Memorializing Mortality

With this course and (thankfully!) this blog coming to an end, it is time to reflect on what has been learned/realized and to voice my thoughts on a subject one last time.  First of all, if there is one thing this course  has made me realized it is my own mortality.  Coming into the Archaeology of Death, I was aware we would be discussing burials, and grave goods of those looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong gone.  However, as the course went on, my Grampa was in and out of the hospital and my dog aged and has only a few years left.  And, of course, with my many illnesses of my own, I realized my own imminent demise. 

I've always been a worrisome person.  I always think of the worse case scenario, and I always freak out.  I don't know why this course resonated with me so much or made me so depressed.  I think it might have something to do with the surrounding possibility of death to more than one of my loved ones.  Also, I think that it might have something to do with university opening my mind and me getting older and realizing that my dog isn't going to end up at some farm, running free.  I believe it's because I'm old enough know to have formed bonds with people and to remember them, and the concept of losing them would break my heart.  That and I'm too young to leave this world, I have so much more living to do.

Now, a quick ending to this blog.  Is how we remember the dead enough?  In tragedies like the Holocaust, is a memorial statue or wall really enough?  When a family member dies, is a gravestone enough?

My stance on this is still up in the air.  I lost a very dear family friend a few years ago and I'm still not over it (probably because I saw him only a few days before it happened for the first time in years).  I couldn't bring myself to go to the funeral and I haven't forgiven myself for that.  He died in an avalanche, doing what he loved most, and all that is left to remember him is a tombstone.  I feel that most people who have contributed something to society or loved something so much should have a scholarship or a foundation of some sort set up in their name.  I do know this: when I die, I want a scholarship set up in my name for women who want to go to school away from home who have good grades (like me), who are passionate about sports (like me), and who have no financial support from any family (like me).

Eat My Feelings and Drown My Sorrows

This week in class we discussed funerary feasts.  All this talk about food made me, almost, completely forget about death and focus on my grumbling tummy.  One thing that I pondered this week was that our class seems to view these feasts as something that only happened in the past, AND, that funerary feasts were like a party to celebrate the dead.

This got me thinking about what happens in our current period when someone dies.  Now, unfortunately, I have been to more funerals in my short 20 years of life then all of my friends put together.  These funerals were both for friends and family.  Since neither side of my family is religious in any way, shape, or form, our funerals have been rather simple: just a wake.  When my Dad's dad passed away, all we had was a wake at my Nana's house.  This entailed just a few close friends and family, sitting around the house, discussing my Grumpa's memory, and eating.  Now, we weren't feasting, just snacking on some finger foods.

I see eating as a way of dealing with grief rather than a celebration of someone's life or passing.  I find that people, whether the loss is a death or something as silly as a break up with a boyfriend/girlfriend, we tend to eat our feelings and drown our sorrows in alcohol (at least that's the motto I adopted after my first breakup...I was too young at funerals to be "experimenting" with alcohol).  I've also noticed (especially on TV shows) that when someone in the neighbourhood dies it is customary to bring the spouse/family of that person casseroles or other meals, so that they don't have to cook.  Sometimes people are too grief stricken to feel an appetite so this throws off my whole theory.  I'm still sticking with my theory of people eat when they are depressed because I've seen it happen so many times, with many different people, in a variety of depressing situations.

A Little Less Than Kin, A Little More Than Kind

First of all, yes I purposely reworded the quote from Hamlet for my title.  Second of all, this week's topic is about kinship and for the first time since I've started this blog I'm going to deviate from the prompts given in class.  The topic of kinship brings me back to the Anth 200 class I was in last semester.  In the tutorial for that class, we learnt how to draw kinship diagrams.  For those of you who don't know what a kinship diagram looks like I've included a picture below that gives a pretty straight forward defintion of how to draw a kinship diagram (this photo can be found at http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/fundamentals/diagram.gif).  I would like to point out that "ego" is yourself.






I drew mine (in my Anth 200 class), not based on who I considered relatives, but who has been either connected to me from my mom or dad's side through blood, marriage, or sexual indiscretions that led to offspring.  I did this just to see how messed up my family is, and to see who was really related to me and by how much.  Turns out, we could be our own version of  the Springer or Maury show (since we don't really talk to each other/aren't even full blood relatives).  I'm curious as to what other people count as family.  Also, how far down the family tree do you consider relatives?  First cousins or distant cousins?  Only aunts and uncles through blood or through marriage?  If I did a kinship diagram and I took it seriously, I would probably just consider my Dad's brother and his wife and daughter, my Dad's sister, my Dad's mother and father, my Mom's mother, father, and common-law "step-father", and, even though I haven't seen or spoken to my Mom's brother and "brother" since I was little, I would probably include them on the diagram as well.  I really do wish I had one big happy family but you can't pick your family.  You can only learn to live with them or without them.

