally perfected their technique, they patented their formula, set themselves up as professional “thanatogeneticists,” and established their company, the world’s first (and only) commercial mummification service.
Headquartered in a shining golden pyramid just five blocks from the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Summum offers what its advertising brochure describes as a “very thorough and gentle process that allows you to leave this life in as beautiful a manner as possible”—a process tagged with the trademarked phrase “eternal memorialization.” A page on its very handsome website, (www.summum.org/mummification) supplies further details.
Once the deceased has been transported to Summum’s mortuary-cum-temple in Salt Lake City “the rites of Transference begin and are officiated as the body is bathed and cleansed. An incision is made to remove the internal organs. The organs are thoroughly cleansed and placed back in the body.” The body is then “immersed in a baptismal font filled with a special preservation solution.” After a period ranging from a week to a month—“long enough to achieve maximum penetration as the rites of Transference continue”—the body is “removed, cleansed again, then covered with a lotion.” Next comes the wrapping in “several layers of cotton gauze,” followed by the application of successive layers of polyurethane, fiberglass, and resin. Finally the mummy is encased within a custom-made casket called a Mummiform, which is then filled with “an amber resin, completely surrounding the mummy and protecting the perfection that has been created.” The entire process requires a minimum of 120 days.
HEROTODUS ON MUMMY MAKING
The most famous firsthand description of the Egyptian mummification process was written by the great Greek historian Herodotus (aka the “father of history”). It appears in his book The Persian Wars, composed in the fifth century B.C.
“The mode of embalming, according to the most perfect process, is the following: They take first a crooked piece of iron, and with it draw out the brain through the nostrils, thus getting rid of a portion, while the skull is cleared of the rest by rinsing with drugs; next they make a cut along the flank with a sharp Ethiopian stone, and take out the whole contents of the abdomen, which they then cleanse, washing it thoroughly with palm wine, and again frequently with an infusion of pounded aromatics. After this they fill the cavity with the purest powdered myrrh, with cassia, and every other sort of spicery except frankincense, and sew up the opening. Then the body is placed in nitre for seventy days, and covered entirely over. At the end of this period, which must not be exceeded, the body is washed, and wrapped round, from head to foot, with bandages of fine linen cloth, smeared over with gum, which is used generally by the Egyptians in the place of glue, and in this state it is given back to the relations, who enclose it in a wooden case, made to resemble a human figure. Then fastening the case, they place it in a sepulchral chamber, upright against the wall.”
Needless to say such elaborate postmortem ministrations don’t come cheap. After noting that “the rites of mummification are something we would offer free of charge if we could,” the folks at Summum point out that they “incur extensive costs” in preparing each mummy and therefore “suggest a donation” for anyone who wishes to undergo their procedure. The minimal cost is currently $67,000, though total expenses can amount to “well over a hundred thousand dollars,” depending on the exact style of Mummiform one chooses to be encased within. (The simplest is a sleek, shiny capsule, though other, far more elaborate handcrafted models are available, including ones “inlaid with gold, ceramics, or jewels.”) Little wonder that the customers who have so far signed up for “eternal memorialization” tend to be the rich and famous.
For those with a little extra cash to toss around, mummification is also available for pets. Costs range from $6,000 to over $128,000, depending on species, weight of animal, and “type of Mummiform chosen.” The price might seem a tad steep, but after all, as Summum’s website proclaims “Through this singular form of Permanent Body Preservation, your pet, at his natural earthly passing, will enter eternity in all of his splendor and beauty.”
MUMMY BEAR:
THE CUTEST DARN MUMMY EVER!
If you’re the parent of a preschooler, you’ve undoubtedly found yourself faced with an all-too-common dilemma: just how do you introduce your child to the wonderful world of mummification? Well, thanks to the folks at Summum, the world’s leading provider of “modern mummification” services, that worry is a thing of the past. Just proceed to the company’s kids’ website at http://kids.summum.us.
There, you and your offspring will be introduced to Mummy Bear, an absolutely adorable, bandage-swathed teddy who has undergone the mummification process and is bursting with eagerness to share its joys with all the little visit
ors to his interactive home page. ("Hi everyone! My name is Mummy Bear. Do you like mummification? I sure do. I think it’s cool.”) Mummy Bear will not only lead your children on a guided tour of mummification through the ages but teach them jokes, riddles, games, poems, and even the “Mummy Bear Prayer” ("Now I lay me down to rest / I leave this life, I’ve done my best / Please clean my body, head to toe / Wrap me up and make me whole”).
There’s also a slide show of Mummy Bear undergoing the mummification process, from evisceration (you’ll get to see his furry little tummy opened up and his cute little innards exposed) to wrapping. All we can say is ... awwwww.
100 Percent
All-Natural Mummies
Besides the kind of mummy that everyone is familiar with—the bandage-wrapped ancient Egyptian type that resides in a fancy sarcophagus and can be brought back to life with the proper ritual incantation—there is an entirely different variety found in many parts of the world. This sort of mummy is not the product of a sophisticated method of embalming but rather the result of natural processes.
Human corpses can be naturally mummified under different environmental conditions. After as little as two weeks in a hot, arid climate, for example, an exposed human body weighing 150 pounds may be converted into a completely dessicated, parchment-colored, 45-pound mummy. One of the more startling discoveries of recent times occurred in the remote Chinese wasteland known as the Taklamakan desert, where perfectly preserved three-thousand-year-old mummies with long blond hair and blue eyes were discovered in the late 1980s. Certain areas of South America have also been fertile grounds for modern mummy hunters. In a major find that took place in 2002, several thousand Inca mummies—many with their hair, eyes, and skin intact—were uncovered from an ancient graveyard on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, a region that receives virtually no rainfall and whose exceptionally dry soil provides ideal conditions for natural mummification.
The Whole Death Catalog Page 30