Dedicated To all to lives that made these corpses iconic
Table of CoNtents Forward The Mirabal Sisters Tachibana No Kachiko Saartjie Baartman Charles Byrne Finding The Good Death Rosalia Lombardo Takeko Nakano Jeremey Bentham Joseph Haydn
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 24
So, you’ve picked up a book about corpses. Why? Some of you are most likely familiar with the series of videos on the Ask a Mortician YouTube channel. And if that’s the case, please, continue reading, just don’t blame me if a few notes strike familiar. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Welcome! There are some pretty fantastic corpses coming your way in just a few pages. Well, you could easily give up on this forward and just move on to the meat and potatoes. It’s a book. But if you’ve chosen to hold off in favor what I’ve got to say. Thank you, it’s much appreciated. And for your patience, let me remind you of your ever approaching death.
Hello , De You are going to die. Now, hopefully it will be after a long and fulfilling life. But you will die one day. And so will I, and everyone else on this planet. That’s a fact. The universal side effect of being alive is death. It’s one we don’t talk about nearly as much as we should, because it makes people upset. Which is understandable, the conversation holds a lot of a emotion in it. It means the loss of loved ones and grieving, which are hard to face, so we don’t until death comes and once we’re done dealing reactively, we tend to pack up all our thoughts
Death is important to plan for, well before you’re anywhere close to it. It’s the last thing you’ll ever have autonomy over. And unfortunately, many people don’t talk to their families about how they want their deaths to be. Once you’re gone, it’s too late. But right now, you can make your death plan. That sounds very final, doesn’t it. I mean, I woouldn’t say it’s not. But it doesn’t have to be a truly morbid conversation. By laying out everything from how you want to die if, hopefully given the choice, to what happens to your body afterwards, you not only can shuffle off this mortal coil peacfully, but help your loved ones mourn you without the stress of playing guesswork for what you would have wanted. Funerals can be hard. Your loved ones knowing your wishes can ease that strain.
eathlings This book isn’t a lecture about overcoming your deathphobia to make your advanced directives right now. For that you should try Caitlin’s other books. This is a book about some pretty famous bodies. But forgive me for sneaking a lesson in here anyways. Talking about our deaths can be a daunting task. And plenty of people think death is the most terrifying thing they can think of. But we’re interested in these bodies. Not just your who picked up this book, all around the world. Some of these bodies are pulling in vistors centuries after their deaths. The culture craze when King Tut was first untombed is proof enough of that. These corpses can be your jumping off point. It’s easier to talk about the death of people you didn’t know, under the guise of fun facts. It can help demistify death and take away the taboo on the subject. Plus, all of these corpses have some really interesting stories, but i may be biased.
Not all of these are happy corpse stories. A Good Death doesn’t alway make an iconic corpse. Alot of these people had their wishes and autonomy removed. There’s skeleton snatching and head hijinks and plenty inbetween. These corpse stories have been facinsating people for decades. And today you’ll learn about them as people, their deaths and all plans gone awry. Welcome friends, to the halls of Iconic Corpses.
Slap-a-Dictator
The sisters were invited to a party at one of Trujillo’s estates,and when he wouldn’t take no for an answer, Minerva slapped the dictator in the face. He proceeded to make life hell for Minerva and the Mirabal family. The sisters and their husbands were blacklisted, they could not work, their finances dwindled. What had started as a resistance to Trujillo’s amorous advances had become an all-out war between the sisters and Trujillo.
The Mirabal SisTers LAs MARIPOSAS
From 1930 to 1961, the Dominican Republic suffered under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, or El Jefe. Enter the Mirabal sisters;Patria, Minerva, Maria Teresa, and Dey-Dey. Their beauty, Minerva’s especially, proved to be their curse in Trujillo’s Dominican Republic. Trujillo was obsessed with possessing women.His machismo was legendary. He would send out beauty scouts to find young women to invite to the National Palace every week.Trujillo took a liking to Minerva.