City of the Hawk

For our group presentation we are doing the Egyptian site of Hierakonpolis (City of the Hawk).  Our group is going to use Prezi to do this but for the blogging prompt this week I found a website on Hierakonpolis called "Interactive Dig Hierakonpolis" which you can find by following the link below:

http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/index.html


While this site has a ton of information and good pictures, it was really hard to navigate, thus making it hard to follow.  It also has unneccessary links at the bottom for "recipes" and "Thanksgiving"/

Gay Caveman

The first time I came across this gay caveman was in Erin's Anth 100 class in the summer.  This first article on the Telegraph website gives a detailed account of the gay caveman.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8433527/First-homosexual-caveman-found.html

However, my thoughts on the gay caveman conincide more with the article on the National Post's website.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/04/17/gay-caveman-probably-not-gay-or-a-caveman/

Based on these two and other articles I have come to two varying conclusions: 1) they sexed the skeleton wrong; or, 2) the skeleton belonged to a gay male.

To go with conclusion 1, I think there is a possiblity that they sexed the skeleton wrong because female skeletons can look like male skeletons.

More importantly, I think this very well could be a gay "caveman" (even though the Corded Ware people were not cavemen).  However, just because he was buried like a female does not mean that this individual would have identified himself as feminine or gay.  If this individual was gay, hopefully this leads to more discoveries and scientific research into sexuality being a biological trait so that the LGBT community today has a better chance at being accepted and obtaining equal rights.

Monument Analysis

The first question we looked at was: does the position of the mausoleum within the Ross Bay Cemetery landscape provide information regarding the individual?  The position of the mausoleums in Ross Bay provides information on a person’s religion as well as a person’s wealth.  The cemetery is divided into sections based on Christian orientation but there are also sections where poor people were buried (called Potter’s Field).  Mausoleums were originally built to bury the wealthy families outside of the church but still maintain that religious connection (Pearson, 2002).  In the Ross Bay Cemetery, the clearly Catholic Rosso family mausoleum is the only family mausoleum in the Catholic section (clearly evident because it has a crucifix above the door).  Another example is that the Helmcken and Mackenzie mausoleums are buried in the Anglican section (Old Cemetery Society of British Columbia).

            The second question we looked at was: was mausoleum use limited to or favoured by, a certain social class or social group in the Ross Bay Cemetery?  The mausoleums in Ross Bay Cemetery were evident of wealthy social classes.  Helmcken’s mausoleum was elaborate and inspired by Egyptian style.  Since most of the mausoleums in Ross Bay were around the late nineteenth century, they fit perfectly into the idea that elaborate burial monuments/family mausoleums glorified individual achievement and success (Lee Decker, 2009).  These large, elaborate family mausoleums became the norm during the late nineteenth century and clearly exemplified high status (Lee Decker, 2009).  The most elaborate mausoleum that clearly displays wealth and high status in the Ross Bay Cemetery is the Rithet family mausoleum.  The Rithets owned sugar plantations and Victoria’s deep sea docks.  Their high status and wealth is represented after death in their large, beautiful mausoleum.

Sources

Lee Decker, Charles H., 2009. Preparing for an afterlife on earth: the transformation of mortuary behaviour in nineteenth-century North America, International Handbook of Historical Archaeology Part 1, [online] Available at:< http://www.springerlink.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/content/l55833l682p65863/fulltext.pdf > [Accessed 07 February 2012].

Old Cemetery Society of British Columbia. Ross Bay Cemetery [pdf] Available at: <http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/brochurerbc.pdf> [Accessed 07 February 2012].

Pearson, Lynn F., 2002. Mausoleums. Buckinghamshire: Shire Publications.

Landscapes

My group and I decided to do Ross Bay Cemetery for our Monument Analysis project.  Not being a native of Victoria I suggested it because it was the only cemetery that I THOUGHT I knew where it was.  Once I found it though I was the happiest person ever (as my group can attest to me jumping up and down in excitement).  I was so stoked upon walking into the cemetery because it was a massive site full of elaborate, historical monuments.  I'm a history major, these things make me happy (also Halloween is my favourite "holiday" so the creepy graves that were cracked open made me even happier).  I got to see the majority of the entire cemetery but one day I'm gunna go back and scour every inch of it looking for more historical figures and tales.



If I could do this assignment anywhere in the world it'd probably be at the Merry Cemetery in Romania.  I stumbled upon this when I Googled "cool cemeteries".  This cemetery tries to bring cheer to the gruesome tombs by adding bright colours.  Each wooden cross "tombstone" is painted with a picture of how the person died (whether they were beheaded or hit by a car), which sometimes leads to exposing the deceased's flaws.  I would also go to any cemetery anywhere in Europe or the original 13 colonies of the United States as that is what I'm focusing on in the history part of my double major.

