Would you ever keep a photo of a loved one taken after they died? Or wear a bracelet made from their hair?

 In this episode of Spirit Speakeasy, we’re exploring some of the most haunting—and surprisingly heartfelt—mourning practices from the past.

From Victorian post-mortem photography and death masks, to hair jewelry and family hair wreaths displayed in living rooms, these tangible tokens of grief may seem strange by today’s standards… but they once carried deep spiritual, emotional, and cultural meaning.

💀 You’ll learn about:
— Why photographing the dead was once considered an act of love
— How human hair became a powerful symbol of remembrance
— What death masks revealed (and preserved)
— The oddly beautiful tradition of hanging woven hair art in the home
— How these forgotten practices might help us better understand grief today

✨ Whether you find them creepy, beautiful, or both… these keepsakes remind us that grief has always found a way to take shape.

Show Notes: 

Select Sources & Further Reading

Photography:
• The Burns Archive – Historical post-mortem photography
https://www.burnsarchive.com

Mourning Jewelry & Hair Art:
• Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture – Deborah Lutz
• V&A Museum – Mourning Jewelry Collection
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/mourning-jewellery
• National Museum of Funeral History
https://www.nmfh.org
• Strange Remains – “The Hairy Art of Victorian Mourning Jewelry”
https://www.strangeremains.com/?p=1016

Death Masks:
• Britannica – “Death mask”
https://www.britannica.com/art/death-mask
• Atlas Obscura – “Why Death Masks Were Once All the Rage”
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/death-masks

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Episode Transcript:

Hey, beautiful soul, welcome back, or welcome in for another episode of spirit speakeasy. On this week's episode, we are going to be talking about haunting keepsakes, strange morning tokens from the past. So in this episode, we're exploring some of the strangest and most intimate mourning or grieving rituals from the past that may even be considered taboo by today's standards, including Victorian post mortem photography, hair jewelry, death masks and even family hair wreaths that were displayed in the living room. So
these unusual forms of remembrance may seem eerie by today's standards, but they once held deep, spiritual, emotional and cultural meaning. So are they creepy, beautiful, or both? You decide, let's get into it. But before we dive in to the main episode, I want to quickly share where the inspiration for this episode came from. I know you might be thinking, okay, Joy. This is a bit of a strange topic, so I wanted to share where I got this little nudge, this inspiration for this episode, and a little nudge from spirit that I got to keep going with it, because I wasn't so sure if this episode was going to make it to you guys. So I was listening to a podcast that I often listen to by Mark Marin, called WTF podcast, and he happened to be just talking at the beginning of the episode and mentioned post mortem photography from the Victorian era, those eerie Yet oddly touching portraits taken of people after they pass away. Like I said, especially back in Victorian times, I never heard of this before, and I found myself wondering, were there other unusual and maybe even taboo ways that people have used in the past to, you know, keep or create trinkets or remember their loved ones. Because obviously, you might expect, in my work as a medium, I'm often hearing really creative and unique ways that people are exploring to memorialize their loved ones. So this how people were memorialized or remembered in the past, was just really intriguing to me. And I was wondering maybe, what have we lost or forgotten or shifted away from in how we grieve? So I started digging, and wow, Victorian morning jewelry led me to hair art, which led me to death masks and on and on, the more I found, the more I couldn't look away. But I'll be honest, there was a point in doing the research for this episode where I almost didn't create the actual episode. I thought to myself, Is this too weird? Is this too dark? Will the pod squad think this is just too morbid, and not the kind of thing we explore here on spirit speakeasy. So I was sitting with it. I had been doing some research here in the office where I'm recording today, and I was driving the short drive home to my place. And as I was just pondering it, I kind of put the thoughts to my guides and was wondering, you know, with my own heart and soul, should I be doing this episode or not? I really wasn't sure whether I should keep going or just let it be something I'd researched for myself quietly for my own information. And then, as often happens, spirit stepped in. I was driving home, like I said, listening to a totally unrelated podcast called we can do hard things with Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle, and their guest was the amazing, beautiful writer suleika julad. They were talking about writing and life and creative process, but as they were starting into the episode, almost out of nowhere, suleika julad mentioned Victorian morning jewelry. Just casually, as they were talking about security blankets that like little kids use, and she mentioned this Victorian morning jewelry that I had just been researching and asking, was this episode appropriate