Trujillo said he had only two problems:
The Catholic Church and the Mirabal sisters. The Butterflies This encouraged the Mirabal sisters to become politically active in the underground anti-Trujillo movement. Minerva especially became a major figure in the move to overthrow the government. The three oldest sisters called themselves Las Mariposas; meaning the butterflies, and were eventually arrested, but released due to international pressure, but their husbands were kept captive. As political opinion against Trujillo became more outspoken and foreign allies withdrew their support, Trujillo focused his ire on the Mirabal sisters and ordered Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa to be killed.
The sisters’ husbands, who were still imprisoned, were moved to a prison in far off Puerto Plata. Going to see their husbands, they knew full well this was a trap set up by Trujillo, but nevertheless they continued to make the trek. On November 25, 1960, while crossing the mountain range, the Mirabal sisters’ jeep was ambushed by Trujillo’s agents. The sisters and their driver, Rufino de la Cruz, were bludgeoned and strangled. Their bodies were then put back into the jeep and pushed over a cliff. It should be noted that de la Cruz knew full well what he was getting into when he drove the Mirabal sisters, but he chose to do it anyway. The news spread, thanks to Patria breifly escaping to tell a truck driver who she was and what was about to happen to her and her sisters. Despite Trujillo’s attempt to extinguish his Mirabal sisters problem, it was their murder and these bodies that proved to be his downfall. The tide turned, popular support waned, and six months later, the military assassinated Trujillo.
One Last Fight
Continuing the Legacy The death of the Mirabal sisters was tragic, but it also toppled a dictator. In the years since the Trujillo regime, the Mirabal sisters have become iconic in the Dominican Republic and symbols of women’s political power around the world. International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is celebrated every November 25th in their honor, the anniversary of their deaths. On November 25th, 2000, the remains of the Mirbal sisters were buried at the last house they lived in, Casa Museo Hermanas Mirabal. Along with artifacts of their lives are several artifacts from their murder, including a bloody handkerchief and Maria Teresa’s long braid, cut at the morgue by her youngest sister, DeyDey, who ran the museum until her death in 2014.
Tachibana founded the Buddhist Danrin-ji temple complex in Japan which earned her the name
Empress Danrin
Tachib No KA
DEcay
Beauty Empress Danrin, also known as, Tachibana no Kachiko, lived during Japan’s early Heian period in Kyoto. A devoted Buddhist who wanted to use her high status and education to further Buddha’s teachings on the impermanence of huamn life, Tachibana suffered over the fact that nobody could see beyond her beauty and take her seriously, to truly hear her teachings. No matter what she did, she was cursed with unwanted admirers.
So when Tachibana died at the age of 64 in the year 850, still beautiful, I might add, the royal family was shocked to find that her last will and testament decreed that her body should be dressed in a simple katabira, or funeral kimono, and thrown in the streets to rot and be eaten by animals.This way people would finally understand the fleeting nature of beauty and physical
DEath
Tachibana got her wish. She had her death plan excutedHer body was placed in the street and her decomposing corpse was torn apart by dogs and birds. You can still visit the approximate spot where she lay decomposing at the Katabira no Tsuji station, also called the Crossroad of Corpses, in Kyoto. It’s because of her commitment to her beliefs, as well as the ecstasy of decay, that we salute Tachibana no Kachiko, our iconic corpse, disposition teacher.
bana Achiko
Upon landing in London ,Cezar and Dunlop immediately tried to sell Baartman to the Art and Natural History Museum. The museum declined the human, but did buy the giraffe pelt that Cezar and Dunlop had offered. Dunlop feared he had made a huge mistake,but Cezar was unfazed, confident he could make money off Baartman as one of the many freak shows popular around London at the time. And he wasn’t wrong. Cezar had almost immediate success with his exhibition.
London
Paris Cezar and Baartman appeared in Paris three years later when she was about 24 years old. Cezar promptly sold Baartman to an animal trainer by the name of Reaux and they never saw each other again. Once again, Baartman, now the first Khoikhoi in France, drew excited audiences. It was during this time that Baartman caught the eye of biologist George Cuvier. Cuvier wished to sketch every inch of Baartman in order to use her as proof there was some missing link between apes and humans. In the winter of 1815 Baartman died of an unknown disease.
