Hermes Historia: We Yearn for the Grave

Published Oct 24, 2024, 7:00 AM

In this (late, it's still free for a reason) Hermes Historia episode, Michaela shares a brief history of ancient Greek funerary practices. Because Spooky Season. Sign up for a new newsletter to stay in the loop about the upcoming ad-free subscriptions where future Hermes' Historia episodes will live! Submit your questions to the quarterly Q&A episodes!

CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.

Sources: John Ferguson's Among the Gods: An Archaeological Exploration of Ancient Greek Religion; Maria Serena Mirto's Death in the Greek World: From Homer to the Classical Age; Herodotus' The Histories, translated by Robin Waterfield.

Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.

So Michael and I are trying to record these next two episodes of Herme's Historia. But it's been a little while. We both have had a ton of stuff going on, and I am trying to move across the country, and then there's extenuating circumstances in my life that I'm not prepared to yet announce on Mike. But I basically I'm losing my whole damn mind. And so this is the introduction, This is Herme's Historia while we find our footing. It's still free anyway, until we figure out also the subscription that's coming. So keep enjoying these Hermes Historia episodes.

Uh.

And yeah, Mikila, why don't you Why aren't you take it away? What are we talking about today?

Hi? So, because it's you know, spooky season, I had to pick spooky topics.

I would have been offended. If you didn't, I might have been fired. That might have been the thing that.

Originally I was going to do something else for this first one, but and then I decided I was going to do that next month and said, so here we are.

I suppose.

Yeah, I know, I like the spookiness too, as you know, now a little bit just a touch. So for this first one, we're going to talk about Greek funerary practices.

Oh hell yes, yes.

So these practice so they have Yeah.

See, okay, this is the problem is I immediately want to like jump in with like a joke question in and so I'm going to I want you to tell the listeners just how how important the coins on the eyelids were, because it all, well, every movie from the ancient Greek world, everything would lead us to believe that the only way to pass into the underworld is to have coins placed over your eyelids. So tell us all about that incredibly accurate portrayal of the ancient Greek funeral practices. Mikaela.

You know, of all my research into Greek funeral practices and all of my schooling, I have never actually once encountered no corpses.

Right, it's because it's on the eyes in the movies, you more in the mouth or right, yeah right, yea, yeah, in the mouth. But either way, it's you know, that the coin to pay the ferrymen.

Maybe one person did it and someone got I don't know, they wrote it into like.

Three myths, and so the Western culture then decided that that was the only way they did anything, all right.

We you know, we we dug them up, didn't find any coins, and they were like, these are all mistakes. Then I guess no, I've never.

Got a big part. Yeah, I got to tell us about the real one.

So it's changed a lot throughout all of uh sort of like yeah, it's it bounces around in a way that I find really interesting where there doesn't seem to be like an actual consistency to what the proper practices are. There wasn't consistency on if inhumation which is actual burial of the body in the ground, or cremation was preferred. They really just seemed to change based on preference throughout time.

I feel like it'd be a lot about like how easy how practical it.

Is too write like cremation is expensive?

Yeah, well, and and also like if if you're like and isn't easy to be buried in too? Like you know, there's there's so many different things going on, so yeah, it makes sense if they're just kind of like what can we do at any given time?

Yeah, And it just I mean, like even if we look at like myceni, for example, we have the grave circles where people were buried bodies completely in the ground, and then we get other areas where it's like, oh, they're being cremated. It's and within a relatively short timeframe. So it's it's it's just not consistent in a way that I think is comfortable to us. But I kind of like that. I don't know why.

I mean, I like it because it just seems practical and to me, like, I mean every everything I love, but ancient Greece is that it like it predates like all the Christian stuff that we've come been led to believe is the way to do things. And I like that. It's just like, no, so long as like the body was honored in some way, like we've done our duty. The person is gone. You know that, you don't there's not so much pressure placed upon the survivors.

Yeah, throw grandpa in the hole. It's fine.

I mean, we said goodbye and then we honor and we appreciate Grandpa, and then we throw the in the hole.

Yeah, exactly, it's fine. So through all these periods, various grave goods are put in the graves too. This is relatively common. We see marking up the graves either done with like marble or stone stelli. Sometimes they're marked with just pots, just a real big, nice looking pot. Put it there. That's where someone is buried.

Well, and it's a show of gratitude regardless, right.

Yeah, yeah, it's just just the way they did it. Mourning always accompanied death. Morning was a big deal.