in the intro of the episode, it wasn't even the focus of like, what they were talking about it, just something that came up, and in that moment, I knew that was my confirmation. That was my sign you this community, our pod squad are available for this conversation. So here we are exploring some of the strangest and most sacred ways people have honored their deceased loved ones, and what they still might teach us about grief, memory and connection. So let's get into it. The first thing on my list that I wanted to chat about is this post mortem photography, which was a Victorian tradition of remembrance. So post mortem photography. Be also known as morning photography, and as we're talking through this episode, it's morning, like M O, U R n, to mourn, to grieve, mourning, rather than like in the morning part of the day. So just want to throw that out there. So morning photography, or memorial portraiture, as it's sometimes called, was the practice of photographing the recently deceased, typically in, like, the 19th and early 20th century. This was especially common I learned during the Victorian era. So essentially, like 1837 to, like 1901 ish and into the Edwardian era, with a strong presence in both Europe and North America. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a historical context, and I'm going to break it down what this is and how it was used originally. This practice began shortly after the invention of something called the daguerreotype in 1839, so what is a dig? I'm sure I'm saying this right or wrong. Rather, what is a daguerreotype? Daguerreotype, pronounced daguerreotype, I'm saying it wrong. It's not a camera, but it almost looks like a camera. It acts similar to a camera, but it's not actually a camera. It's a very early version of the photographic process, invented by someone named Louis or Louis Daguerre. So that's why it is called the daguerreotype. So here's a quick breakdown of what this actually is. It's a produced single, highly detailed image on a silver coated copper plate. So before they actually had film, they used these copper plates coated in silver, and this daguerreotype produced a single, highly detailed image. The process required a very long exposure time and very still subjects at this time. Because of this long exposure for the image to be captured, many people didn't have photographs of living people because they couldn't stand or sit or be still long enough for this long shutter window exposure to capture the image. So because of this, it was widely it was it was the first widely used photographic method and sparked the popularity of portrait photography, including this post mortem photography. These images were often kept in decorative cases with velvet lining or tiny latches treasured heirlooms from that time, and it was prevalently popular, I guess, in the late 18, you know, mid to late 1800s and early 1900s and for many families, this would be the only photograph ever taken of their loved one. Again, not only was it this long exposure process that made it hard for people to be still, but photography was still really expensive and rare. So a post mortem image became a really special occasion photograph and an incredibly treasured keepsake. So what happens to this practice as photography becomes more accessible and the culture around death changes, especially after World War One, the practice of this post mortem photography kind of fades from mainstream use, but I was still curious about it. So what I learned is that a lot of this post mortem photography, they would pose the person the crossed over, loved one to appear as though they were sleeping, especially I learned with infants who had crossed over, or children, they were often posed for this photography to look as though they were peacefully sleeping. Sometimes more for adults, they might be propped up using like posing stands. Or sometimes they would even place them like seated amongst the family like a family picture, that portrait that we might think of today, but they would prop up the recently deceased person amongst the family sometimes, or even sometimes, they would make them appear alive using something called Eye retouching on the photo. So after they created the photo, they would go back in and almost like paint on the eyes, sometimes for adults, sometimes the deceased person was photographed with living siblings or spouses or parents, especially for kids in the case, when kids were crossed over. And another really common practice was for them to put objects on the person or in their hands or with them. It would be things, typically like a rosary, like those prayer beads, rosary beads, or a Bible. Or if it was a kid, it might be like a favorite toy. It might be included to really personalize the image and make it. Just feel even more specific to that person. And again, sometimes they would have the eyes closed, resting peacefully. Sometimes they would have the eyes open, or go back in and retouch and paint the eyes open. And this was supposed to be kind of symbolizing the continued presence or life beyond the veil, living on on the other side. So it was kind of to symbolize that was the reason that they decided these eyes needed to be opened or repainted. So there is some cultural significance here. I came across this Latin term called memento mori. Remember, you must die, these photographs were seen as a way to process grief, and not as macabre