Saartjie was toured, sold and displayed around Europe As the
Hottentot venus
Barely a month after Baartman died, Cuvier finally got his way. He obtained her body and set to work. Cuvier made a plaster cast of her corpse before dissecting her. Cuvier removed her brain and genitals, preserving them and her skeleton. What remained of Baartman was then displayed at the Musee de l’Homme until 1974, when public outcry forced the remains to be placed in storage, to be forgotten. It wasn’t until 2002, 192 years after Baartman left South Africa, that her remains were returned home and buried. She was buried in the Eastern Cape. And that is the story of Saartjie Baartman, we honor her today as a human woman, and so much more than an Iconic Corpse.
S baa At Rest
Saartjie Baartman was born in 1789 and was part of the Khoikhoi tribe in South Africa.This was not a great time to be a Khoikhoi, as guerrilla wars were being waged against her people by Dutch colonizers, wars that ultimately slaughtered her ancient tribe. Baartman was sold as a slave to a white farmer named Pieter Cezar and brought to Cape Town. In the spring of 1810, Cezar’s brother, Hendrik, and an English ship surgeon named William Dunlop,visited Cezar in Cape Town. They were immediately fascinated by Baartman,primarily her genital features and her large behind,which were common to the Khoikhoi but strange and inhuman to the Europeans. On March 20, 1810 Cezar, Dunlop the surgeon, and Baartman boarded a ship to England. Baartman never saw South Africa again.
‘ Sara’ Saartjie artman
The Irish Giant Charles Byrne was tall,seven-foot seven as an adult, and even taller, eight-foot four by the time he died. Byrne was born with acromegalic gigantism, which caused his body to overproduce growth hormone. After a lifetime of being gawked at due to his towering height, Byrne, also known as the Irish Giant, was horrified to think his body might become someone else’s property,to be placed on display.
For WFF or The Princess Bride, Andre the Giant lived with the same condition as BYRne.
Rise and Fall It’s not that Byrne wanted no attention at all, he was something of a selfmade celebrity, exhibiting himself as the Irish Giant in London and other parts of Britain. The King and Queen visited him, Byrne was so popular he even inspired a hit stage pantomime in London based on his persona. But as more giants surface, Bryne fell on hard times and began drinking, exacerbating his health problems.
Vultures circling Once his health started declining, Medical schools, scientists, and surgeons started circling Byrne like vultures. A certain Scottish surgeon, John Hunter, being especially eager to own Byrne’s corpse. Hunter was a noted surgeon with a sizable collection of anatomical artifacts, so he capitalized on Byrne’s sad state of finances and offered to pay him in advance for ownership of his dead body. Aghast and terrified about what might become of his future corpse, Byrne declined Hunter’s offer, and asked his friends to bury him at sea.
Best laid Plans
Byrne died of tuberculosis in 1783. Byrne’s friends tried to carry out his sea burial wishes. But Hunter was one step ahead. Bribing an undertaker, Byrne’s body was taken from his casket and replaced with stones.The stones went to the bottom of the sea and Byrne’s corpse went to Hunter, who defleshed Byrne’s skeleton and kept the bones in secret for about four years.
Byrne died of tuberculosis in 1783. Byrne’s friends tried to carry out his sea burial wishes. But Hunter was one step ahead. Bribing an undertaker, Byrne’s body was taken from his casket and replaced with stones.The stones went to the bottom of the sea and Byrne’s corpse went to Hunter,who defleshed Byrne’s skeleton and kept the bones in secret for about four years.
200 years later
Finding THe Good Death Advanced Directive An Advanced Directive is a legal document that states what you wish to be done with your body, and who is to excute your wishes with legal right over your corpse after your passing. It’s important for everyone to have, but especially important for marginalized communities like LGBTQ+ people. Otherwise your body generally goes to your next of kin. Make sure you tell everyone in your life about this advanced directive, especially who will be executing it.