Actually, yeah, that makes it into the myths.

Yeah, So we have these three components for funeral practices. We have the morning processes, the actual burial, and then the way the graves are marked. So immediately after death, someone perishes for one reason another, the most ideal case at home hopefully not what am I writing and not being poked by the dangerous end of a spear on the.

Battlefield, and that's the preference.

Yeah, I mean, you know, at least then you can do the burial stuff, right, yeah, if you're at home.

For some out there, yeah, it's nice.

So after the death, the prothesis or literally just the laying out begins. It would be done on a beer of some sort. It's a beer is just like a bed, and apparently the body would be positioned so that the feet face towards the door, like this is the way we go, go this way, then stay in the home, go out this way because dead bodies, no matter how much we love them, the person whom the person who was once in them, we're very polluting. So you didn't want these things to stick around in your home. And the first thing that would be done after the laying out is that the people who attend it to the body would then close the eyes and mouth. The attendants were typically women in the most ideal of cases. It didn't have to be. You know, if you don't have any women in your family, somebody still has to do it. If you're on the battlefield, someone still has to do it.

It sounds like it would be just like the cares.

Yeah, and women often are that rule and antiquity. They are, they are. They are the ones who take care of the domestic sphere, which includes death.

Yeah, that's part of it.

It happens in the family.

Well, it makes me think of in the Iliad too, because I mean the people I'm thinking of just like you know, the important deaths and the people I most associate with, Like any kind of practices or caring is like Nestor and then the like actual healers like Macheon and I forget the other one like you know you have these roles where there aren't women, but they're like there are the careers that are sort of assigned.

Yeah. Yeah, And even in the Iliad at the end when with Hector's funeral we have Helen and rama Key and Hecuba who are the ones who are leading it and taking charge and how it possesses and it's just women take are responsible for the family in antiquity' that's their primary role. My good son, get off the desk.

That was a cat. Let's just make that clear. Yes, there's no video, MICHAELA. My good son, get off my desk.

He's just in front of my screen. I can't say anything. Ah. So there is some indication from panakis, which I think we talked about last month. They're basically just terra cotta are flat pieces of art that have images on them. So Panakis from the seventh and sixth centuries that there could have been a linen cloth that would be used that be strapped underneath the chin and then behind the head in order to keep the jaw shut. We don't have any archaeolotrical evidence for this because linen, of course, yeah, doesn't survive. We do, though, have gold bands from myceni that could have served the same purpose. Kind interesting. So the body would be washed and cleaned, preferably with water from a running source, as that was seen as better, and then it would be anointed with oil and clothed in an edema or a beta white robe. Aromatic plants would be laid out on the beer with the body, and then the body would eventually be covered with the sheet called an epiblemma. Like said, like, dead bodies were very polluting to the environment, so any sort of cleansing or purifying acts were important.

Well, and the yeah, the herbs and stuff is all about, yes, the smell right, like yeah, and just to the listeners, like that's where the myth of haites and minthy is coming in, is purely that like there was this is asociation with mint because it's so aromatic and would just be like it would be the best or one of the best things to cover up the smell of a dead body. And then so they just this sort of like after effect because it's not really surviving in any kind of you know, real mythos. It's just sort of in like Pausanius is like someone told me this thing once, and so it's just an interesting connection to make. And also people love to hear about hades and we love Na minthy so Laura Olympus tever.

And so that same water that would be used, well, the same water from the same source, they would also be available in the household and people who would come visit sure after the death could dip plants into the water and then like sprinkle it about them as a way to purify themselves when they were leaving the space, because that space is still no matter what you do to try to keep it cleansed in the moment when the body is still there, it's still considered polluted. So when you leave, you gotta cleanse yourself that you know, sprink yourself with a little bit of water from a twig and you're fine. Off you go. And then the final thing that would be done to the body is then it would be decorated with any sort of jewelry, plants, clothing, anything to make it nice something.

So question about that because it stood out to me, I mean, the in the Mycenianes are sort of the one off, but like they weren't like providing them with loads of riches, right, Like it wasn't like the Egyptians, like there was much more of like a practicality, like they would be given a couple of things to show gratitude, but they people wouldn't be like tossing their entire wealth into the tombs, right. I mean again, the Mycenians I think did to an extent for a time period at least, but like beyond that.

I think it would depend on your social class and what you have to give, right, you know, and then so it's still this kind of same thing.