or dark or depressing. It was really honoring the soul and helping to preserve the memory for the family. So they really served a beautiful purpose, not a creepy or dark purpose, like we might think of today, and especially in Catholic and Orthodox traditions, these images often had spiritual undertones. Sometimes they would position or put objects to kind of emphasize resurrection or continued connection with the soul. And really in some communities, a formal post mortem photo was a mark of respectability or devotion. So if you were of a status and an income bracket to be able to afford this, it really just was a sign of respect and a sign of devotion of the family and that you had a certain status. So it was really something that was quite common. And the thing I started wondering is, was this post mortem photography only for the wealthy? Because I could imagine
that, you know, not everyone maybe could access this. So what I learned is it's not exclusively for the wealthy, but especially in those early days, it was more accessible, I guess, by the wealthy. And then as time went on into the 19th century, as it progressed, I think this was available to more people. So it seemed like in the early years of this, which would have been like 1840s and 50s when the daguerreotypes first emerged. Yeah, they were relatively expensive and mostly common among upper and middle class, which back then would have been quite wealthy in these early images. They needed like a specialist photographer, because this is an early invention, right? So not everyone even possessed one of these machines to create the image or knew how to use it. And not only did it require a specialist to use the equipment, but it took really expensive materials. Remember, I mentioned that it was created on silver plated copper, so that copper was expensive. They had to coat it with silver, which was expensive. And the the because of this long exposure time and the way this is created, it it was a really long session to have someone come over and create this special postmortem photography. So that was in the beginning of this, right 1840s and 50s in the later years, kind of 1860s, and 80s and beyond into the into the 1900s newer photographic processes started to emerge, something called ambrotypes and tin types. So there's different you know, as photography grows, just like anything, even in our current world, as technology expands and we get a little bit more technology, better technology, new types emerge. Photography became much more affordable and accessible even to working class families. So believe it or not, there used to be traveling photographers. I know often we think about back in the day there being like traveling snake oil sales people, or like tincture tonic sales people. Well, there are also traveling photographers and sometimes small studios that offered Memorial photos at a lower price. So someone might be coming through town with their photographic equipment and offer to do this for a lower price, kind of like today, only is my guess, and sometimes some of them would even offer payment plans. How interesting is this? For many lower income families, post mortem photography might be the only image they ever have of this loved one, so they would really prioritize it. So even if you had a lower income as a family, they would save, and they would really be, even if it meant a big financial sacrifice, they would really prioritize having this image created of their person. So what's the bottom line here? While it began as a luxury, this post mortem photography evolved into a widely practiced. Just and deeply cherished form of remembrance across all socioeconomic classes, especially during the height of its popularity in the Victorian era. How interesting is this? I mean, I know today we think like, I mean, you don't really take pictures at funerals or anything, right? That would be totally taboo. But there was once a time where, you know, today, I think we take for granted how we all have cameras in our phones, and so many cameras and taking selfies and pictures of anything all the time. But there was a time where you might not even ever have a photo of someone. So you could imagine what a big, significant Memorial this, this was to be able to have and create, and it was a really special thing back then. So and again, I will link so many resources in the show notes for this, because, like I said, this was a bit of a deep dive research for me, just for my own curiosity, the next item or way of memorializing that I came to learn about was something called Morning jewelry and hair art. They're considered woven remembrances of what was so what is mourning jewelry and hair art? It's a lot what it sounds like in the 18th and especially in the 19th century, it was common to incorporate a lock of a deceased person's, you know, loved one's hair into jewelry, art or keepsakes, like a tangible Memorial, something you can hold. This is most common in Ireland, Scotland, Victorian England and the US, which I thought was also really interesting. So what are the common forms of this? I know sometimes, even now, in present time, we think of keeping a lock of someone's hair, especially like in a baby book, we might have a lock of hair from baby's first haircut, type of a thing, but I don't know really many people that. I know a few people that do, but I don't know many people that think of taking hair from