Demistify death
Talk about it Not just what happens after you die, but talk with friends and family about how you’d like to die. While we’d all love to go in our sleep, you can’t garuntee that’s how it will happen. Important conversations about what you’d like to happen to you if you lose power to make medical choices. If you’d like to excerise your right to die if life came to that. Talk about if you’d like to be kept on life support and for how long. Have the worst case scenario talks with your loved ones while everyone in happy and healthy. Hopefully it never come to using that knowledge, but if it does you’ll be prepared
Death isn’t the most common dinner time conversation, sure. But society has put such a taboo on the subject that we treat it as something to only be talked about exclussively when someone has died that when it comes down to how the departed would have wanted theiir funeral to go that those left have little to no clue what to do. By talking candidly and comfortably about death you and your loved ones make it easier on each other plan your funerals
Plan your funeral
Know your options Controlling our deaths is an idealistic phrase. When formatting your advanced directive, don’t let anyone tell you that things are nescessary when they 100 are not. If you don’t believe in emblaming, there’s no requirements in the United States that bodies need to be embalmed for a standard wait time, home wakes, or funeral home wakes.
Knowing different options now can help you fgure out if you’d rather have a burial or a cremation, if you’d like to be embalmed or not. The internet is magic, guys. Not including Ask a Mortician there are millions of resources talking about the funeral industry, new options coming up and plenty in between.
Mourning Nobody said that death wasn’t still sad. The loss of an important presence in your life can be devstating. There’s no one timeline for how to move on from a big death in your life. Ignore pressure to move on or just get over it, moving at your own pace is the key to life continuing. Hopefully when your time comes you’ve taken ask much control of your death as possible, and your friends and family don’t have to add to their grief by guessing what you’d want, and their closure can come knowing that you’re at peace.
Rosalia Every day in the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo, Sicily, warm sunlight caresses the cold cheek of young Rosalia Lombardo,attempting to wake her from her eternal slumber. Known as the catacombs’ sleeping beauty,Rosalia rests among the thousands of desiccated corpses that have been laid or hung or propped up in what has been called the waiting room for the dead. Appearing as if she could wake up at any moment and flutter her eyelashes or shake the dust from the yellow ribbon in her hair, Rosalia is unlike any other corpse in her midst.
BLinking corpse
Every day, the near perfectly preserved corpse of Rosalia opens her eyes and then she shuts them. In 2009, Italian biological anthropologist, Dario PiombinoMascali, from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, debunked the myth of Rosalia’s eyes while studying her corpse. It turns out it’s an optical illusion, a trick of the light. At certain times of day, light from the catacomb windows makes it appear as if Rosalia’s eyes have opened. Since her preservation, Rosalia’s eyes have never been fully shut.So from certain angles, the play of light and shadow makes her eyelids look like they’ve moved and makes her eyes more visible.
She may not really bl but she’s a sight for s
Lombard
link, sore eyes.
do
In December of 1920, two-yearold Rosalia Lombardo died of pneumonia. Her grief-stricken father enlisted famed and self-taught taxidermist, chemist, and embalmist, Alfredo Salafia, to preserve her for posterity. Salafia was still at the forefront of modern embalming, perfecting this formaldehyde-based fluid that was a bridge between old and new embalming techniques. However, in large part due to his secrecy, by the 1920s, his methods had stopped being advertised in America and he had returned to Palermo.It was here that he was enlisted to embalm Rosalia Lombardo, preserving her in such a way that it eerily looks like she’s just dozing in her casket. Unlike the other desiccated corpses in the Palermo catacombs Rosalia’s skin looks plump and supple. Her eyes, cheeks, and nose are not sunken, and you can even see the blue of her irises under her partially-raised eyelids, practically free of decay. But how did Salafia do it?
Another secretive Embalmist
A Century Sleeping
Until Piombino-Mascali’s research, it was a mystery. He found Salafia’s unpublished notes and papers, which contained not only his embalming procedure, but his secret embalming fluid recipe. In Salafia’s embalming fluid, it was really the glycerin and zinc that made such a difference in Rosalia’s body. Other ingredients dried her out and killed the bacteria, but the glycerin kept her from drying out too much,and the zinc salts made her body rigid, essentially petrifying her. The zinc salts are the primary reason that Rosalia’s cheeks and eyes haven’t sunken in over time. Additionally, as was Salafia’s practice, he didn’t remove any of Rosalia’s organs or body fluids. A 2009 MRI showed all of her organs still in place, and an X-ray showed her brain still intact,only 50% smaller from embalming. And that, Deathlings, is how Rosalia Lombardo made her way into the annals of iconic corpses.