How Would I Bury Thee? Let Me Count The Ways...

I actually DID post this on facebook to see who would respond and what they would say.  Most of the responses were from close friends and family friends and all were really humerous or inside jokes that suited me perfectly.  My one dear friend suggested that I be buried wearing my Canucks jersey...at which point a childhood friend said I should be "buried along with the Canucks dreams of a Stanley Cup because those are dead too".  How nice.  The same friend who suggested the jersey also suggested that I be buried with Cadbury mini eggs because I get a massive bag at Easter every year and I have a sad addiction to them.  Plus she wanted to make sure I was full in the afterlife.  A family friend who has been my "uncle" my entire life said that I should be buried with my blankies if he could ever find them (yes I'm 20 years old, have a live in boyfriend, and sleep with 6 blankies...and 2 teddies...and that's because the rest of the collection is back with my family).  The one item that I found hilarious was an inside joke that a childhood friend suggested: the Buzz Lightyear Supersonic Wrist Watch (long story short, everytime we went camping one of the Dads on the trip would tell us to look for that watch in the lake or river or wherever we were...we never found it, it eludes us to this day ;) ).  But there was one thing that EVERYBODY suggested and was the first thing to pop into my mind when I saw this blogging stuff: my skis.  Below is a photo of the logo of my beloved Vancouver Canucks.


I have revolved my entire life around skiing.  My parents bought a cabin at Mt. Baldy when I was 3months old and I was on skis at age 2.  I spent every weekened and every holiday there from four months old until I left for university.  Coming to Victoria where there was no skiing was the second hardest thing to leave (my dog was #1).  I had friends at the hill that knew me better and meant more to me than my friends in Westbank, I had boyfriends from the hill, I didn't really associate with non-skiers.  My love and obsession with the sport is something that sticks with me today and, as a result, me, everybody in my family and every single one of my friends agree I should be buried with my skis: Rossignol Scratch BCs.  I also feel the rest of my gear should be thrown in so I can shred the pow in the afterlife.  Below is a photo of my skis: 160cm, Rossignol Scratch BCs.



Something else that one of my friends suggested was a piece of my cabin.  I think a chunk of this should be thrown in my grave as well since that was really the place I called home when I was growing up, and I still refer to it as home when I go back for Reading Breaks and the occasional weekend to ski.  Below is a photo of my cabin: my real home.  My parents painted the damn thing purple and yellow a few years ago and I've never liked it.  Still, this place is what I really refer to as home and we've had it since I was three months old.

Other minor things that I feel I should be buried with are books.  I love reading, if I'm not skiing I can be found in a book and one day I dream of having my own library (I've already got two large book cases full).  I'm still in the process of trying to find grave goods that would show such qualities as strength and independence but when I do, I want those thrown in as well.



Note: all photos were from my documents and were either taken by me or found on a website so long ago I don't have a URL

Resomania

After following a cheesy website article on 7 odd alternative burial methods, I came across a method known as resomation.  Resomation is a patent-pending, environmentally friendly way to be cremated.  Instead of the body being burnt (which releases toxins into the air), or being buried in a coffin (which can be expensive and also detremental to the environment), resomation is the placement of the body in a water and alkali based method (aka alkaline hydrolysis) that breaks the body down into a sterile liquid and bone substance.  The whole process takes about 2-3 hours which is the same amount of time as a cremation.  The sterile liquid is returned to the water cycle and the ashes are placed in an urn and given to loved ones.  The following picture is of the finished production of resomation and can be found on the website link given at the end of this entry.




Some benefits of resomation include:
*the reduction of a funeral's greenhouse gas emissions by 35%
*the energy needed for resomation is 1/7 the energy of cremation
*the return of sterile water to the water cycle
*the reduction of space used in burials


Resomation is still patent-pending and is only available in Maryland, Minnesota, Maine, Colorado, Oregon, and California; but, resomation is in the process of becoming a popular and world wide funerary practice.  Below is a link to the Resomation Ltd. website for more information


http://www.resomation.com/index_files/Page1230.htm

Me, Myself, and I

First of all my name is Maxine and while I've only been at UVic for three years, I've completed enough credits to be a fourth year student and anticipate on graduating next January.  I'm taking this course because I'm fascinated with archaeology and hope to make a career out of it.  If not then it's Plan B: high school history teacher.  Which reminds me to tell you all that I am a double major in history and anthropology.  I've applied to the Drimolen Field School that UVic has put on this summer and I really, really, really hope I get accepted.