Luck o'the Dead

So I came across something while looking for something else for a blog entry, oh the random tangents we go on in life.  Superstitions are always ingrained into society and when it comes to the dead there are a lot of them.  The Irish I must say have some of the most interesting uses for people after they are dead and superstitions I have come across.

So cutting off and using dead the hand of the dead is very popular in superstitions. 

It can be used for:

-Making butter (not kidding)

 -Facilitating effective robberies with a candle placed in a dead hand if carried into the house when the inhabitants are asleep, the inhabitants will not wake as long as the hand is under their roof.

-A Dead unbaptized infants hand taken fresh from the grave is apparently a powerful charm

-A dead hand can also cure most diseases if it is laid on the ill

The Other thing that is taken from the dead is a corner of the shroud in which they are placed in the ground with.  This is said to be used to cure headaches if tied around the head, and cure-swollen limbs if tied around the affected area.

A piece of skin taken from the arm of a corpse is a powerful love charm if tied to the arm of the person whom the practitioner fancies.  The skin is then removed after a time before the sleeper wakes.  As long as the skin is with the practitioner the love will hold.  

The skin can also be used by being placed under a pillow and if so is done the sleeper will see their future spouse in a dream. 

 After all this I think it is archaeologically relevant to note that after the unburial to gain these morbid objects, there is a reburial or secondary burial of the corpse, absent of something that it had before. 

Dangers to the Dead

So through both my nonacademic readings, and my research for the case study I thought of an interesting idea for this entry. In many horror films there is a very present idea of how the dead are dangers to the living, zombies, vampires, reverants, malicious spirits etc... But something that is not present are the stories, of the dangers to the dead themselves, as once a person is no longer corporeal, well that's not the end of the fear of extinguished existence. I have located two cultural stories that are present through grave art and ornamentation in the archaeological record to illustrate this point.

The first of these creatures is Ammit or Ammut (Devourer); she is the Egyptian female demon with a crocodile head and a body that is part lion, part hippopotamus, and crocodile. She eats the hearts of the dead who do not pass the test of the scales of justice in the Egyptian Underworld, extinguishing their souls forever. When researching for the case study I found that some of the paintings from Nefertari’s grave exhibited Ammut in her traditional place near the scales.

The second creature is Satan or Lucifier or the devil within Christian religious traditions. The basic story is Satan is a male ruler of Hell that takes the souls of the damned to be tortured. Though I was not able to locate any images of Satan directly on a grave, I was able to locate a representation on an item that is in the same historical monestary complex as many burials. Within the Gelati Monastery near Kutaisi, Imerteti, western Georgia, there is an icon that has a representation of Satan and hell depicted on it, and there are 10 inidividuals buried here were all important to church and state,

• Demetre I of Georgia
• David IV of Georgia
• Solomon I of Imereti
• Solomon II of Imereti
• George III of Georgia
• Vakhtang II of Georgia
• Bagrat VI of Georgia
• George V of Georgia
• Alexander II of Imereti
• George of Chqondidi

Memories

Today we looked at memorialization of the dead and celebration of the survivors, what we were talking about became very personal when I apply the ideas to my own experience on March of the Living (MOTL) in 2008.

Here is a link for those who are not familiar with MOTL

http://www.marchoftheliving.org/mol2009/09intro.html

As the locations in Poland may change with each different MOTL journey on the 2008 one I went on I went to numerous cemeteries, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka.

MOTL itself is an experience that is a memorialization of both the dead and the living. One of the things that MOTL tries to do every time they take people to Poland is to go to a place where this is memorial, this memorial is one that is not as well known or in some cases completely forgotten.

In my experience on the 2008 MOTL we went to a small memorial between Lubin and Warsaw. This memorial was for the people who were murdered and shot while running from the Nazi’s when the raid came on the small town. While we were there a elderly man came to see what was going on at the memorial, as it is rarely visited by anyone outside of the town. When our coordinators told the man about our experience, he began to speak to us and our guide translated. He told us how he had been a young child when the raids came through, and how he remembered hearing everything. This single memorial that was hidden within a forest was one of the ones that I remember the most from the experience.

In contrast to the cemeteries in Poland that we visited were mostly filled with those who had died of natural causes, and therefore where some of the most peaceful places I have ever been in. They were testaments to the great people who lived their lives and passed before the war.

The third type of memorial we experienced is one that was in Israel rather then Poland on Yad Vashem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yad_Vashem

This memorial was all about the living and those who helped people to survive. What I am talking about are the memorials of the “gentiles” (none Jewish people) who helped hide, save, or protect Jewish people during WW II. This memorial is in the form of a garden where trees are planted in the name of those righteous people. Interestingly enough this is a perishable memorial rather then a permanent one, yet it is fairly synonymous with thoughts about Yad Vashem.

The purpose of March of the Living is for the living to remember and be able to pass on their memories to the next generation, and to celebrate the survivors. In my opinion I do think that through this program, and the testaments from those who have gone on the journey, the memory is not forgotten, the dead as well as the survivors are not forgotten