Introduction

Peter Head 0:00

Lo Carmen 0:07

In our western culture, the physical process of dying tends to take place privately behind closed doors, in hospitals, hospice and bedrooms, under the guidance of experienced professionals. Touching our dead, dressing or preparing them or even spending time with them in our homes after their death is uncommon. Our grieving also tends to be more private. with those that have lost their people trying their best to keep it together at least until some kind of service has been had and the body laid to rest when they can fall apart behind closed doors. We're kind of expected to come to terms with the death of the person we loved in a reasonably timely manner but in many other cultures the rituals around death and dying look very different. Today we're going to talk with Klaus Bo, a highly regarded freelance photojournalist based in Copenhagen, Denmark, who was inspired to begin his life's work, The Dead and Alive Project, in 2010, travelling to many countries around the world, immersing himself for extended periods of time wherever he goes to photograph rituals around death and dying. The Dead and Alive Project is intended to encourage conversations about death, to examine how we think about and relate to death, and to allow people to familiarize themselves in more depth.

Klaus Bo 1:50

My first trip was to Haiti, where I've been a few times, and I was interested in studying people's customs around death, how we relate

Klaus Bo - introduction to Dead & Alive Project

Klaus Bo 2:00

to death around the world, How funeral ceremonies, how they look, how people practice these last farewells around the world. If there's anywhere in the world where death

Klaus Bo on death rituals in Haiti

Klaus Bo 2:18

is really up front, it would be Haiti. I've been there like four times before, working with different NGOs. before the earthquake and after the earthquake in Haiti, I went there. And then I decided when I wanted to start my project that it could be a good place to see if I could handle myself getting very close to death, looking at dead people, and if I could photograph it in a way so other people could handle seeing it and seeing what I was doing and understand the reason why I was doing what I was doing.

Lo Carmen 2:54

Was it very confronting for you when you first went to Haiti?

Klaus Bo 2:58

Haiti is a very special place. And it was, well, you can say almost, I would say 90% of all people I have photographed, all dead people I photographed, they died a natural death. So it's not confronting in the same way as when you photograph death in a place where it's not supposed to be, if you understand what I mean.

Lo Carmen 3:20

What are their rituals in Haiti? What do they do?

Klaus Bo 3:23

Oh, they have some very special rituals. It's the voodoo rituals.

Lo Carmen 3:27

Oh, can you tell us?

Klaus Bo 3:28

u Yeah. They have a special ritual called a vey, which is similar to a wake, where they sing and they dance. The dead person is represented by a calabash. It's a dried fruit. And they... drum on that one it's put in water with the different substances like perfume herbs and everything and then the call for the spirits by singing for like at least four hours yeah and then in the end when they when they have called for the voodoo spirits, the luas it's called. In the end, the spirit of the dead will be caught by this thing and it will go into the water and it will be caught in the calabash, which is like upside down in the water. And then it will bring it outside and set it free again. Then I went to another ritual, which is called a desunin. When you get how do you say, inaugurated in the voodoo church, so I don't know exactly how to say it, but then there's a special ritual where you are chosen by one of the voodoo spirits, and this spirit will be your guardian angel for the rest of your life. But it's very important when you die that you take out this spirit from the dead body again, because otherwise it can become a ghost and it will haunt you. the living.

Lo Carmen 4:41

How interesting.

Klaus Bo 4:43

That was really interesting.

Lo Carmen 4:45

So if it's treated properly it becomes like a guardian spirit and if it's not released from the body it becomes a ghost, haunted and haunting.

Klaus Bo 4:52

Yes. And that's also why you say that after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 Port-au-Prince was a haunted city because all these people had to be buried in mass graves and there was no time to perform the right rituals.

Unknown 5:09

Music

Lo Carmen 5:22

The roots of voodooism have been practiced in Africa since the beginning of human civilization, predating any known religion in the world today. In Haitian voodoo, they say death is the wind because death is seen as a transformation or transition, a beginning rather than an end. Boundaries between life and death are fluid, and mourning, crying and wailing is part of a sacred journey that connects the living and the dead. In the Haitian voodoo tradition, it is believed that the dead either reincarnate by slipping into rivers and streams and remaining there underwater for a year and a day before the souls emerge from the water, lured by rituals and songs, and their spirits are reborn, or they move into the realm of the ancestors, where they remain a beloved and integral part of the community, offering guidance, blessings and protection. If things go awry, they can also come back as ghosts or as zombie zombies, so the rituals around death are very important. To voodoo, family gods are venerated and fed and cherished for all that they have given and continue to give to their communities, especially life, wisdom and protection. In return, they're revered and cared for, and Manjimu, or a day of ritual feeding of the dead, takes place annually, where the Te Voodoo are thanked for their blessings, fed, given rum, honoured with parties full of dancing and praise songs. Fete Gede or Festival or Feast of the Dead is one of the most important celebrations in the voodoo religious calendar. It's like a voodoo equivalent of the Mexican Day of the Dead or Mardi Gras or Halloween all wrapped up in one. Everyone dresses in black, white and purple. They walk, drum, sing and dance in processions to the graveyards to honour the Gede spirits. They feed their ancestral dead with gifts and offerings of spicy foods, flowers, coffee, one with sugar, one without, homemade beeswax candles and to warm the Gede's bones, bottles of rum stuffed with chilli peppers. Gede is the family or nation of spirits of the dead in Haitian voodoo. I found on a voodoo tumblr by someone called Rock of Eye a description that I thought was quite fantastic. It said, She says, When asked why he wears broken sunglasses, he says he has one eye on his food and one eye to see the world or one eye for pleasure. Nothing misses his gaze. He stands at the crossroads of life and death. All people have access to Gede because all people will die and all people have been touched by death. He is the Imelda Marcos of hats. He loves hats. If he can put it on his head, he wants to wear it. Bowler cap, fedora, cowboy hat, witch's hat, party hat, whatever. If it's a hat, a Gede will wear it. I have four hats for Gede on his chair and he has been very clear that this is not enough. He likes imagery of penises and vulvas, so he often gets given penis vulva candles, lifelike dildos, porn magazines, condoms and other associated novelties. He sees us all in our humanity without judgement. Voodoo is a non-hierarchical, living and evolving religion that is not comparable to any Western concepts. It's believed that over 60 million people practice voodoo worldwide, in West Africa, Brazil, the USA and the Caribbean, and especially on Heishi, where voodoo was proclaimed the state religion in 2003, and where it is popularly stated that the people are 80% Catholics and 110% voodooists. I've seen some of your amazing photographs from Indonesia. Oh, yes. That's kind of similar, isn't it, in terms of long rituals?

