108 Pieces & Mummy Curses | 4M #255
Welcome to the two-hundred-and-fifty-fifth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #255, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!
Let’s skip those parts
Because our great country is more of a melting pot than ever before, it’s always a good idea for funeral directors to be aware of the funerary traditions of different cultures in order to serve them should the opportunity arise. However, we’d hope that no one from the Monpa people of Arunachal Pradesh ever approaches you with a request for one particular disposition custom. According to the Times of India, a traditional Monpa custom involves holding the body for up to 49 days (while the person’s consciousness is in an intermediate state known as “bardo”), cutting a body into 108 pieces (a number that holds significance in Tibetan Buddhism), and placing the pieces one by one into the river (in order for the person’s body to be returned to nature). To be clear, this is an ancient tradition that most modern Monpa do not practice, but it’s still not unheard of in some areas — just hopefully not in yours.
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This has to stop
Two mourning families and the funeral homes serving them have had to endure unthinkable violence in just the last few days. In Columbus, Ohio, a funeral director preparing to lead a walking procession of family, friends, staff, and a youth drumline to the cemetery was stunned when her vehicle — a retired police cruiser — was peppered with bullets. The funeral director was not physically hurt, but the drive-by shooting injured two mourners and put children at a nearby daycare center at serious risk. Ironically, the funeral was for a young victim of gun violence.
In Utah, a funeral at a Mormon meetinghouse erupted in violence when a 17-year-old mourner confronted another person during an argument with a gun provided by the young man’s father. The 17-year-old and his dad fled the scene, but not before critically injuring two people and mortally wounding another. Like the Ohio incident, the funeral the gunman was attending was for a 23-year-old man killed in a shooting at a gas station. Also, sadly, the site of the shooting was near three schools, which were put on lockdown immediately.
They should come with instructions
Remember hearing about the mysterious deaths that occurred among the explorers who discovered King Tut’s tomb? Some of those deaths were attributed to an otherworldly “mummy’s curse,” which presumed that bad luck, sickness, or death comes to anyone who disturbs an ancient Egyptian mummy or tomb. Well, there may have been some earthly truth to that belief. As more thieves are getting into the business of trafficking stolen mummified remains and mailing them all over the world, scientists are finding that the remains may still contain biological hazards like microbes and embalming toxins such as lead, mercury, and arsenic — a real danger for the buyers of this contraband. Interestingly, these scientists seem appalled that these stolen artifacts are being shipped with no “safety guidance, suggesting limited awareness or deliberate disregard of hazards” provided by the sellers.