You'd be giving kind of what you can rather than like everything you.

Have exactly, and it it would be more about, you know, giving stuff that was important to the person, right and sort of like because there's a sense that that stays with them. Yeah, well we are. One thing I remember from school is we see a lot of mirrors giving being given to women in the Etruscan world, I think in the Roman world as well, and in the Greek world, and even in going all the way back to like Socladic culture in the Bonze age, is we see these essentially bronze mirrors given in burial contexts, and we deduce that usually it's women. We can't actually tell. I've been watching a lot of bones lately, and the amount of times this woman's like this is a thirty five year old man. I'm like, you can't tell that well.

And it's like that the mirrors thing being women is again is more that long standing. It's like this, Yeah, it's like, oll, the ladies would look at the mirror more than men, so of course these are women. It's like, no, you could say, like, you know, well, it's a person with the mirror, but it just yeah, it reminds me of like when they'll find two got to corpses like embracing and they're like, either you know their roommates, or there has to be a male and female. There's no alternative.

Yeah, Or if they find a body that has like weapons with them and they automatic warrior has to be a war has to be a man. And then like they actually spend time with the bones and they're like, actually, this is probably female. It's like, yeah, women can have knives too, and in fact, maybe we should let women have knives a little bit more. Yeah, it's not a threat, it's a promise. So after the initial preparations of the body immediately after death, the next big thing is mourning and lamentation. And this was a big deal.

Big big This is like one of the only things I know about funeral practices.

Yeah, so the way the people who survive react is so much more important than some of the rituals that need to be done, which is so interesting. And we also fun fun fact have so many images, especially from like the geometric period of fum pottery, of people mourning and it's really cool to.

See, and so many scenes in tragedy, like, yes, we have so many. And then the you know, I mean, I mean the alien for for sure, the hair texts broadly, but like just this idea of like the wailing and the tearing at your hair and like all like that is so iconically Yeah, it's.

Just that is how you mourn. Don't mourn through just crying and having an emotional break. You mourn by tearing your hair out and beating your head and scratching your nails down your face. Like it is a very physical thing.

Violence, which like and I kind of like it because it feels more accurate to what mourning feels like.

What feels like like it is such like a it is such a vivid depiction of what you're going through when you have loss. And I'm like, I love that they just allowed this to happen. I mean, technically it was supposed to be women who were really the.

Mostly but Achilles that it wasn't always because Achilles was the bottom.

Like that's.

You're not wrong, I know, would say you are.

East Cliss can go away. Uh. So men would also be depicted on the vasis. So we get the images of women on the vases beating at their heads and ripping their hair, but we also get images of men. Often they would be in procession with ritual gestures. So and then interestingly, there was also this idea of they would come to the bodies and they would call the deceased by their name, and it was like it was it was a very intimate. It was seen as a very intimate thing to do. It's like a way to emotionally connect connect with the deceased for the last time. So I find that interesting where they're also asking men to have this emotional connection with the body and it's like go up to them, you speak into their ear, you say whatever you have to say, you call them by their name.

It's interesting. Yeah, it's very personal in a in a nice way.

Yeah. Yeah, So during morning. Not only would there be the very obvious displays of morning that also be singing, wailing, flute playing, grief was encouraged to be expressed, and the extent that morning and grief was expected to be displayed could be a whole honestly, like a whole episode by itself. Like I want, I want, I want, if there's a scholar out there who works on mourning and grief and antiquity, send us a message, because it is wild. Extent to mourning is like important and dramatic too, which is you know, it's the Greeks. They they they're there. They were a dramatic bunch, and.

I the inventors of theater were a dramatic people.

You know, I know it's a wild thing to say, but this is this is the conclusions I've come to.

They're not all dramatic now, no, not at all.

No, I don't know. I have a sarcastic sarcastic Okay, I missed that. I was just like, that's a wild thing to say.

Greek people are iconic, like they're they're best. It's just the most Greek. I fucking love it.

It makes me very happy. So after the morning, well during the morning. But after the initial period of the body being in the home you have the ekphora or the funeral procession. Greek religion, they love a procession, they love a parade.

It's that's on pottery everywhere.

It's like, if they can have any excuse for a procession, they will do it. And I'm that's fair. Yeah, they do it with the dead body. So after the period time of solon in Athens, this would take place on the third day after death, probably to ensure that the body's actually dead. You don't bury someone alive.

They learned from probably.