Klaus Bo 10:18

Oh, yes, long-lasting rituals. I would say the Haitian one is not necessarily that long compared to... A three-day ritual in the mountains in Nepal or the funeral

Klaus Bo on death rituals in Tana Toraja

Klaus Bo 10:30

rituals, the ordinary funeral rituals in Indonesia, they last for like three, four days, maybe even seven days.

Lo Carmen 10:35

Wow.

Klaus Bo 10:36

Yeah, it's a very costly affair to not to offend anyone, but I think there's a little show-off in status as well sometimes. But then you have probably seen some of the other rituals where they take out the dead people, they clean them up and they have photos taken with them.

Lo Carmen 10:50

Is it on the anniversary of the person?

Klaus Bo 10:56

Yeah, it's like the Day of the Dead, actually. It's not the Day of the Dead, but they do the same stuff as you do during Day of the Dead. They clean the graves, they make them very nice. prepare everything, and then they take out the dead people. And they do it after harvest. So it's like a

Lo Carmen 11:10

grateful celebration?

Klaus Bo 11:12

Yeah, you can say so. And they have to do it before they start blowing the paddy fields again and make them ready for new rice. Wow. Do they change

Lo Carmen 11:21

their clothes and give them cigarettes?

Klaus Bo 11:23

Yeah, they do. They take them out, they clean them, and they clean the bodies. There's some bugs and there's some dust and stuff, and they clean it out, and then they put on new clothes. on the family members, the ancestors, and then they are actually having pictures taken with them. They give them cigarettes, they light up the cigarettes, and they're actually having a big celebration of their ancestors. Of course, it can be sorrowful, but you're basically not allowed to cry during the ritual. But of course, some people, they cry if it's a close relative. But it's also a big celebration. And people, they come if they live in Malaysia or wherever they live. They actually come for this occasion.

Lo Carmen 12:04

Oh, that's so special. I've

Unknown 12:07

come to, to excavate your bones. So different isn't it to

Lo Carmen 12:30

what we do

Klaus Bo 12:36

Oh, yes.

Lo Carmen 12:37

In our Western countries where it's all very

Klaus Bo & Lo Carmen on Western death culture contrast and after life

Lo Carmen 12:40

quiet and respectful and once somebody is buried, that's kind of it.

Klaus Bo 12:47

Yeah, it's a very big contrast because in our societies it's two and a half hours. I mean, you have half an hour in church and then you have two hours with coffee and cake. That's right. And then everybody goes home to themselves. They go alone.

Lo Carmen 13:01

And you're not even really expected to grieve, are you?

Klaus Bo 13:04

No, no. You're

Lo Carmen 13:04

meant to grieve very privately and even the wake after funerals I find in Australia that's the only place I've been to funerals it's like everybody holds in their sadness they don't seem to cry they're all very polite and having conversations that often don't even really involve the dead person, and it's not until they go

Klaus Bo 13:28

home that

Lo Carmen 13:30

it all comes out.

Klaus Bo 13:32

And if you cry, I've always wondered if someone is crying, people in the movies and stuff like that, people, they say, oh, don't cry.

Lo Carmen 13:39

It's got to be good for you to cry, doesn't

Klaus Bo 13:42

it? It's so weird. It

Lo Carmen 13:42

makes sense to cry. Yes,

Klaus Bo 13:44

exactly. It's a big relief. I mean,

Lo Carmen 13:46

yeah. It's the natural thing that your body wants to do when you're sad or full of emotions. Has doing this photography for so long changed the way you feel? Has it taught you a lot?