a crossed over loved one before they are cremated or or buried or prepared for the next part, but it apparently was at one time, incredibly common and thought of as one of the most intimate keepsakes. This is perhaps the most fascinating and tactile element. But they did use human hair from deceased people, and often this hair, if they weren't like a jeweler, right? This hair was very commonly taken braided or even woven or maybe artistically shaped into things like flowers, hearts, really decorative, special knots, or even wreaths, like the kind you might put for a holiday or springtime on your front door, like a wreath. It was often these items were taken and placed under like a cloche, like a glass topper, just to kind of keep them safe. So sometimes they were set under glass containers. Sometimes they were set into glass lockets or rings or like a pin, a brooch, or like a pendant of some kind. And for people who had the means to do even more elaborate things, hair was used to create bracelets. Sometimes chains, like necklaces, or even they would use the hair and make frames. And they would frame art like wall art, art to hang on the wall with a frame made out of a loved one's hair, which I know seems really taboo by today's standard, but I just thought this was so interesting. And for some people, I guess if you had enough hair, maybe that there were these things, hair wreaths, which is just what it sounds like. They often will put them in a shadow box, kind of like a raised framed box. But they would make a wreath or a ring out of hair, and they would incorporate, sometimes, in some traditions, hair of many family members over time, so kind of like a family tree or lineage made into a wreath with hair. So they would, you know, over the generations, they would collect hair from each loved one that crossed over, and they would be incorporated or braided into this family piece of art, this family heirloom. Okay, why hair? So that might be the one of the first questions you have. It was one of the first questions I had. Oh, as we know, hair doesn't decay in the same way that other things do. So it became more than just a way of remembering. It became more than just a tangible item or tangible part of that person. It became a symbol of immortality and eternal love. It provided a physical, tangible, touchable link to the loved one, especially meaningful in times of long. Morning. So they really thought of hair as equaling the meaning of eternal, because hair doesn't break down and decay. It's really a lasting part of the loved one, physical and symbolically. So there's this connection in this practice between
the person that they love and moving beyond death so touching or wearing the person's hair kept their memory literally close to someone's body, right? Okay, I know this might seem odd, but we're going to go even deeper into it. So it was one of the customs of the time. It was part of morning etiquette, especially in Victorian society, people were encouraged to use visual displays of grief and mourning and hair. Art was both emotionally significant and fashionable, which I know sounds really strange by today's standards. Did you know that Queen Victoria herself wore morning jewelry with Prince Albert's hair after his passing? I did not know this. The practice was especially common in England and America from the 1800s to the early 1900s and I'm sure you're not surprised to learn this, but entire businesses were created that specialized in morning jewelry, and they were called Morning jewelers who handcrafted these intimate keepsakes. Of course, I'm sure some of them are handcrafted by the families themselves, but in true entrepreneurial spirit, some people felt like, Oh, I could provide this service for others, and made businesses where they were hair specific jewelers. So there are some common forms of this morning jewelry. There were things like rings, as you might imagine, and they often engraved the rings with the loved one's name or perhaps their angel date is what we call it now, their death date, their crossing date, some contained miniature portraits, or like a miniature portrait of the person inside the ring, or hair inside the ring. They also would sometimes use lockets or pendants. I think everyone knows what a locket is. I don't see them very often, but it's like a pendant that opens. So lockets would contain a little lock of hair or sometimes a tiny photograph or a tiny Memorial drawing of the person, or even a little inscription and memory of they also made brooches, which is like a decorative pin that people would wear. And they actually would form the hair into shapes like a tree, particularly a weeping willow, which, if you don't know what that is, that's my favorite tree. It's the tree that has the the branches that kind of hang down. They're really beautiful. So sometimes they would take the hair and form it into the shape of a weeping willow tree, or even an urn, like shape it into the shape of a vessel and urn. And they would actually pin the hair on to themselves, like a brooch. So the actual hair itself would become the brooch. They would make bracelets and necklaces. And this would be more like it, really intricately woven hair to be used as the entire chain itself, not just as like a centerpiece, not just as like something hanging off the chain, but they would actually braid the hair to make the bracelet or the necklace itself.