In earlier time periods it was quite the fair, quite the affair, so it could be large crowds of people accompanying the deceased to the grave, wailing and grieving the whole way. People would know that someone had died. It would like just you have screaming women in the street. It's like, okay, someone's died. And there's also like an indication that, like before people died, they would hire women to grieve for them at their funeral possession. You just throw some money around and pay twenty women to when you die, to just scream in the streets because like.

I mean, especially for like a uh, you know, the like high born Athenian man who's like really concerned with that, Like what if no one did, like you got to prepare?

Yep. It makes them look important. Yeah, a little more important than they perhaps were.

Yeah, and humans have always wanted to look more important. Oh my god, yeah, eraternity, it's.

Fair let them live so after Solon though, the he kind of he restricted this this level of extravagance. I think he really was just trying to have it so that the funeral procession was really just the family, and to cut back on conspicuous consumption. This we see this pop up all the time in antiquity, sort of ways to cut back on which people showing how rich they are, and it never works.

But that's what an idea.

We should encourage them to spend more money, is what I think we should do. We should encourage.

Them to give more money and become less rich.

Yep, spend the money. Yeah, don't but on people, get them tax breaks, you know, they can pay they can do what. You know, the next did this and the moments did this too? Get a really rich person to pay for us all to have a holiday.

I think about this all the time, because I'm making decent money and I'm not trying to dodge taxes, even though our taxes pay for the bombing of children. But like, and then I think about the like Galeen, the Westons of it all, and I'm probably paying like the same amount, if not more in taxes than fucking those people.

Yeah. Yeah, So there isn't many depictions of processions on vases. They do appear, but it doesn't seem to be as exciting as the actual dead body on a bed and people.

So interesting because I feel like there's a ton of like wedding processions on pottery, yes, yeah, and that's like maybe yeah, and I guess maybe more like festival processions, but yeah, not funerary.

That's interesting, not as many funery lots of dead people. But you know, when we do see them, we often usually just see a body being wheeled out with chariots and mourners surrounding it, women tearing at their hair and screaming, and the procession would lead from the entrance to the family home to where the body would either be buried or cremated. So the preference it said this earlier, the preference for inhumation and cremation, it swings back and forth so wildly. It's like you really there is no good pattern for it.

Right, So they're just like, isn't a preference?

Really? Yeah, it just it's just kind of I think it's more like what's in Trent is how I see it and how that changes throughout time, Like that happens with us as well. Cremation is always expensive. Uh, And when we talk about cremation and antiquity, it is not cremation as we have it now. Like cremation now is we have ovens that can get hot enough that it can burn through bo.

Yeah.

And then also what they do I don't know if you know this, but after a body is cremated, they also go in and like smash up any leftover bits that have actually like they will smash the ship out of Grandma's bones so that it comes to ash because honestly, who wants to be given a bag? And then it's like, oh cool, that's yeah. Why don't remains? Why do I see a bone? You don't want to see the bone. It's just but however an antiquity you would be seeing the bones. They they just there's no way to get a fire hot enough to burn bones to ash and antichny easy. Yeah, and they're not going to go in and start beating the ship out of Grandma.

After the dead, because that for them would be very bad. H Yeah, this is why people don't know that we do that now because yeah, and now it's because they're casting it.

Well, I mean, I'm sure they're like. The key is that you just don't want to know that it happened to your family member, right, like it's upsetting. Yeah, you don't need to know that exactly.

So when bodies were cream, it would be ash and bones and then you kind of just put them in a pot and you put a little lid on it, and you're like, today, that's how it is. So we get some really interesting things. There's a there's a burial that was from Athens from the Archaic period. I want to say, oh my god, I'm trying to remember the dates for this burial early so earlier. It's coming out of the Iron Age. It's called the Rich Athenian Lady because she was rich, but she was cremated and put in a pot, and we have all her bones and interesting and we also found fetal bones, so she was either pregnant at the time of death or had given birth and her and the childhood's vibe.

Yeah, so it's you.

Know, fun, I guess we get we still get information from cremations, is I guess what I'm trying to say.

It's fun of people like us. It's fine.

I just because you said Athens to you, like, I just want everyone to know. If you go to Athens, you really need to go to the Karamcos Ancient Cemetery site. It's like one of the ones that's included in like the combo ticket. If you just spend the extra a little bit with the acropolis and you get access to all the sites. Caramcos is amazing. It's mostly just like this big park with a bunch of ruins, but really incredible funerary stuff and also really great wildlife. It's one of my favorite places to go for wildlife. If you go in September, I'm willing to bet you will see tortoises trying to fuck. I am not joking. You'll see tortoises regardless. But in September I have learned they are fucking.

