Category: Uncategorized

Are Wool Coffins ‘Hot’ Right Now?

‘’Noe person or persons whatsoever shall be buryed in any Shirt Shift or Sheete made of or mingled with Flax Hempe, Silke, Haire, Gold or Silver or other then what shall be made of Wooll onely’’

See the source image

(wool coffin from ‘naturalendings.co.uk)

In 1667, the above law, the ‘Burial in Woollen Act’ was passed. Its’ purpose was to stimulate growth in the British textile industry. The only exclusions allowed at the time were victims of the plague and the poor.

Fast forward then to the present day, and being buried in wool has been seeing something of a resurgence in popularity. But this time, it isn’t the economy that needs to be saved, it’s the planet.

As the dissatisfaction with traditional funerals wanes and the awareness of the need for a ‘greener’ option grows, families have been seeking ever more inventive ways to dispose of their loved ones. And funeral furniture providers have been happy to oblige. There has been a 10% growth in coffins made from alternative materials, with wicker and cardboard emerging as clear favourites. But lately, providers have been getting more and more creative and there are now coffins made from willow, wool, bamboo, banana leaf, water hyacinth, felt and recycled paper on the market.

Wool is one of the materials preferred by those who have looked into planning a funeral independently and the top supplier in the country is Yorkshire based A.W. Hainsworth, a seventh-generation family business dating back 229 years. Last year saw them celebrate the 10th anniversary of the world’s first patented woollen coffin, working alongside JC Atkinson, one of the country’s top suppliers of wooden coffins. The coffins were premiered at The National Funeral exhibition accompanied by a number of sheep that walked the floor to raise awareness.

Handmade in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, each coffin uses three British wool fleeces. In 2011, the company was selling 15 woollen coffins a month, now it sells 120 over the same period in the UK and sales worldwide, including the UK, stand at around 160-180 per month, with greatest demand coming from Australia and New Zealand.

The sustainability of each coffin has been carefully considered and perfected over the last 10 years; the woollen outer layer is hand-fitted around a recycled cardboard frame. The frame is then reinforced with an MDF baseboard for rigidity and stability, and lined with a soft woollen wadding for a mattress base. The interior of each coffin is lined with cotton, attractively edged with jute and completed with a covered pillow, and the exterior is finished with a beautiful blanket stitch detail, jute handles and simple wooden toggle fastenings.

Hainsworth’s Marketing Manager Julie Roberts is justifiably proud, not only of the product’s green credentials but also of the other benefits it offers bereaved families. The coffin itself, as she says is “less harsh, not the traditional coffin shape” and this appeals certainly to younger or more sensitive mourners who may be upset by the angles and solid appearance of a traditional wood coffin.

The colour too has played a role in what families have chosen. Originally available in white or traditional black, the company found that the black wasn’t as popular and decided to change it to grey. Suddenly, it became more popular. A choice that Julie puts down to the coffin now resembling

“a man in a woollen overcoat.”

As more and more families look to less traditional ways of celebrating the passing of their loved ones, the comments from families on Hainsworth’s website bear testament to this as one family said, it transformed the funeral from;

“dark and bleak to soft, warm, loving and a bit beautiful.  It felt a bit more like putting dad to ‘bed” 

In fact, the soft angles and the tactile qualities of the wool have made it a popular choice for parents who have suffered the tragic loss of a child. It is light enough to be carried by one person and is, in her words, “evocative of a Moses basket”. She has received letters of thanks from many parents who have said that the soft, warm feel of the wool has made the loss somehow more bearable.

The difficulty for Hainsworth however, lies not with the popularity of the wool coffin, its’ look or its’ green credentials, but rather that it isn’t being promoted as a viable choice by funeral directors who are still reluctant to offer families anything too far from coffins made in the traditional shape and from traditional materials. They are still reliant on families who have done their own research into 100 sustainable options and are aware of the choices on offer.

But support for the wool coffins initially came from a very significant source, not other than HRH The Prince of Wales, whose green beliefs are well-documented, who declared “I discovered a company that makes a woollen coffin – Coffins ladies and gentlemen to die for!” at the opening of the wool modern exhibition in 2009.

So, as funerals move slowly away from the traditional and companies look to ways to discover greener and more sustainable ways to say farewell to our loved ones, maybe, as we did some 350 years ago, wool coffins hold the key.

The Most Bizarre Death Rituals From Around The World

Fancy being buried in a giant-sized shoe? Or being left out for the vultures? That’s what could happen if you lived in one of these places…

Madagascar

The Malagasy people follow a tradition known as Famadihana (https://theculturetrip.com/africa/madagascar/articles/famadihana-madagascars-day-of-the-dead/ ) which means ‘turning of the bodies’. What this tradition involves is the Malagasay bringing the bodies of their ancestors from the family crypts and rewrap them in fresh clothes. You would think that this would be enough but it isn’t. The Malagasay then dance with the corpses around the tomb to live music. Apparently, it is a way to remember their dead relatives and loved ones from time to time. They bury them again after carrying them around their villages.