There were some other types of symbology for morning jewelry, Victorian pieces often use deeply coded symbols. So even when they used a symbol instead of like a photograph or a date, the symbols had meaning and representation in Victorian time. So they used URNs A lot. I know today we really think of urns as like what you would put someone's cremains in, but they used actually the shape of the urn, either in art or in this jewelry a lot, and the urn really was thought to symbolize the soul's vessel. So in this context, urns and morning jewelry are symbolic, not functional. So it's not like they're making a tiny urn and putting ashes in there. They're just using the shape or the image of the urn to represent the vessel for the soul that would take them into the afterlife. They used them in tiny decorative motifs, and often engraved them or sculpted them into rings and brooches and lockets. So while you might do one with hair, you could also just do one in the shape of an urn, and that would also be considered mourning jewelry. They used the weeping willow tree a lot because it represented sorrow and mourning. They actually used skulls quite frequently in artistry, or the image of an hourglass, which. Which, both of those symbolize mortality and time, they used eyes. So they used them in the jewelry, sculpted or carved and the eyes, sometimes called lover's eyes, in little miniature form, they really represented eternal watchfulness, or eternal love, like that one is that person's eternally watching over you, or like the love is eternal with the eyes, if you see snakes in a circle, so kind of like a snake swallowing its own tail. That symbolizes eternity, it can also symbolize life, death and rebirth. So they would often use that in morning jewelry. Sometimes they used black enamel or something called jet, which is like a fossilized dark wood, and this symbolized being solemn and being in grief and mourning. So it's really interesting that not only do they use symbolic ingredients right the hair itself. But they're often using symbolic carvings and images to represent these different aspects of mourning, and some of them were made from this jet material that I mentioned, which is like a fossilized wood. They really prized that for its color. It came in this really like deep matte black that they would use for a lot of this jewelry. They would sometimes use onyx or black enamel, which I think most of you know, onyx is a black gemstone. Gold was often used. This might either be 14 or 18 karat gold, or it might just be gold tone and symbolized with black accents. They often used glass in these pieces of jewelry, especially for sealing in hair, so putting hair under the glass, or like pouring the pouring the glass over the hair to really just seal it in there and keep it occasionally back then they used ivory, which we don't use today. They sometimes used seed pearls, which are pearls that are more in the shape of a seed, more of an oval shape, and they use these to symbolically represent tears. Or they sometimes also used bog oak, especially in Irish pieces. Marty jewelry was really not just about grief. It was about remembering and honoring and expressing continued connection to the dearly departed, and it actually followed strict morning etiquette. Leave it to our lovely British friends to have etiquette for everything. So there was strict morning etiquette back there, back then, and the jewelry was often worn during a specific period of mourning, like deep mourning, which would be the initial period, or something that they called half morning, which was after a period of time. So they had all these different really interesting cultural ways of having etiquette for grieving, having proper times for grieving. And these pieces were actually also made as heirlooms. So they were made to be passed down, especially those made with hair or with that family hair, which we're going to talk about next that contained, you know, strands of hair multiple generations. Those were intended to be passed down generation after generation, like a special heirloom piece, which I know sounds really interesting. I bet some of these exist in the world today. They do. Actually, you can in the if you want to check the links in the description, you will see some of these images. There's lots of interesting images. So they really did a lot of different types of jewelry, and sometimes they even did, uh, cremation ash jewelry. So I know we've talked about hair and the way that certain symbols are used in this jewelry. But another way that they did it, besides just the hair jewelry, another type of this morning jewelry, which actually exists today in a different way, is this cremation ash jewelry. So they actually took ashes and transformed them into glass beads, like beads themselves to be beaded on a strand. It could be resin locklets or lockets. So they would put the resin from the ashes inside a locket or a little vessel that they would wear like a pendant. And today, you know, they make diamonds, which we'll talk about in a future episode. Some artists create custom pieces that would even include the ashes mixed into the paint and then painted as artwork, right? So there's lots of different ways to do this and to create into painted jewelry. They would paint some of the, you know, ashes. They mix the ashes in the paint painted on the jewelry. Or paint it into a portrait, and then sometimes they do that hair frame, right? So it really just offered a tactile, wearable connection for those grieving, and were often designed to reflect the personality or the passions of our dearly departed loved one in whatever instance it was for you. Okay, I want to go a little bit more into this hair wreath. I know I glossed over it, but this is a significant one, all of its owns. I want to dive into this a little bit for you. And please excuse my giggles. I don't mean to be irreverent. I found all of this incredibly fascinating, and really it was very interesting, but I just know that I can imagine I some of you I know who listen to the pod. Obviously, some of you I don't, but I can imagine your faces as I'm talking about wreaths made out of generational hair. I can just imagine some of you and what your what your expressions might look like. So if morning jewelry wasn't unusual enough, imagine this. You walk into a Victorian receiving parlor, like a kind of a formal living room, and