They got stuff going on that they do.

I have seen each other more attempted not actual attempted threesomes, but like literally fights between two males over one went one female. I have seen that like five times between the Agora and Karamicos, just over the months of September, like a couple of years in a row. Anyway, sorry, Karamcos is amazing.

Yeah. Nice thing about Karamcos as well is you can see the base of the Dipleyon Gate, which is pretty fun.

Yes, well yeah I like that. No, historically it's really it's it's a great sight and it's just beautiful and it's really under understated.

Yes, because graveyards would be outside of the city, so yeah, outside of the city walls originally, and as time on it kind of we enveloped it well. But I find that really interesting when you look at myceni though, because Grave Circle A is inside and I believe we've even found if I'm remembering correctly, there are other Mycenine sites where they have some of their grave areas or inside the city walls, and like Grave Circle A, it was like the it was there before the walls were built, so they purposely built the wall to include this grave circle. And I just that's really interesting because all throughout antiquity. Otherwise, in you know, the Archaic Classical, Hellenistic Roman period beyond, you would never have a burial site within the city limits the outside.

That is interesting, which but like that to go back to the Caramacos thing too, because the dip along gate, like the reason or the wall, you can the reason it's there is that they like it was on the outside and then the Persians attacked and in a pinch, like they it's the themistically and wall also called that right, like yes, yeah, so like the mystically is like in a pinch, was like we have to and they like used pieces of other graves to build this wall quickly because they were like fucked and so yeah, it's really interesting because it is like this awkward wall that's like right in the middle of an ancient cemetery because all of these, yeah, different things led up to that and it's very cool.

So when it comes to inhumation, in earlier period periods, bodies were usually simply placed into the ground, wrapped in a shroud, sometimes on a bed of leads. Later there are coffins, but it doesn't really seem to be a requirement. I really think you could kind of just sew a body in a hole if you so wished.

Yeah, I think it means so it's interesting. They just feel like they really were kind of you know, they just didn't as soon as the person was gone, they were gone. And I yeah, and.

You treat the body with respect. But I think it culturally we have different understandings of what that looks like. But the like when I say throw in a hole, I don't literally think you have like volin out the whole.

They were kind to it, but it just didn't matter whether it was in a coffin or not.

Yeah, And coffins were expensive, and you know, it really depends on what you have, what you can afford, and there are other things that are a little bit more important to pay for it and maybe in some ways, and it's just about what is available to each individual family, which I guess is true for now.

And it's like there's a higher expectation of like, you know, you're doing wrong if you can't afford like a ton of stuff. And I mean maybe it was like that back then too, but I like seeing this idea of like hopefully they you know, they were going kind of within their means in order to anor the dead.

And I think it's gonna be different to compare comparing a like urban site to more of a rural site. Urban sites you are more likely to, I would think, want to have a bit more of a show going on. There's a lot of people there who could see, so you want to put on a bit of a bit of an extravagance compared to a will site, especially if you're really in an area where it's maybe just you, extended family and a few other people.

Yeah, it's probably likely.

To go bury them somewhere close by and really simple, because it's just about what works for the family.

Yeah.

Yeah, if a cremated body would still also be buried. They did not keep the cremations like we do. You know, there is no Grandma on the mantle in ancient Greece. Grandma is in the pot in the ground like she's not sticking around. They don't want a dead body in their home longer than they need it to be. It's fair fair, but there's a pollution aspect to it. You know, death is polluting at the end of the day. Even you know, caught killing of animals is I mean they sometimes kill dogs to purifying area, which I don't appreciate.

Now, but they also the buried dogs in cemeteries because they love them so much.

So, ah, Margarita, Margarita was a it's a so Margarita is Latin. It means pearl. But there is a grave stelle. I want to say it's from the south of France, but I could be very wrong. There is a grave stelee to a little white dog named Margarita that someone left talking about how much they loved her and like should sit on their lap and all these things. There's another one that gets me. I don't know where the other one was found, but on it these are Roman ones too, because apparently those are the ones that stick in my mind. But there's a grave stelee to a dog that says, I carried you here today, just as I carried you into my home the first time when you were when you were a baby, and I was like, oh god, So we've always felt this way about o dogs. This is good to know, but you know that's fine. So yeah, So cremated remains would still be buried. This is still important. People would then leave all sorts of offerings with the deceased individuals. This would include jewelry, precious metals and stones, pottery, weapons, terra cotta, wears, goes on and on and on. There's literally no limit. It just leave what you can. I guess it has been noted that often there were more grave goods found with bodies that were cremated. Interestingly, I think it has to do with wealth. Yeah is yeahmation is more expensive. I don't think it is nowadays. Actually, I think actual burial.