Takeko and the Joshitai Are honored in Japan Every year, during the Aizu Autumn Festival Takeko entered training in the region of Aizu to further refine her combat skills, specializing in the naginata, a truly terrifying weapon. Takeko had so much combat prowess that she went on to train other Aizu women warriors for battle. When civil war erupted in 1868 between the, spoiler: doomed Tokugawa shogunate and the Imperial Meiji government, Takeko, along with her mother, little sister Yuko, and 20 or so other women, formed what was later known as the Joshitai or women’s army with Takeko as the primary leader. Takeko and the Joshitai charged outside the safety of the castle gates, even as the gates closed behind them locking them out. The Joshitai were now part of the shogunate forces that would attack the imperial forces at
Joshitai
The night before the attack, Takeko and her mother stayed up late having a debate. At the battle at Yanagi Bridge the imperial forces tried to take the women warriors alive, but were caught by surprise when the Joshitai fought ferociously, killing many of them. And let’s not forget, the Joshitai were vastly outgunned, literally they had swords, the enemy had guns. In the midst of Takeko’s furious battle, she was shot in the chest.
Yuko
As she lay dying, she told her sister, Yuko, that no matter what, she was not to let Takeko’s head be taken as a trophy by the enemy. Yuko, her 16 year old sister, had to cut it off and take it with her. That escalated quickly. Yuko tried to fulfill her sister’s wishes,but she was so physically exhausted from the battle that she was unable to completely sever Takeko’s head from her body. Another soldier had to help her complete the task. Yuko wrapped Takeko’s head in cloth and took it from the battle,eventually delivering it to a nearby temple, Hokai-ji,where it was buried under a pine tree. Takako’s grave, her head, and her naginata,remain at the temple to this day.
Hokai-ji
Takeko Nakano was born in 1847 in what is now Tokyo, during the twilight of the Tokugawa shogunate. We don’t have to get too deep in the weeds here, but the shogunate was the feudal military government that ruled Japan with samurai backing them. During this era, all women of a certain class were supposed to be trained in combat, though most were taught more as an exercise rather than as a practical skill.However Takeko was adopted and instructed by a master of martial arts.
Ta k e k o nakano
Jeremey As the father of modern utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham believed that his usefulness didn’t have to end with his death. In his last will and testament, Bentham instructed that his body should be dissected, and his preserved corpse displayed, and occasionally taken out to socialize when his colleagues assembled. And since 1850, University College London has been home to what’s left of Jeremy Bentham’s corpse. And while Bentham presents an odd but relatively innocuous figure in the halls of UCL, his curb appeal is largely because he’s not quite all there! You see it’s his head.
That’s n real hea
Old white man gumby
Bentham left instructions with Doctor Thomas Southwood Smith on how to create his auto-icon, after a public lecture that took place over his corpse. During Bentham’s dissection, his skin was stripped from his bones and his ‘soft parts’ were placed inside labeled glass jars, like wine decanters. His skeleton was then articulated with copper wire, so that he could be moved and arranged like old, white man Gumby, and dressed in one of his black suits. Then the suit was stuffed with cotton, straw, and hay, and his abdominal cavity contained moth repellents, naphthalene and
But the piece de resistance of the whole shebang was Jeremy Bentham’s head. Well, it was supposed to be at least. As outlined in his will, Bentham intended for his head to be mummified as a Mokomokai, as practiced by the Maoris of New Zealand. The way the Maoris did it was to remove the corpse’s brain and eyes, boil the head, then smoke it over a fire and dry it in the sun. But when Smith was done, Bentham’s head wasn’t quite transformed into the triumphant Mokomokai he’d envisioned.
Auto Icon
Placing bright blue glass eyes in Bentham’s head, the very glass eyes Bentham had carried around on his person for six months before he died, just in case, Dr. Smith suspended the head over sulfuric acid under glass, and used a vacuum to remove the moisture from the head. The results were, not good! Rendered discolored, leathery, sunken, and craggy, Bentham’s head, with its spooky blue eyes gazing out at you has been described as ghastly.