there hanging on the wall is a framed giant wreath. And as you look closer, you realize it's made out of hair. And then you become aware that it's human hair. Sometimes it's just from one person, but more often, like I mentioned, it's a whole family, so almost used as like a family tree, literally woven from the strands of hair of our ancestors. And sometimes they would actually also use hair of living people like if they wanted to just incorporate them into this family tree, this family wreath, they didn't necessarily have to be crossed over for them to do it, but they often would use hair after someone had crossed over. So what were these hair wreaths? Hair wreaths are large, intricate wall hangings made from braided, looped or even sometimes flower shaped loops of human hair. Usually they mounted them on velvet or some sort of parchment paper and then framed and put glass on top. So like a like a framed piece of art. But here's the twist, they weren't always just from the deceased. As I mentioned, many were made from the hair of multiple family members, both alive and passed on. And they even carefully labeled and arranged the different parts of hair like branches sometimes, so almost like making the the portrait, the picture itself, into an actual shape of a tree, and then they would label the branches with each person's hair so they could identify who it belonged to, almost like scrapbooking, but with hair, most common shapes were like I said, this tree Often a common shape was a horseshoe pointing upwards towards heaven, symbolizing the cycle of life. Other designs often included symbolic forms, again, like willow tree branches, roses, forget me nots all made from hair. And really, this got me thinking. I know this might be strange, what I thought of, but I was thinking of the time that this took, the precision, the really somber hours It must have taken to spend weaving these remembrances into something so fragile and so permanent at the same time. I can only imagine if you've ever seen, if you've ever been to like arts and crafts museums and seen tapestries that are woven by hand or braids and knots that are created by hand with thread, just imagine how much more challenging that is to create these intricate designs by weaving or braiding Hair that just seems really fragile and really delicate for the artisan to create. And unlike jewelry,
these weren't worn or hidden. These wreaths are publicly displayed, and often in the family's front room, like the receiving room, where they would invite company and guests, they would have this wreath or this picture this, this representation made with family hair, and in Victorian society, this wasn't considered creepy or strange or taboo at all. It was actually considered respectful and even thought of as fashionable. So lots of people had it, and it was thought of as like, oh, in fashion, if you did these pieces reflected reverence for ancestry, for lineage, for the blending of new life and releasing those that have come before us and really serve. As a bit of a family archive in some instances. So some included hand stitched name tags, like I was saying for each for each braid of hair, like for each person, whether it was like one person's hair made into a braid of a tree and then another branch, they would label each one with whose hair that was. Sometimes it would include things like the passing date. Sometimes they would use different colored ribbons or different ribbons instead of like a name tag to signify each different person's strands of hair, just to identify it again, like a family archive of sorts. Others featured a photo in the middle, or maybe like a quote, or sometimes a spiritual verse, a Bible verse, maybe a handwritten dedication. It's really strange maybe to think of memorializing our family on a wall in this way, but in an era before photographs were common, it made sense, and a lot of people did some sort of sewing or weaving or handicraft. Back then, hair was lasting. It was familiar. It's kind of as personal as we can get, and we now know hair even carries DNA. So even though it might seem a little bit odd or taboo by today's standards, you can see why it was so prominently featured and why it was so common for people to have so I also was wondering like, how were these made? I know I talked about the intricacy and how difficult this must have been, but I was wondering if this was sort of like the photography, where they'd have traveling sales people come around and offer to braid any family hair you had around. I just wasn't sure how I mean, and please know I mean all of this with the most love and respect. But how were these made? So oftentimes, because so many people knew how to weave or braid, they these pieces were done by the family members themselves, as you might imagine, more often women in the family. But they also did have professional hair work artists. Not only did they have professional artists, but as time went on, they also had instructions for making these types of artistry, and they would publish them in like women's magazines and grief guides and things I don't know. I know we don't think of everything as online. No, we don't tend to read lots of magazines. When I was a kid, there would be magazines at the checkout stand or maybe at a store. And some of those magazines might have patterns or like a like a dress pattern or a quilt pattern. These had hair work patterns, grieving hair, hair remembrance or family hair archive, grieving patterns. And it was, it was that common that they were publishing patterns and instructions of how to do these into women's magazines. The hair was, of course, cleaned. I learned that they often even boiled it, just to really, like, make sure it was sanitized and cleaned. And then they ultimately, eventually started weaving them around, like thin wire, almost like floral wire, or jewelry type wire, very thin wire, so they could shape them a little bit more easily or seamlessly. Sometimes they would even braid them or or weave them around silk thread so that they could form these really intricate floral designs and patterns. These were really actual art pieces, craft pieces, if you will. So they're they're incredibly elaborate, in some cases, especially as time goes on and and these are widely shared patterns, and people have access to this wire and to silk thread. So it really does grow and expand into a beautiful art form.