Is I would assume.

So yeah, logistically, I know where I'm going to be buried. Oh yeah, yeah, it's on the human Island. No, I'm gonna pay for it eventually, because it's just when I die. I don't want my people to have to pay for But it's a natural it's a natural graveyard. They will literally just throw your body into a hole.

That's what I want.

Yeah, yeah, let me feed the earth. I want to be warm food.

It springs a lovely place.

Oh, it's great. I know. I've already visited the cemetery because it's me. I like cemeteries. It's fine, it's not weird, it's normal. So likely at the tomb there was some sort of ceremony that would mark the end of it all. Perhaps relatives pouring a libation of sort. Libations were incredibly popular for death or anything related to deceased bodies or anything cathonic because they were easy to get into the ground.

Yeah, feeding the earth with it.

Yeah, exactly. There are even some Greek and Roman tubes. This is really fun. Greek and Roman tombs that have pipes that lead from the earth to where the body is, so you could directly straight to their body.

Just giving them like wine straight to the Oh. I respect that so much, Just.

So a little bit of all of oil down there. It's grave can be marked with the number of things, you know, fledge, pop, marble, stelli, uh stella often had. I could have a number of scenes on it. There was no sort of cannon for what was best, but often the focus of it seemed to be on the person who was buried themselves.

Picturing some from Caramacos.

Yeah. So we see young men in military contexts or you know, sometimes they'll even have like a wound on them, and yeah, the indication of this is the wound that killed them. Or in sports contexts there's birthing scenes. There is that's I did a whole project on my birth and antiquity and how I got my depictions were from Stelli. There are so many scenes of women giving birth on Stelle's that's what took them out. Yeah, happens women and men with their families. So often the deceased would be like sitting down and then their family would be standing around them. Young girls would be depicted in wedding clothing. So if we get that sense that they didn't actually get to get to this point in their life.

Right, it's like the next step.

Yeah, so it's sort of like a little they get to have it in the next life or you know, whatever happens next. And I really enjoy the things I love about these sell and what they depict is I really enjoy that the focus is on the individual and not some like larger religious context. Yeah. Like I said, I love graveyards. This is if you ever in Italy go to an Italian graveyard, it is amazing. They will have on the gravestones, they will have a picture of the person.

Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen that. I went to a cemetery in the south of France, in this little town called peasant Ass but we just happened by it when I was there a few years ago. And yeah, it was also incredible, just like the history over you know, in Europe as compared to the colonial and die here.

I just really enjoy being able to walk around. I mean, I love walking around cemeteries.

To the listeners. Also, before Michael and I knew each other, we lived on when I for the first year that I was back in BC and like the year that I started the podcast, we lived on opposite ends of this like enormous cemetery in Vancouver. Like I lived at the South end and she lived at the North End. But like otherwise basically it's like wild. It was really cute.

Yeah, that's really insane.

I used to smoke weed in that cemetery like every evening.

I used to walk the pugs. I was a little.

Satellite one because there's a satellite one south of forty first. Yeah, and that's the one that was really close to my house.

So yeah, that was the one bite off thirty three. Oh but yeah, no Vancouver to you all, they'll know it if they're from there.

They don't pleasant I was, I mean, we don't put neither of us still live there. Yeah, you know, I don't live there anymore, thank god.

Ye, yes, both of us are it could have been better, It could have been worse. At least there was a graveyard.

That's so true.

There's no graveyards by me now, and I yearn for the grave. Oh, I really do graves. So after burial, at least in the classical period, there is the paradipknot or the final funeral franquet, the wake, I guess, And it would sort of it would close out all the ceremonies around death, because when you are doing all these ceremonies around death, your life is in a different state, right You're not. Life isn't as normal. You are in mourning. You know, we have our morning periods. Person a widow will wear a black dress for a year or something. I don't know what the woolves are, but this paradipnon would close it off. It would be held in the household of the deceased, and it was a way for all the relatives to come together one last time and show support for each other. And, as like I said, an official way to mark going back to life as normal.

