7 most morbid Victorian mourning traditions
Postmortem portrait of your beloved, anyone?
By Melissa Breyer
Article from Huffinton Post (see link below)
Parents pose with their deceased daughter. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Halloween’s ghouls, goblins, ghosts and skeletons — we may get dark
and creepy about death one day a year, but we’ve got nothing on the
Victorians. While people of the 19th century were wildly repressed about
many things, their comfort with death was a far cry from modern
sentiments.
Nowhere is this more evident than in British mourning etiquette during
the time of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837 to 1901). The death of her
husband, Prince Albert, in 1861 ushered in a rigorous display of
mourning that set the stage for the general culture to follow. What
became customary mourning, by today’s standards, seems downright macabre
and morose. So in honor of the upcoming All Hallows' Eve, when all
things turn spooky and spine-chilling, here’s a look at what was once
the ghoulish norm.
1. Postmortem portraits
Prior to 1839 portraits were painted, but with the invention of the
daguerreotype photograph, portraiture become more affordable and
accessible. This meant that the middle class could now afford to have
pictures taken to memorialize their loved ones — their dead loved ones,
that is, and particularly infants and children. With the invention of
the carte de visite in the middle of the century came multiple
prints so that families could share pictures of their dead children
with other family members and friends. Since most children would not
have had their images captured prior to their untimely deaths, it makes
perfect sense; although the practice would seem utterly taboo in
contemporary Western culture.
2. The living dead
Since the idea of postmortem portraits was to have something to
remember the deceased by, there was often staging and post-photo work
done to achieve the effect of life. Bodies were posed in lifelike
positions, surrounded by family, children holding favorite toys, and
eyes often propped open. Sometimes, pupils were painted on in the studio
and rosy cheeks were added to the image of the corpse.
3. Coal for jewelry
The material most prized to show grief was lignite, also known as jet,
a fossilized form of coal. Jet is deep, dark and somber. In the first
phase of mourning, jet jewelry was the only ornamentation women were
allowed to wear.
4. Wearing the hair of the dead
While women were only supposed to wear jet for the first stage, during
the second stage of mourning one could wear a piece of jewelry if it
contained, or was made of, hair. That would be human hair. That would be
human hair taken from the deceased love one. Brooches, bracelets,
rings, chains and buckles were all made of hair; sometimes there was
just a bit enclosed in a hollow band or brooch, other times, the hair
was crafted into a piece of its own.
5. Cloaked in heavy veils and bonnets
A widow was to wear a bonnet of heavy crepe and a veil to cover the
face for the first three months. At the end of three months the veil was
to be worn from the back of the bonnet for another nine months.
Altogether, restrictive mourning dress, known as widow's weeds, was to
be worn for a minimum of two years, although many widows chose to shun
color forever.
6. Haunted houses
Once a member of the house died, all of the mirrors in the house were
to be covered. If a mirror in the house fell and broke, it was thought
that someone in the home would die soon. When someone died in the
house, the clock was to be stopped at the hour of death or bad luck
would ensue. When a body was removed from the house, it had to be taken
head-first so that it could not beckon others to follow.
7. Saved by the bell
Calling Edgar Allen Poe. Not really a mourning tradition, but a good
sign of the times: Coffin alarms. The fear of being buried alive was so
severe that a device known as a coffin alarm was invented. The
contraption was simply a bell attached to the headstone with a chain
that connected to a ring placed on the finger of the corpse. (Gives the
term "dead ringer" a whole new meaning.)
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