Klaus Bo 14:00

Yeah, I would say so. I was quite scared myself of dying when I was younger. I couldn't sleep sometimes because for me sleeping was the same as dying because you didn't remember anything after when you woke up. So I was quite afraid of sleeping sometimes. And I had a big fear of death because it is a big mystery what is going to happen, what happens when we die. But I would say after I've been traveling the way I have, I'm not afraid of dying anymore. Most of the places, or I would say even all the places I've been, they believe in some kind of an afterlife. It's described in very different ways, but most places they say, well, yeah, the afterlife is probably something like the same that we have now, where we are now. Just in another place. So life just continues, but in another place. But it looks probably a lot like this life we're having now. And that's really interesting. I never believed in anything like that. I'm an atheist and I'm grown up in a country which is basically... Atheistic. It's not an easy word, is it? Yeah. And basically we don't know. Even the chairman of our Danish National Gallery is an anthropologist. He believes, he's been traveling quite a lot as well, and he believes in there's a life after death. Probably some kind of a parallel universe, and basically it's the same as here. And basically he says there's an exchange of souls between the world of the living and the world of the dead. And basically we don't know, as he says, that's what he says, Basically, we don't know if we are in the world of the dead or if we are in the world of the living at the moment.

Lo Carmen 15:49

Throughout the ages, most cultures have held a belief in souls and some type of afterlife. There's the kingdom of the dead, the underworld, the Elysian fields, Valhalla, the Sheol, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, The Spirit Prison, Paradise, The Celestial Kingdom, Jana and Jahannam, The Six Realms of Existence, The Pure Land, Nirvana, The World of Spirits, Folkvanga, The Covered Hall, The Summerland and Ancestor Veneration. Having been raised without religion, I mentally conjured my own vision of an afterlife that was heavily inspired by a 1970 episode of Bewitched, where a witch's convention took place in a dim, smoky land of clouds and purple cocktails, where everyone looked amazing, dressed in floaty sleeves and shimmering fabrics, and I've never stopped imagining the people that I know ascending there after their death. My dad calls it the big blow in the sky, which I like to imagine as the ultimate nightclub. Considering there are so many possibilities, it makes sense that many of us are drawn to exploring them and witnessing for ourselves what others believe. Klaus says he has been welcomed everywhere he's been when he explains what he's doing and why.

Klaus Bo 17:19

But if you want to participate, you also give them something

Klaus Bo on rituals and sacrifice

Klaus Bo 17:23

as a gift. You're very welcome. You're very welcome. For the ritual they use, they have this special drink called tsukakash. which is a very strong homebrew. And then you have to, you give like a liter of that and give them a little amount of money to help because it's quite expensive for them to do this ritual. They have to sacrifice at least one animal or maybe a few. So it's expensive. For the gods. Yes, but they eat everything, everything. There's nothing that...

Lo Carmen 17:52

Nothing's wasted.

Klaus Bo 17:53

They use everything.

Lo Carmen 17:54

It's interesting, isn't it, how food seems to play a large part in death all around the world. Yes. There's a lot of stories of food being given to the person that has died.

Klaus Bo 18:06

Oh, yeah. I've seen that several places. What have

Lo Carmen 18:10

What have you seen?

Klaus Bo 18:12

This is also back in Indonesia. I mean, they don't see death as, how do you say, something that happens in a second. It's like something that, it's a process. You don't die from one day to another or from one hour to the other. It's a long process.

Lo Carmen 18:26

Like you slowly drift away?

Klaus Bo 18:28

Yeah. something like that and then you're called when you're lying you can be lying in the home in Indonesia for like some places it's like six weeks to explain that when I say Indonesia I mean Tanah Toraja in Sulawesi because it's a very special region and that's where I was in Tanah Toraja. And if you die, what we call dying, then you're placed in a home and you're given food every evening. You're given a plate of rice.

Lo Carmen 18:55

Do you mean they just put the plate next to the person's head? They don't actually put it inside their mouth?

Klaus Bo 19:00

No. They don't, but they call it, then you're called a tomakula, which means a sick person. And you are actually, you're sick until the first buffalo is sacrificed because your soul or your spirit or whatever you would call it, needs the soul of a buffalo to be able to enter their paradise. Yeah, but the thing with the food is quite interesting, because I witnessed a family who just came home with the woman in the house. She died, and then she was taken home from the hospital, and the moment they took her in the house, they gave her fresh rice, and they actually tried to feed her with it, because they say if anything can wake her up, it's the home-cooked rice of the house.

Lo Carmen 19:44

Because

Lo Carmen on food in death rituals

Lo Carmen 19:45

it's so delicious that she will wake up to eat it. That's beautiful.

Lo Carmen 19:53

In Tana Taraja, when small babies die, they are buried inside the trunks of taro trees so their spirits will be symbolically absorbed by nature. The sap of the tree represents breast milk, nurturing the child in the afterlife. The symbolic intertwining of food in death rituals takes many forms around the world. Ancient Greeks believed that life was bitter and death sweet. Some religions promised an afterlife flowing with milk and honey awaiting them after death. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Hindus, Chinese and African people placed pots of honey next to their corpses and honey was poured over graves on the anniversary of the person's death. Egyptians also anointed the lips of their deceased priests with honey and ancient Greeks included honey cakes to bribe Cerebus at the gates of Hades. Bread and beer were left in tombs for the deceased for their spiritual nourishment, along with paintings of cattle and birds for extra sustenance when the real food ran out. These were considered intermediaries between our world and the spirit world in the Victorian era and were ritually informed of any deaths, births or marriages. When a member of the household died, a black cloth and ribbon would be draped over the hive, and the youngest member of the family would be sent to whisper three times something along the lines of, "'Little brownies, little brownies, your mistress is dead.'" and leftovers from the funeral feast would be left out for the bees as a sign of appreciation for them, so that death wouldn't take them too. In China, the eating of chicken symbolically helps the soul of the dead to fly to heaven, and eating sweets and candies after a funeral purifies mourners. In the Hindu faith, baskets of fruit and vegetables are given to families of the dead, The Amish bake a raisin-filled funeral pie, and in Sweden, the dead are toasted with funeral glock. In Brittany, France, when someone dies from cancer, a plate of butter is placed on a table near the dead person to soak up all of the cancer. Then it's buried outside so that none of them will be diagnosed with the disease in the future. They believed that a little fly would appear on the lips of the corpse, which they believed contained the soul of the departed. The fly would then head over to a jar of open honey to fortify itself before it set off on long travels to the spirit world. Corpse cakes, also known as koliva, emerged in the Middle Ages from Germany made with boiled wheat sprinkled with sugar, fruit and nuts and shaped to resemble a grave mound. Eating it symbolically mirrored the act of eating the deceased. The dough would be prepared and then left to rise on the freshly washed linen covered chest of the corpse absorbing some of the deceased's personal qualities that would then be passed on to the mourners as they ate the corpse cakes.