I don't know enough about a Jewish tradition to say this confidently, but it sounds more like something out of like I read a novel once that was like about sitting shiva, which I don't know enough about. But again, but it just like sounds to me more like which makes sense because you know the religion is coming from a similar time period. But yeah, it sounds it sounds more similar to that than kind of anything that I have experienced in a pseudo Christian quote unquote upbringing.

And it's really interesting. These meals are really important and you people actually were like, because you're still supposed to throughout the year do certain ceremonies on certain days from like after the death, like on you know the third days when you actually bury, and then like the nineteenth day you do something, and then so on so forth for a full year. And people would also continuously throughout time, you're supposed to still take care of the grave and this is often like the women of the family would go to the grave and take care of it, clean it up, leave some sort of offering, make it pretty. They tie little like fill its little ribbons on things because they love doing that was a ritual thing. And also you would continue to remember your family by going to them, and they would like share meals with the deceased person in the sense that they would like eat a meal at the grave and in the moment period we have grave sites where there's little the ancient Greeks and moments they ate their meals on beds, laying down, not sitting up right. So you can go to Greek uh.

See it all the popcorn I find in my bed just from a little bit of snacking, and these people are lounging and eat.

I know, I know it's would. I mean it was like kind of at like an incline, but like still.

A little still like a lounge. I feel like, yeah, imagery.

Yeah, but there's like graves, Roman graves you can find that have these beds built into the front of them so your family could come back clean it off. They all lay down and they have a meal, and it was like you were sharing your decee's family member in with the meal for the last for another time again. And you know, you keep going kind of like like ddless Martos were you. You're still remembering the people who have come before and who would no longer hear with us.

Not to bring it down, but just throughout this conversation, I've just been reminded that we're about a week off from UH. When I found out that my childhood slash teenage a year off, a year from when I Yeah, my childhood slash teenage best friend I was completely strange with and it's the most terrible story. But and also she was my spookiest friend. We would have gone to the Ross based Inmitary. That's something that got cut out earlier. But anyway, she died about a year ago, and I thank you. I'm sort of remembering that. I'm laughing because it's the most I mean, she died like a month before than Lupin did. So I just one of the most licked up experiences of my life, not least oh you know it like the details in any case, Yeah, yeah, I mean it began the year ye but yeah no. But it's honestly, even like talking about that though, is nice to have this reminder, like I'm appreciating that I'm being reminded that it's been almost a year just by this conversation.

You know.

It's yeah, it is.

I think it's important. It's one of those things where you know, we see this in antiquity, like that this was so important for them then and it's still important now. It's one of those things I love where it's that human the humanists that kind of stands across time, where you see, this is so important for us, remembering the people who we were close to, who were no longer here or who came before us like this is it is a very human thing to feel super connected to that and to not want to let go of that or forget it, and to just keep keep it around, Like I have things like I have my my grandparents wedding photo up in the room, and you know, they're they're they're both passed away now, and but I get to see them every day. I wear my my no comus, my grandmother on my mom's side, I wear her wedding wing and redding. I can speak wedding ring and engagement ring. I wear that, and it's just a way I can keep her close to me. And then I also, you know, I have my two necklaces that I wear, not wearing them today, but I have these two necklaces I wear, and the one of them has the ashes of my dog Zero in it, and then the other one has the ashes and my other dog Zoe in it some of them, and it's just I get to keep them close at hand. And I think it's a it's an important thing. You know. Also sometimes Grandma ends up in the closet, which is something some family members will get.

I mean, I have such complicated feelings about this because I didn't get Lupin's ashes because I was so emotional, because it was like one of those times where I tried and tried and tried, and then at eleven thirty at night we had to rush into the hospital in an hour later, I had to make the choice, and then they're like do you want? And I was like, I don't. The idea of him coming back like yeah, was going to kill me.

Yeah.

And so I have like such complicated things because I don't have those, And now I'm like, I don't want. I wouldn't have wanted the whole thing because I it feels like too much pressure. And it's also like I don't need like he's gone, Oh I'm scared away the shelf.

Of ashes, you know what I mean. Like I'm like, I have so many animals. I have to at some point choose who's staying and who's oh yeah, And.

So I'm just like okay, I'm like I'm okay that I didn't get it. But one thing I did do, and so hearing you talk about your jewelry and and you know what, if any listeners have suggestions for this, Jenny Williamson of course sent me one and gave me the idea. But it was like a bit very expensive American and I would just love to have if there's a Canadian option something like this. But I kept Lupin's whiskers in a way that was like very unhinged.