Surely a photograph would be easier.

The Zoroastrians

At one time, Zoroastrianism was one of the most widely practised religions of the ancient world. However, after thousands of years of persecution, there remain only about 200,000 practising members living mainly in India.

Zoroastrians, as a rule, aren’t all that comfortable with dead bodies. Because the corpses of the deceased are seen as defiling everything they touch. Zoroastrian ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/zoroastrian/ )funerals begin by cleansing the body in unconsecrated bull’s urine. After the body has been “cleansed,” it is laid in linen to be visited by “Sagdid” a four-eyed dog. The ‘four-eyes’ comes from the idea that ideally, the dog has a spot over each of its’ normal eyes to focus its’ gaze. This rite is repeated five times throughout the day. Finally, the linens are removed using special tools that prevent members of the community from touching the defiled garments and the deceased is placed on the top of a “Tower of Silence” to be consumed by vultures; a process that’s seen as doing the smallest possible amount of harm to the living.

Tibet

Tibetan Buddhists also practice ritual dissection or ’Sky Burial’ (https://www.tibettravel.org/tibetan-local-customs/tibetan-funeral.html )and follow the tradition of chopping up the dead into small pieces and giving the remains to animals, particularly birds. Although at times, the body is left intact. To the western world this may seem undignified and even a bit disgusting, but, from a Buddhist perspective, it makes complete sense. Buddhists have no desire to preserve or commemorate a dead body, something that is seen as an empty vessel.

Furthermore, in tune with their respect for all life, Buddhists consider it most fitting that one’s final act is to have their remains used to sustain the life of another living creature; and in fact, the ritual is seen as a gesture of compassion and charity. Even today, over 80% of Tibetan Buddhists choose Sky Burial, a ritual that has been observed for thousands of years.

Papua New Guinea

Losing a loved one is a traumatic experience in itself but the Dani people of West Papua, New Guinea until not so very long ago took this to a whole new level and made any woman and child related to the deceased cut off their own fingers. Astonishingly, the reason for this was to drive away the spirits of the deceased and to use physical pain as an expression of sorrow and suffering. To perform the amputation, fingers were tied tightly with string and then cut off with an axe. The leftover piece was then dried and burned to ashes or stored in a special place. Not surprisingly, the barbaric ritual is now banned in New Guinea, but older members of the community still display the physical signs.

Benguet, the Philipines (https://www.funeralwise.com/digital-dying/the-spectacular-death-rituals-of-the-philippines/ )

The Philippines, although it is largely a Christian society nowadays, people who live in more remote regions follow the customs they have followed for hundreds of years. Benguet is a landlocked province in the southern tip of the island of Luzon. When someone dies here, friends and relatives convene at the deceased’s house. The body is cleaned, and a few of the men are dispatched to collect bamboo, which they then fashion into a chair, so far so normal, nothing too out of the ordinary, but this is when things start to go awry. The body of the deceased is seated on the bamboo chair and fastened in place with more bamboo and strips of cloth. So that the deceased does not have to bear witness to the suffering in the world, the body is blindfolded. A fire is lit to fend off insects and also to act as a beacon just in case the deceased’s spirit wanders off and is unable to find its’ way home.

This period lasts for eight days and, as you might expect, the body begins to decay. And while we in the West may find this pretty distasteful, this holds no fear for the Benguet people, quite the opposite in fact. They actually make jokes about the smell, and happily offer alcoholic drinks to the body during the mourning feast. The night before the funeral, elders give a chanted biography of the deceased and as the body is buried, mourners hit bamboo sticks together in the belief it will help the departed find their way to heaven.

South Korea

Cremation is becoming a more popular choice for many families in the small country of South Korea but not for the reasons you may think. In fact, because the country is so small it is fast running out of burial space and a law passed in 2000 requires families who choose burial for their loved ones to remove the grave after 60 years.

But rather than have their family members stored in urns, the Koreans prefer to have the ashes pressed into ‘death beads’ for about £900, in a choice of colours turquoise, pink or black. These are then displayed around the house.

Ghana (https://roadsandkingdoms.com/travel-guide/accra/the-fantasy-coffins-of-ghana/ )

While the tradition of the funeral itself is more like what we are familiar with in the UK as the service is a memorial and a celebration of the deceased, there is one very significant difference in Ghananian funerals. The departed is laid to rest in a ‘fantasy coffin’( see photo)

The idea is that the coffin is fashioned to represent something that the person was known for in life; a Nike training shoe, a 747 jet or maybe a guitar, and by being buried with something that represents their passion, it’s taken with them into the next life.

Coffin making in Ghana is an art and the designs are purposely brash and colourful, so they stand out as the dead are taken to their resting place in true party style, with some funerals lasting as long as two or three days. 

So, if you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to make choices over the funeral of a loved one, be grateful that, difficult though it is, your choices are going to be restricted to cremation or burial and what sort of coffin to have and not which finger you should choose to remove!