Unknown 23:13

Music

Lo Carmen 23:13

Similarly, in China, monks can transfer the sins of the dead to dim sum dishes, which are then eaten by sin eaters. In England and Ireland from the 17th to 20th century, bread and salt would be left on a corpse to be eaten by a person of the lowest possible social standing who was paid a pittance to attend the wake, eat the bread and salt, resting on the chest of the deceased, consuming and transferring the sins of the dead to himself so that the departed soul could enter heaven. After the sin eater finished eating, he was often mercilessly kicked Kicked, punched and thrown around by the crowd as he tried to leave the gathering. Next, the mourners would scoff cakes representing new life served on top of the corpse by the bereaved family. My dear school friend, Sarah Bidak, and fellow musician from Romani Gypsy band, Loro Lavina, told me a story about what happened when her husband's cousin, they called each other brothers, died in Serbia a few years ago.

Sarah Bedak 24:24

We were on tour with Lola Lovina and all these songs kept coming on the

Sarah Bedak on Romani death culture in Serbia

Sarah Bedak 24:30

radio that were songs that Butsco loved. And then I was like, wow, this song he loved. This is amazing. This playlist that's coming out on the radio is amazing. It's all Butsco's music. Wow. Yeah. And then we made it back home, and Nenad went in to see Budsko, and three minutes later he passed away. So it felt like he was waiting for Nenad.

Lo Carmen 24:55

Wow.

Sarah Bedak 24:56

To die with Nenad. So, yeah, amazing. In Romani culture in Serbia, and it's probably... I'm not too sure if it's greater Serbian culture. I actually don't know. But the body stays in the house.

Lo Carmen 25:11

In the... bed where he died

Sarah Bedak 25:13

or yeah in the lap his bed was kind of in the lounge room so it was like and there was community around family and neighbors and around all the time like just to come and visit him and just they hang out there's no you know it's different to here there's just people it's not all cautious no no getting

Lo Carmen 25:32

on with life

Sarah Bedak 25:33

around him yeah yeah yeah sitting around smoking endless cigarettes and drinking lots of coffee

Lo Carmen 25:39

so did they do anything special with his body when Yeah,

Sarah Bedak 25:43

so it's like normally the parent or the son or the, yeah, a close relative anyway that needs to wash the body. So the dead body is there. Butsko is there. So you need to be undressed and then washed and then dressed in his clothes. You choose a suit or a dress that you want to die in. That's a thing there. So he would have

Lo Carmen 26:09

pre-chosen...

Sarah Bedak 26:10

Yes, yeah. He chose his outfit, which was a lovely sort of brown kind of 70s suit. It was really cool.

Lo Carmen 26:18

I love that.

Sarah Bedak 26:19

It was great, yeah. And, yeah, and I went and sat with my husband and just... And I was terrified. I was like, I've never seen a dead body. I don't know how I'm going to react, but I really want to support him because I know it's going to be really hard.

Lo Carmen 26:33

Mm-hm.

Sarah Bedak 26:33

And he was so strong because it was, you know, what a thing to do. But, yeah, he washed his body just so lovingly. So Nanad did it. He did the washing. He did the washing. And was

Lo Carmen 26:47

life just going on around you while it happened? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was people chatting and people,

Sarah Bedak 26:54

yep, wailing, like lots of expressive, expressive things. emotion, which was beautiful to see too. Like people are kind of, you know, like falling on the floor and, you know, like just really letting it out.

Lo Carmen 27:08

And then how long did he remain in the room?

Sarah Bedak 27:11

It's 24 hours now. It used to be three days. The body used to be there for three days and you'd just go and visit and people would, there's a thing of to the night that they die, there's a candle that is on the whole time. But you tend to the candle at 6 and 12. So you make sure that it's a light so that someone stays awake all the time. Or, you know, like you take turns around the candle. And then there's eating. So you need to eat in uneven groups. So groups of three, five, seven small meals. And you don't really talk. Like, interesting... Was all of this

Lo Carmen 27:54

explained to you as it happened? Not really. Was it like everyone understood what the

Sarah Bedak 28:01

rules were? Yeah, everyone understood. I didn't really speak. I understand a bit. So you just followed along. Yeah, just gave myself to what was going. But yeah, like Nanad was amazing and just like spoke, like just lovingly spoke to his brother the whole time and And there's a thing where your jaw drops and so he was just holding for a long time until there was this something that wraps around the head and keeps the jaw shut. There was a special thing that his wife had that she wanted to use and she couldn't find it so Nenna just held his jaw for ages and just stroked his head and talked. It was so beautiful. So ordinary. So real and human and I was so grateful for that experience because of all the fear in our society around death. And it was just beautiful, ordinary.