Jersey I have. I have a jar of close whiskers.

Well and like, but Lupin's were like four inches five inches long. They're the longest. I've never seen a cat with longer whiskers than him. They would like stand out there like big and long and curly. And so I have like an enormous number of his whiskers, and so I want to get something like that made, like some piece of jewelry with I mean, honestly, like the volume of whiskers I have, I could make like a tiny cat, but like a jewelry would be great. And I've already started keeping squids for the same reason. It's just like it's but it is nice, Yeah, it's nice to have that connection, like yeah, and I think it's a nice reminder. And I've been thinking about this a lot, but I don't I'm trying not to, like I have, you know, on and off mental health, but like, I just think that it is a really great reminder of like the importance of just like general humanity and uh and respect for the dead and what we're what is happening in the world right now is the exact opposite of that, like not least all of the mass murdering of innocent people, but particularly also like you know, if you can justify the mass murdering, which is I know people can and I cannot, but like the the treatment after words, even you know, like refugee camps where people are completely burned to ashes or or the the the image that came out of the hospital that Israel recently bombed where a person burned alive with the ICU or with the thing still in his arm. Anyway, So I just I think we need to go back to this idea that like humans are fucking humans and and like, you know, say what you want about war. This isn't one. It's an extermination, but say what you want about war, but like the respect for human decency and like the yeah, we're all kind of forgetting that everyone is fucking human right now, no matter you know what color their skin is or whether there.

Are whether that's what they follow, what they do, it is there is, and.

Like we're all human. Yeah, could we can we just like and like I mean, ceasefire now everything like that's it needs so much more than a ceasefire, but like just a little bit of of human fucking empathy to recognize that seems a real human being entire familes.

That's somebody mother, sister, mother, father, grandfather, Like somebody loves that person. Yeah, how would like just just put yourself in that position.

But we've reached this point where they're just so humanized that like that, that's like the basic step is like, first off, Palestinians and Lebanese people are human. Yeah, let's go from there.

And just like just just stop. There's no argument.

No, they're human.

That's your state in fact, like it anyways, anyway, Sorry we waited, guys.

Gay death, yay, natural death that is then honored by the humans around, Yes, because we're all human and deserve.

Take Grandma out of the closet, yes, out of the safeway plastic bag somewhere. Good.

That my friends was Herme's historia. No, but for real, like I we didn't feel like get to say it because we recorded the first two up front, but like this is I think going to be really fun to the listeners. We're going to get michaela a better microphone, I promise, no, and I'm so sorry because I should have done it already.

But I only have this mic for gaming.

It's yeah, well, and I'm you know you're gonna get one, but I'm in the process of preparing for a move that is going to take seven to eight days of driving. So you know, also a thing that I will announce publicly once I get there, the crazy, ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous thing I did.

And now I'll come hang out at your plan.

Yeah, in any case, so you know, there's lack going on, but we will be upping the quality, particularly once we're charging for this. We're still working out the details of the subscription most because we're going to try to be doing everything on our own and it's gonna be really great going forward. So until then, you get these free ones and we're finding our stride. If you're listening on Spotify, comment because a bunch of people commented on the first two and it made me so excited. Michaela's making a face, but I know she loves it. She just is like me seven years ago when I had trouble taking any kind of I mean, I'm still not great.

It's just great seven years but.

Yeah, I have a lot of experience on her, so we'll get there. I want to figure it out to read any credits, but you're on with me, so obviously this was written by Michaela, who's like, you just heard her read it, so it's me.

It is Mikayla.

Do you have Yeah, you do, Mikayla Penguins, you exist. Do you have a catchphrase for the end of this episode? Do you want to sign off? I'm I'm live and I won't say my catchphrase because this is Mikayla's episode.

I'm Mikayla. I love this shit.

I was just I was just putting on the spot, trying to make it.

Come up with a couple of weeks to make me think I'm not that creative. That won't bring me on.

I mean, do you think that Mila was creative and not just the first thing that came out of my mouth?

Do you think that I love this ship with a question mark.

Honestly, that's how we got this entire podcast. The title first thing that came to my mind. That came to my mind, and somebody messaged me and they were like I like it, and I was like, I guess I'm gonna do it every time.

Beautiful, and I'll welcome great