Pocket Eyeballs
not his ad
Between the feet Unwilling to put the horrific head on Bentham’s body, Smith had a wax recreation made and placed atop the skeleton. Bentham’s actual head was displayed between the autoicon’s feet until repeated pranks involving the stealing of the head caused the head to be placed in a box under lock and key. 185 years after his death, Jeremy Bentham’s remains continue to fascinate and yes, bring happiness, to a great number of people. While his autoicon didn’t quite turn out as planned, it’s that added layer of a morbid mishap that makes Jeremy Bentham an iconic corpse.
BENTHAM
i t wa s 1 9 t h c e n t u ry E u r o p e .
Them be wild ,
skull stealing
times.
Rosenbaum believed that one could divine the source of a person’s genius by examining the size, shape, and bumps of the skull.
Jospeh The Gang’s All here Rosenbaum, the man behind the plan. Why’d he do it? To examine his friend’s genius-bumps, and frankly, to just have it, the skull,to keep in a pretty little display box he built for it. Johann Peter, Rosenbaum’s number two, a fellow phrenologist.Like any good second-in-command Brad-Pittto-George-Clooney heist buddy, Peter was at times all in on the plan,and at other times, paranoid.He did help Rosenbaum with the test head,in which they tried out the flesh-removing techniques they would later use on Haydn’s head.
Doctor Leopold Eckhart, Rosenbaum’s friend, confidant, and later his scapegoat. When Dr. Eckhart learned of Rosenbaum’s plan,he was happy to provide medical facilities and expertise in the secret methods to dissect and macerate Haydn’s head.Jakob Demuth, a gravedigger at Hundsthurmer Cemetery Where Haydn was buried. With a plan in place, all he had to do was wait for Haydn to die. And die he did on May 31st, 1809.Demuth passed off the head. Rosenbaum handed off the head to Dr. Eckhart, who got to work cleaning all soft tissue.
After almost a month, Haydn’s head was entirely bleached. All went well for the next 11 years. Rosenbaum, Peter, and Haydn’s head, settled into a well-to-do suburban bliss.That is, until Prince Nicholas Esterhazy got a case of the supposed-tos,as in; he was supposed to have given Haydn a proper funeral and burial. In order to move Haydn’s corpse to the Esterhazy family crypt, Haydn was exhumed. However, workers very quickly noticed that where Haydn’s head should have been, was only his wig.
A case of the Supposed-tos
Joseph Haydn was the greatest composer in Austria Circa 1809. At least he was until his death in May. His friend, Joseph Carl Rosenbaum really wants Haydn’s skull. Rosenbaum and many others believed that one could divine the source of a person’s genius by examining the size, shape, and bumps of the skull.Now, before Rosenbaum could go about feeling up Haydn’s head, he had to do some planning. It wasn’t all quite legal, but hey, it was 19th century Europe. Them be wild skull-stealing times.
Haydn
Skull Switcharoo Rosenbaum eventually turned in a head, but it was much younger. But the police found out, came again, leaving empty handed this time. But the Prince was not having it, and offered Rosenbaum a bribe to hand over Haydn’s head. So Rosenbaum relented, or so it seemed. He actually handed over another dummy skull. The Prince was happy, Rosenbaum was happy, and Haydn’s body went to burial with someone else’s head. Rosenbaum kept Haydn’s head for the rest of his life, willing it to Peter, who upon his death, gave it to the Society for the Friends of Music in Vienna.
Haydn’s head sat on top of a piano, until the Esterhazy family got wind of this. Finally after years of negotiating, the Esterhazy family was allowed to rejoin Haydn’s head with his body in the Esterhazy crypt. The year was 1954, almost 150 years after Haydn’s death. But you know what they say, two heads are better than one. That dummy skull that Rosenbaum handed over, never got removed from the tomb, so to this day, Haydn’s tomb contains two skulls. And that deathlings, is the tale of Joseph Haydn, Iconic Corpse head.
Two heads, one tomb
Caitlin Doughty Caitlin Doughty is a mortician, activist, and funeral industry rabble-rouser. In 2011 she founded the death acceptance collective The Order of the Good Death, which has spawned the death positive movement. Her books Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity were both New York Times bestsellers. She lives in Los Angeles, where she runs her funeral home, Clarity Funerals
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