Lo Carmen 28:58

And a very meaningful goodbye.

Sarah Bedak 29:01

Oh, such a complete goodbye from everyone.

Lo Carmen 29:06

And you really know he's gone. Yeah. And you accept it.

Sarah Bedak 29:09

Yes. It's not a mystery. It's not a...

Lo Carmen 29:13

And so then is he picked up by like an ambulance or something

Sarah Bedak 29:17

like that? Yeah, so the coffin came and that was, it's a refrigerated coffin with a window so he can view. But the hearse was also, it's like a van used for pastries, delivery. They didn't have money for it. That's a sweet combination. It is, pastries and coffins. So, like, the van came with a coffin and then he was placed in the coffin with all, like, all the women, like, were folding his, like, sets of undies and socks and his favourite clothes and cigarettes and bottles of rakia, which is, like, this alcohol

Lo Carmen 29:57

that they have. For the afterlife, inside his coffin.

Sarah Bedak 30:00

Yeah, but so practical, matter of fact, folding his undies in little, you know... And then, yeah, and then he was laid on top of that, all these things. So that's saying you

Lo Carmen 30:11

can't take it with you when you go. It's

Sarah Bedak 30:13

not right. Absolutely not. Because you can't. Yeah. There's a rich Romani people that have, like, rooms built for them with everything. Their car, their, like, you know.

Lo Carmen 30:25

Wow.

Sarah Bedak 30:26

Versace room. Hilarious. Anyway, so that was all. in there and then for the day everyone yeah just the community family friends came

Lo Carmen 30:36

to the house or did you follow the body to a ceremony

Sarah Bedak 30:41

yeah so for the 24 hours there's people around and then um yeah and then he's taken out of the house and there's a brass band that play as they take the body out you don't normally you don't have music for a while, but the music comes as the body comes out of the house and yeah, and then into the pastry van and yeah, like wailing and Matt, our sax player, who came especially for music and then this happened. So then he's in this other world of like, all right.

Lo Carmen 31:18

Now I'm playing funeral music.

Sarah Bedak 31:19

Yeah, or yeah, we weren't allowed to listen to music for the whole time he was there. But he, lots of people were frightened of carrying the coffin because it's like a thing of your next, lots of... Superstitions. Superstitions, that's the word I'm looking for. And so, and what they had was the pallbearers, the coffin carriers, were each given a white towel to wrap around the arm that... They carry the coffin with and that's like a symbol of like... Protection. Purity and protection. So you're not going to be next, it's all alright. So Matt, the sax player, was really strong and he... they were all really proud of him you know this white guy coming over here and like carrying the coffin and totally being involved and he's got a lot of respect in that community now from that it's amazing

Lo Carmen 32:13

sounds extraordinary

Sarah Bedak 32:14

it was yeah so then yeah so he the body was put into the van taken to the cemetery and then everyone sits around the coffin the lid is taken off and there's a room and everyone can sit around and just mourn yeah and then he was buried and then there's a feast that happens on the grave so Like

Lo Carmen 32:33

the food is laid on top of the grave?

Sarah Bedak 32:35

Yeah. So there's like a picnic blanket and there's, you know, women making, you know, they've brought amazing food and drinks and there's a thing where you drink and then you pour a bit of the drink onto the earth which is your sharing. So you're sharing all the time. You're sharing your food with the person who's just passed. Wow. So beautiful. So yeah, we had this beautiful feast on the grave and then we had another feast afterwards. Nenna's brother hired out this hall and there was like 50 people sitting at a big long table and we just ate and drank and remembered him. So complete and so, they do death really well. I was so, so grateful to witness that. The next day we went back for another feast and then there's seven days, 40 days and a year where you go back and have a feast. And there's a whole lot of other ritual things that happen. But yeah, it was an incredible experience. It was beautiful.

Klaus Bo 33:38

Madagascar is amazing; in the highlands of Madagascar, and they have this very special ritual called the famadiana, which is also known

Klaus Bo on death rituals in Madagascar

Klaus Bo 33:50

as turning of the bones, and it's a little similar to what happens in Indonesia. The origin of this ritual is probably Indonesia. Madagascar is a very special place. It's kind of one of the four corners of the world, people say, and it's really an amazing place. People are so friendly. There's been a migration from Indonesia down to Madagascar. There's no direct proof of it, but it seems like it's kind of the same rituals. And in Madagascar, it's like someone is dreaming one day that grandpa is not doing very well up there in the family crypt. So they call for the whole family. If you're a living somewhere else, you have to come. And it's the same thing as in Indonesia, in Sulawesi, Tanah Toraja. But then people, they arrive, the village, then they stay with the family, and when everybody has arrived, they decide to go to the family crypt. And they open the crypt, and they go down into the crypt, and it's like there can be maybe 25 bodies in there, maybe 50 bodies. Each crypt is like for the whole family, like the big family, the greater family. And then they go in there and they actually take out, they literally take out the dead people and they take them out and they are wrapped in silk. And then they wrap them in new silk and they write their names on them and they dance like crazy with them. Over their head and they're dancing and there's music and it's really a party. They're dancing like crazy, and it's like everybody is there. I mean, from the villages around, everyone is coming, and it's actually quite a big party. And then when the sun goes down, they put them back in, and they close the crypt, and they go back, and then they have to sacrifice some animals and having a big meal.