And it does help to know that the hair was cleaned and and treated with love and care. And again, this was often done, even though there are these these artisans that do it. This is often done by grieving family members themselves as part of their grieving process. It really kind of blurs the line a little bit between crafts and ritual, between art and remembrance, between the physical body and the sacred next steps, right? So I thought that the hair art, the wreaths and the hair framed glass pictures were just so interesting, especially knowing that they often did the portrait or the picture from multiple people's hair and even labeled them. How interesting, right? So after I felt like I thoroughly exhausted understanding the hair wreaths, the next thing that I moved on to, i. Is something called a death mask, and it's often thought of a way of remembering the face, the structure, the instead of a portrait, it's a mask of someone's face. So imagine that you're standing in a museum, and you'll come face to face with a mask. It's not carved or sculpted, but it's molded directly from the face of someone who has just passed away, every wrinkle, every line, every crease, every part of their final expression, perfectly preserved. This is what's called a death mask, and it's one of the most intimate and quite honestly unsettling forms of remembrance in history, again, links in show notes. What is a death mask? A death mask is a physical cast, usually made from wax or plaster, and it's taken of the face of a deceased person, usually newly deceased, typically within hours of their passing. It captures the individual's true likeness, sometimes down to even like the texture of their skin and the placement of their eyelashes. Believe it or not, what strikes me about death masks is how deeply personal they are. You're not just remembering someone or having like a photograph of them or a lock of their hair. You're literally preserving their face, not just a portrait or a photograph, not a painting, but actually them as they were in that final moment of stillness. So this practice actually was done many places and across lots of time, not just, not just small periods of time, like in those Victorian traditions we were talking about, this actually was done even in ancient Egypt. And Mycenae, Egyptians created golden funeral masks, like, I know, when I was a kid at the science museum in Boston, we had King Tut and the masks and the remains. So if you have ever seen any of these, you know Egyptian masks, that's how they were often done, not as a likeness, but as a spiritual tool. They were meant to help guide the soul of the crossed over person to the afterlife and to protect their identity. This also was done in ancient Greece. Death masks were made of hammered gold. Sometimes they would lay the gold over the face and kind of hammer it to make the sculpture right over the deceased person's face in the burial chamber. And this is more symbolic than personal. This in ancient Greece was not so much about the soul's journey or it was more about the soul's journey, not so much for preservation or grief for the family. This was more about the afterlife and the belief of the soul needing to be identified in the afterlife and needing to be set properly on its journey. So that is sort of the tradition in ancient Egypt and Greece, but in the Renaissance and Victorian Europe. In medieval medieval Renaissance Europe, these death masks began serving artistic and genealogical purposes, not just afterlife purposes. And again, by the 18th and 19th century, they became common for famous figures, artists, philosophers, even royalty, would have these masks made. They were used as references for portraiture, like, if they're gonna, you know, a king passes away, and later they want to paint a portrait of him, they would use this mask to make sure they had a very good likeness, for example. And they would use them for not just to paint a portrait, but to do a sculpture. And in some cases, they would even use these masks for scientific study. How interesting, right? You might be surprised to learn, as I was, that there are some famous death masks made Napoleon Bonaparte, his death mask was cast just hours after his death on St Helena. How crazy is that? Ludwig von Beethoven in 1827, there's a mask of him. His mask is still studied and displayed today, revealing lots of stress lines in his later years. It is said Dante al gear, this one's debated. There is a death mask on display in Florence that claims to be his death mask, although there's an argument among the historians about the authenticity of this mask. Abraham Lincoln has one of these masks. His actually is a little different, because while this is commonly known as a death mask, Abraham Lincoln's is actually a life mask, because it was taken during his presidency, it was used after his assassination to memorialize him and to make sculptures and paintings like we were talking about, but it was actually done while he was still living. Before his passing. These weren't just historical records. These are also tools for connection, literally physical traces of human beings, final moments, their physical body's final moments on Earth. So sometimes they're made for artistic accuracy, right? Like we were talking about to be used at some future point by sculptors and painters and to create busts and portraits and likenesses of important people. Sometimes they were used for ancestral lineage. Families often kept these types of masks as heirlooms, and they'd be passed down with reverence and respect and love. Sometimes these masks were made for scientific inquiry. During the rise of more of this scientific movement right, masks were collected to study
intellectual traits,
