Mor·tal·i·ty
môrˈtalədē/
noun
noun: mortality; plural noun: mortalities
1. the state of being
subject to death.
2. death, especially on a large scale.
Mortality and death are fairly synonymous with one another. We all die some time, everything that lives dies. It is how we deal with facing that fear of our own deaths that set us apart. Until recent decades and the advancement of medical practices, death was an every day occurrence, and not a taboo subject. Sex was the taboo, heaven forbid a woman showed her ankle! It wasn't until recently that the tables flipped and sex became the everyday in your face subject that it is, and the mystery of death has become taboo.
Can you imagine going to the cemetery for the day to sit among the graves of your ancestors for Sunday lunch? Most people would shriek if this was the idea of a normal Sunday, but back not to long ago, the cemetery was the happening place to spend the afternoon.
There were rules and etiquette you were required to follow, or you were a horrible family member in the eyes of your communities. Today people ask why go to a funeral, the person it is for is dead. Though funerals are not really for the dead, they are for closure for the surviving members of that family. Etiquette says you go to support the living in their time of grief.
So where do our funerary practices, traditions, and etiquette really come from? How did medicine and the medical practice changes increase our mortality rate? Why are we so spell bound by the morbid, and repulsed by mortality? That is what we hope to answer here at the Museum of Mortality.
We hope that we can help you stand in the face of your own mortality, remove the eww factor, and lift the veil of mystery that surrounds death, the dying, and the dead. Follow our blog, favorite our website and facebook page, and shop our Mercantile to help support us on this venture into the taboo world of mortality.
www.museumofmortality.com