Lo Carmen 35:35

Wow. That must be extraordinary to witness.

Klaus Bo 35:38

It's amazing, and it's an amazing belief because they think that the ancestors, they are the only connection to the gods. Oh, so

Lo Carmen 35:48

they're like a through line.

Klaus Bo 35:49

Yes, and that's the only way you can talk to the gods. It's through the ancestors.

Lo Carmen 35:54

When Klaus travels to these places, he doesn't just pass through. He spends at least a month, sometimes three months, living in the villages alongside everybody else. Eating what they eat, travelling how they travel, they very much take him in as part of the family and make him feel very welcome. So he really gets an amazing insight into what's going on. According to Malagasy Beliefs, Man is not made of earth, but of the ancestral bodies. And according to faith, the ancestors have not left the world of the living before their bodies are completely decomposed. Until then, it's possible to communicate with the dead, who are treated with great respect and love at the famadihana. During the ritual, the families thank their ancestors and tell them how it goes in the world of the living. The ancestors are also asked for good health or a good harvest. This ritual is held every seventh year in the highlands of Madagascar. The family graves are opened, the dead are carried out in the open where they are re-wrapped in new silk and then the families dance around the grave with their ancestors held above their heads. Huge groups of people passing these silk-wrapped, decomposing bodies, skeletons, above their heads before they are reburied together in a big crypt. It's just really quite magnificent. And the ritual is actually in danger due to growing poverty and the escalating cost of silk, outbreaks of plague, and opposition from the Protestant church that reject the ritual. whereas the Catholic Church perceives the ritual as a cultural tradition and is more accepting of it. And you've been to Varanasi too, right?

Klaus Bo 38:16

I spent some weeks there. The

Lo Carmen 38:17

body's been burnt on the... Yeah,

Klaus Bo 38:20

that's like an open crematorium. They burn in Varanasi at Manikanika Ghat. They burn around 200 people every day. But it's a very important

Klaus Bo on death rituals in Varanasi

Klaus Bo 38:30

ritual. Fire is cleansing the body and water from the Ganges is cleansing water. And then you have Varanasi as the holiest city in Hinduism. And the thing is that if you are cremated in Varanasi or if you're cremated somewhere else and you're the ashes are thrown into Ganges in Varanasi, and the right rituals are performed well, then you can actually leave this eternal cycle of life and death and become part of, you know, achieve moksha, they call it, so you become part of the divine.

Lo Carmen 39:06

You get to escape the rat race.

Klaus Bo 39:07

Exactly.

Lo Carmen 39:10

A very dear member of our chosen family was deeply devoted to the Krishna faith She spent a lot of time in India and wanted nothing more than to be returned to the Ganges after her physical death. Her beloved roommate made it her mission to see that her wishes were fulfilled, travelling alone on the epic journey from Australia to India to scatter the ashes in the river to ensure her friend achieved Moksha. the transcendental liberation from the material world of suffering, limitations and the cycle of birth and death into a merging with the divine. It makes me so grateful that she was able to give our friend the gift of that ultimate transcendent state. I do hope I've expressed it properly. Obviously, it's a complex set of beliefs. My friend and former school teacher, Jane, who we heard from in episode 3, also made a pilgrimage to the Ganges with her husband Mark's ashes. Although he'd been sick for a while, they hadn't discussed what he would like to happen after he went, so she just had to do what she thought was best and what would make him happiest. She had already given him an amazing celebratory service in Sydney

Jane Skinner on scattering her husband's ashes in Varanasi

Lo Carmen 40:30

that combined church, jazz and the Maori haka. But then when her daughter Holly and some friends were going to India for a music festival soon after, she felt compelled to join them and to take his ashes to the Ganges.

Jane Skinner 40:43

It was typical of us not to talk about it. We didn't talk about things, you know, deep and meaningful things like that very much. We just went ahead and got on with living. Yeah. was cheerful and positive you know right till the end and he died on the 23rd of December and it just happened that Holly was going to India in the following February, I obviously wasn't planning to go because i didn't know what state Mark would be in but when he died, she said you must come with us you know to the music festival and they were also going to Varanasi so the idea of having a ceremony on the Ganges, you know, occurred to me then. He wasn't a Buddhist, but he was very much a failed Catholic and very interested in Buddhism, Hinduism and, you know, other philosophies. And Varanasi is a very, very, very spiritual place. And we stayed in a little guest house on the river, on the Ganges. And every morning and every night we would, we had a... gorgeous young boatman who used to pick us up and just row us up the river and then float back down the river at the end of the evening. And you'd see day and night the ceremony of the burning the bodies on the side of the Ganges.

Lo Carmen 42:05

So is there like one funeral pyre or a lot?