things like skull shape and feature shape were studied as part of scientific inquiry, and sometimes, of course, they were made for emotional memory, and maybe even, above all, they were made to remember someone deeply and physically, even after time had faded, the memory of them. In our mind, we would have these masks to hang on to. There's something kind of eerie and beautiful about a practice like this. It reminds me of the line between honoring the physical form and clinging to it. Is it a way to find comfort? Is it a way to control future likenesses? Is it a little bit of both? But I started to get really curious about how these masks were made. I know we talked about that in ancient Egypt and Greece. Sometimes they were made by actually hammering or tapping the gold over the person's face, but I meant these more intricate ones, like, how did they actually create these back then, with less technology than we have today, I was kind of surprised to learn how these were made. I'm going to explain it to you, and most of you will probably know exactly what this is from sometime in middle school art class. So essentially, the person's face was coated, typically in some kind of oil. Back then, it was often like an animal fat that they would just something greasy to go over the face to prevent sticking and then wet plaster was gently applied over the face and left to harden. They said that in the research that they often did it in two halves, like they would first do one half of the face, and then they would do the other half of a face, so it was easier to remove without getting any you know, it'd be more more accurate, more exact and preserved better if they did half of the face at one time. So they greased it, they put the plaster, and then they let it cure and dry for however long that took. And then once they removed it, they would use that as a mold, and then they would make a final cast in plaster or wax or sometimes even bronze, depending on how fancy the person was. So it really does remind me of that middle school art class where you make the masks they did. It very similar to how middle schoolers all over the world have made these, these face masks, which is so interesting. Of course, it wasn't a quick and easy process, because, you know, it needed time to dry and to cure and all of that. And the truth is, the results weren't always so flattering. It didn't they didn't always come out great, but for many it was totally worth it because it gave them something real, something tangible, something that really felt like a representation of their beloved person that they hadn't quite received in another way, in today's world, I know we get to use things like videos, voice messages, the way that we make cremains or ashes into jewelry in today's world, to feel close To our crossed over loved ones. But imagine living back then, and imagine what you got to have, instead of a voice message or a video or a photo, was a representation of their face on your mantle, a mask, a face mask of them. Do you think that you would find that comforting? Would you like to have that of a loved one that's crossed over? Do you feel like it's that's too much, like that's too far, or is it just a really human way of holding on? You're not just looking at a symbol. You'd be looking at an exact imprint of someone's face, their last presence in this world. This one really got me thinking, because I think it's such a special and beautiful way. Even in photos, we don't see the fine lines, the creases, the wrinkles, the exact shape, because it's made, you know, obviously into 2d photos. Know, but with a mask, it really is such an incredible likeness. Would I want to put it on my mantle? I don't know. Maybe I'd want it somewhere more private, but I'm so curious to know what you think of that. How does that hit you? Do you think it'd be too much? Do you think it's a beautiful way to memorialize people? Is that something you might consider doing so as we're wrapping up today's very interesting episode, as strange as these practices might seem to us now in present day, photographing deceased people, weaving jewelry from hair, casting the face of a loved one in plaster or wax. They were all ways of saying, You mattered in the world. You still matter. We're not letting go of you. They weren't just about death. They were about relationships and memory and love and turning grief into something tangible, something we could hold or display when words just weren't satisfying or weren't enough. In an era before voice memos or home videos or family photos, these objects became a bridge between those still living and those that have already crossed over to the spirit world, physical representations of love we share, still affecting, still speaking, still having a presence interesting to think about. Maybe the deeper message is we find each our own way to honor loss and no matter how unusual it may look from the outside, right, sometimes things look a little unusual from the outside. Every act of remembrance is, of course, sacred. If this episode made you think or stirred something in you or offended you a little bit, or made you a little curious, emotional or even uncomfortable, I hope that you will share it with someone who understands or someone willing to have these conversations, someone who also carries some grief with them, maybe, maybe someone who is also navigating their own journey, someone who also carries memories they want to hold on to. And if you're navigating your own grief, you're not alone. There's nothing strange about wanting to remember someone wanting to hold parts of them close to us. Nothing unusual about that, right, even though we might do it a little differently in present day than in olden day. Thank you for listening to this very unusual episode of spirit speakeasy, this maybe macabre, maybe taboo topic, but I hope you enjoyed it until next time. Take care of your heart. Trust the sacred ways that it remembers. I'm sending you big hugs and lots of love. Bye for now. From inside Spirit Speakeasy