Jane Skinner 42:09

There are two sites, one main one, and there would be maybe six burning people at the same time, burning bodies at the same time. And they bring the bodies, they wrap them all up in gold and they bring them down. And there's been obviously other ceremonies that have happened before, but they bring them down, the men, to the gat and it's very expensive to buy the firewood so only the wealthy get burned there the less wealthy have to go to gas burning. Varanasi is the city where people go to die because people believe that if you die in Varanasi you escape the cycle of life you don't get reincarnated so you go straight to heaven basically. So during that holiday, Mark said to me, I want to walk through the burning gat, which was a bit horrifying to me, but we did, which was pretty confronting, you know, but also. Very ordinary. And that's what happens, you know, it becomes ordinary. And the faster you burn, you know, the quicker you're going to go to heaven, which of course is just one way of saying it'll be cheaper because you won't need any more wood. But, you know, there's... All the things, all the functions are happening. There's cows walking through it and dogs and, you know, people pulling, trying to find gold. So you see the cycle

Lo Carmen 43:40

So you see the cycle of life up close.

Jane Skinner 43:41

Absolutely, up close. Very, very real when a body is burning beside you and you see the foot, you know, sticking out the bottom. So he wanted to walk through and we did that. And is it true that everyone washes their face in there in the morning and then goes to the bathroom in there and then there's... bodies floating by and they get fully into the river and wash. The river is everything. The river is life and death. So we all went out on a boat and My grandchildren and others in Sydney had written things to be read out. And so everybody read something out from the grandchildren. And we had singing and we burned 108 candles. It's a Hindu. It's a special number of a Hindu, and I should have looked it up. Anyway, 108 candles, which we lit and put on the Ganges. So you're on the boat. So we're on the boat. There's a group of you and an Indian guide there. An Indian person that deals with... Yeah, he was basically just singing, I think. But he also sort of directed what we should do. But it was all a bit of a mystery, I have to tell you. Right. And then are you responsible for doing the scattering? Yes. And so you just decide when yourself... No, it was all he, yeah, they all did directly. Now we'll light the candles and now you sprinkle the ashes. But the horrifying thing, of course, was that I had put the box, as you saw, it was a sort of an oblong box, in one of his shoe bags, which was a Bruno Mali or something bag that I had put it in. And so we took the box out. Then we couldn't get the letter. While you were on the boat. While we were on the boat. There was a lot of difficulty in finding a screwdriver or something to get it in. to get the stopper out, which was, of course... Were you laughing or was it stressful? It was tricky. And then the man who was directing me took the box and the bag and just said, do you stow them in too? They have to go in the river too. I keep thinking of this Bruno Mali bag floating down the river. No doubt. It was found and repurposed and made somebody very happy. So, you know, the actual... ceremony of it was special because we had been on the river so many times and we had done this and we had lit candles and you know so I guess

Klaus Bo and Lo Carmen converse on lessons from death rituals

Jane Skinner 46:20

and it's a very and it's a very spiritual place

Klaus Bo 46:25

same and what I recently found out I was listening to an interview I did in Haiti with a man called Max Beauvoir he's unfortunately dead now he was the head of voodoo, pope of voodoo, he called himself, and he explained about the voodoo tradition that it's the same thing that you are reincarnated, but in the Haitian voodoo, you're reincarnated 16 times, eight times as a woman and eight times as a man.

Lo Carmen 46:51

Wow, how intriguing.

Klaus Bo 46:52

Yes. The 17th time, you are actually melting into the divine, you're becoming part of the divine as well, like in Hinduism.

Lo Carmen 47:03

That's interesting. In astrology, there's a similar kind of belief of you work your way through the different star signs until you finally come back as a Piscean, which is what I know. And then that's your last one, apparently. And if you want to get it right, then that's it. You're allowed to... So

Klaus Bo 47:25

this is your last time here?

Lo Carmen 47:29

Well, not necessarily, because I might be messing it up, so I might have to come back as a Piscean multiple times. In fact, that's highly likely.

Klaus Bo 47:40

But in the Haitian voodoo, the whole purpose of living is like gathering knowledge.

Lo Carmen 47:47

How beautiful.

Klaus Bo 47:49

Yes, and it's like, he said a quite interesting thing, Max Beauvoir, he said, like, yeah, you know, a thief or people who are behaving bad, they're maybe only in their first or second or third life. And that's why they don't know how to behave well. But then they get educated and they learn and then they are reborn and they will slowly, slowly

Lo Carmen 48:12

Right. Slowly learn and become

Klaus Bo 48:14

teachers. Yeah. Or priests. It

Lo Carmen 48:18

kind of changes everything if you look at the world today. Like that, doesn't it? I think so. It takes away judgment and possibly even fear. I'm not sure about that, but it's only judgment if you just think about everyone being in a process of becoming better.

Klaus Bo 48:41

Yeah, everybody's trying to learn all the time. So it's a very nice way to look at the world,

Lo Carmen 48:48

I think,

Klaus Bo 48:49

and look at humanity.

Lo Carmen 48:51

I can only imagine

Klaus Bo 48:52

that

Lo Carmen 48:53

spending so much time around death rituals and customs has got to give you such an

Klaus Bo on how he got started with the Dead & Alive Project

Lo Carmen 49:00

incredible overview of humanity.

Klaus Bo 49:02

Yeah, it is really interesting.

Lo Carmen 49:24

When you first started your photography, your death photography, did it seem like it might just be a passing interest, or did you feel immediately like it would be a calling?

Klaus Bo 49:34

I was actually, I started thinking about this idea eight years before I started doing it.

Lo Carmen 49:42

Really?

Klaus Bo 49:42

Yes. I went to a Muslim ceremony here in Denmark, in Copenhagen, and there was this old man, he died, And I was doing a documentary about the mosque. There's a very big mosque, but they live like a very hidden life. They don't make a big fuss about it. And then this guy died, and I asked if I could come and take pictures of the ceremonies. He was going to be sent back to Pakistan to be buried there. And then I went, and it's in 2002, and then There was a lot of people coming because he was apparently a very loved man. So the mosque was full and then I caught this picture in the middle of it all with a small young boy looking into the coffin. And it was like a window in the coffin. And it was like he was looking at it with no fear. He was just curious. He was just looking into this coffin and wow. And I started thinking when I came back home. I'd never seen a dead person before that. before this guy and I came home and I started thinking about how big a taboo death is for us here in Denmark or worse at that time. It's developing slowly and it's changing a bit but very slowly. And then I thought about that for a while and then I had this very dear friend of mine who died and suddenly I found myself in my own home alone for six weeks or something like that. Nobody called me, nobody talked to me. You know, it was really weird.

Lo Carmen 51:17

But because you were grieving and people didn't want to disturb you?

Klaus Bo 51:22

Yeah, I think it's like...

Lo Carmen 51:25

So people were trying to be respectful, but... Yeah,

Klaus Bo 51:27

in the wrong way.

Lo Carmen 51:30

You

Klaus Bo 51:31

were

Lo Carmen 51:31

desperate for hugs and friends.

Klaus Bo 51:34

Yeah, just talking about her, you know. And... Then I went to Greenland. I was actually going there on a journey with the Danish queen and her husband. They visited Greenland, and then they were going to land in Uppernivik, which is north of the Arctic Circle. And I was up there with the whole group of Danish press photographers. And then she couldn't land because of bad weather, so I went to the cemetery. And I found this, like, dreaming. It was amazing. It was out of this world, this cemetery. And I took some pictures, and then I really started thinking, there's something in this cemetery. story or what you would call it. There's something in studying it because it's been studied a lot by anthropologists, ethnologists and other, you know, on a university level, but they never take pictures. No, it's

Lo Carmen 52:33

true. I've been researching a lot and I see the same pictures used over and over and they often appear very old too. I did see a lot of Victorian death photos where often it was the only photograph they'd have of the family was when a child would die and they would want to commemorate thechild.

Klaus Bo 52:56

Yeah, we don't do that anymore. We used to do that here in Denmark as well, but you don't do it anymore.

Peter Head 53:01

Right.

Klaus Bo 53:01

But around in the world, it's quite normal to have pictures taken with the dead. That's the thing when you work with a taboo, you always have to, you always confront yourself with it all the time. But, you know, around the world, they're just, come on, take, my picture with my dead grandma or whatever. And after you've done that, now it's your turn. I have pictures from all over the world where I'm part of these photography sessions. Where

Lo Carmen 53:27

you're part of these family

Klaus Bo 53:28

photos. And the family photos, yeah, that's quite amazing.

Lo Carmen 53:37

So have you got plans for yourself?

Klaus Bo 53:40

Well, I don't know. I think I would just have, I would tell people to make a huge party, celebrate, get drunk and smoke weed and, you know, have a good time. And then I would like to be like, have one part of each of the rituals I have photographed to be part of this, my own funeral. In a symbolic way, maybe, but, you know, yeah. But then I would say I think it's up to my family what they want to do with me and my ashes or my body or whatever. If they need a place where they can go, fine with me. I think they should have that if they want that. I'm not like, oh, I don't want a gravestone. I don't want to be buried in the soil. I don't mind. I mean, it's up to the people I leave behind, I think.

Lo Carmen 54:30

Yes, because you won't really care.

Klaus Bo 54:32

Yeah, exactly. Or maybe I will. I don't know. Maybe you will.

Lo Carmen 54:36

Who knows? Maybe you'll be looking down from that cloud with you. Yeah. Oh, no, not there.

Klaus Bo 54:41

Yeah. The checklist is over there. Yeah. I don't want to lie next to him. Can you move me? Yeah, please.

Lo Carmen 55:01

It's very clear to me, after all we've heard about this episode, is that rituals are a powerful way to navigate death, to go deep with it and to find ways of accepting and understanding the cycles of death and living. From what I can tell, making up our own rituals or participating in rituals that aren't from our own culture can be just as spiritual and satisfying an experience. All that matters is our own belief and the ability to give ourselves over to the process. And let's not forget, food and music seem to play a very important part in it all too. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. You can find me online at lowcarmen.substack.com I go deeper on the episodes with added extras in my newsletter there and we can discuss further. Thank you to Klaus Bowe, Sarah Biedak and Jane Skinner for talking with me. You can and should find Klaus's incredible body of work at deadandaliveproject.com. We heard excerpts from Emma Swift's new song, The Resurrection Game. My song, Everyone You Ever Knew, is coming back to haunt you. And soon two more from Lolo Lovina. Death Is Not The End theme music was composed, performed and recorded by Peter Head. He also created much of the incidental music, along with selections from the Descript and MuseOpen music libraries. Kora Dream by Silaba, Kali Doli by Pawan Krishna were courtesy of Epidemic Sound.

Lo Carmen 56:46

Death Is Not The End is a Black Tambourine Productions production, created, written and edited by me, your host, Lo Carmen.

Lo Carmen 56:57

If you enjoyed today's episode, please do rate and leave a little review wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm entirely independent and it really helps me to find listeners for the show. Thanks for being here with me and see you on the other side.