What should museums do with their dead? (w/ Caitlin Doughty!)

Since no one else does, I may mention the beautiful lobster earrings. They deserve a comment, too.

I watched this earlier and it has been percolating in my mind. I figured I needed to tell a story. My Dad died at 64 and I signed the DNR. We are a medical family and so death is not a big deal for us. Fast forward, we picked up his ashes on the way to do the food shopping, but then felt a little weird about leaving them in the trunk. Now the last month of his life he spent in hospital on a Ventilator. All he wanted to do was go home and watch TV in his recliner. So, we took the ashes home, tilted back the recliner, put the box in the recliner and turned on the TV. On my way out the door, I stopped and put his glasses on the box so that he could see it clearly. The responses to this story were: 1) confusion, they did not get it 2) horror, it was sacrilege 3) laughter, from the people who understood Even those closest to you and the deceased, don't always see eye to eye on the appropriate way to honor the dead. It is a tricky balancing act and you did a great job explaining the problem.

I know an archaeologist who precedes his digs by consulting the nearest descendants he can find about the most respectful way to deal with the site. One tribe required that he participate in seven rituals over seven years, and he did it. They then gave him his blessing, and so help me, he started having dreams telling him where to dig!

Everyone: “Avengers infinity war is the best crossover of all time” Caitlyn and Emily: “ Hold my formaldehyde” Thanks for making my morning a little bit better fam! Y’all are golden 💖

It’s barely 2020 and we already have the best crossover of the decade!

I remember asking my parents when I was in high school, "at what point does it become archaeology rather than grave robbing?" and they didn't have an answer for me. thanks for the nuanced conversation!

I very much appreciated the tone of this, the respect you both tried to give, and Emily's personal example of how she had not given the Egyptian remains the respect they perhaps deserved. This kind of self awareness and willingness to admit to making mistakes and honestly trying to address those mistakes is, in my opinion, the most attractive and good quality any person can have. Seeing you both emphasizing consent and giving respect and reverence to people who have been denied consent for so long gives me hope for humanity. I wish more people cared enough to behave this way about any topic. Thank you both for being such good people. I haven't follow Caitlin before this unfortunately, but Emily, you are my Mr. Rodgers.

Emily mentioning that she's been a full time museum employee for 6 years really made feeling old sink in in a way that my birthdays just haven't

I need a 4 hour podcast with these two legends

I am thrilled to see my favorite two creators talking about this subject. I work in the archaeological division of a natural history and culture museum where I am surrounded by repatriation work every day. For example, just yesterday we hosted the entirety of the Cherokee government to talk about our work in the museum. I have been a part of every step of the NAGPRA process. Something that you didn't really touch on and that is something that I, as a person working in repatriation, is that there are lots and lots of people in academic circles that are heavily resistant to NAGPRA, repatriation, or restricting access to human skeletal remains. But there are lots more scientists who believe that scientific advancements are more important than the consent of a person who's been dead for a thousand years. It is incredibly frustrating when you, as a museum, place restrictions and policies in place and visiting researchers actively circumvent those policies. Most of these are from older generations, like Dr. Bill Bass of UTK's Body Farm who believes that he holds ownership of human skeletal remains he excavated from South Dakota in the 1960's. His reasoning being that since those remains belong to the Arikara, a group of people he believes to not exist anymore, he gets to keep them and use them for his own purposes. (The Arikara are not extinct, by the way.) The latest example from my museum, being that a biological archaeologist/paleopathologist came in to study an individual with a rare and unique pathology. We have a strict policy of NO PHOTOS. The scientist, a (formerly) trusted researcher, took some anyway and then used those photos in her article published in a medical journal. This article (photos included) was featured by Forbes Science and went viral. Those photos were attributed to the museum, not the researcher. Our curator spent that whole day on the phone with tribal representatives trying to put the fire out. It was a nightmare.

This is YT at its best. Two educated people, passionate about their work and the ethics surrounding it. More please!

I live in the university town of Lund, Sweden and we have some collections I find morally disturbing. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, if you died in the poor house your body could legally be handed over to medical schools etc. Studies have shown that the people living and dying in the poor houses probably had no idea this could/would happen to them after death. It was still a very religious country back then a burial was important, but you were a ward of the state so they didn't need your consent. Also, if you killed yourself, if you died while in police custody or if you were a person living a transient lifestyle, your body would be "donated" for science. It was the law and probably not made by people who would ever run the risk of being subjected to that treatment when they had died. We have a full skeleton of an 11-year-old boy in the museum. He shot himself because he was being ill-treated at the farm where he was working. We also have the full skeleton of a teenage girl who hung herself after she fell pregnant after incestuous rape. They are still standing (yes, standing, like your average anatomical model skeleton) around in the basement of the museum of history in Lund, when they are not on display. In 2005 the museum gave the skull of a Jewish man from Germany, who had hung himself while in police custody in Lund in 1879, back to the local Jewish congregation. His skull had been on display as late as in 2001. They have also given back some other skulls to the respective countries and tribes they were from. Skulls that were probably used in the, now shameful, racial biological research that fueled nationalism and racism in Europe, leading up to WWII. To me, it is kind of bizarre that they are not trying harder to bury at least the skeletons of the children in the collections. We know their names, we know when they were born, how they lived, how, when, where and why they died. They are not some specimen we have to study to find out things about how people lived 100-150 years ago. They are probably the great great great aunt or uncle of people now living!

"Bring out your dead!" "Here's one." "Nine pence." "I'm not dead!"

I took a break my museum studies grad school readings to watch my 2 favorite youtubers talk about museums!!!! No regrets!!! I would love to see another Caitlin/Emily collab!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a friend of mine was on the tribal council that was responsible for getting the Spirit Cave Man back and reburying him. they're still emotional about it.

Can we take a moment to address their psychic fashion connection-

one small point I would make as a native American about the Shoshone tribe that she is speaking of is a lot of the emotions that were shown had less to do with the actual person whose remains were returned and the victory and return itself. Native American tribes have always had to fight for things that are easily granted to other ethnic groups or Wasi'chu in general. In other words any victory in our eyes are very emotional because of a long hard fight that seems like it will never end. It's less about being Indian and more about just being human. Much Love!

FINALLY!! ..this still has Bentham’s Head on it.

When I was a kid, my favorite museum had an Egyptian mummy hand encased in glass. There were holes in the glass that you could lean over to smell the hand. This area of the museum was geared towards kids so the idea was to be like, "EW THIS CENTURIES OLD HAND SMELLS GROSS!" In retrospect, not the most respectful way to treat a body.

My friend, a full blooded Cherokee who also happens to be a scientists, disagrees with the policy of cultural artifacts and remains from museums. He points to the flaw of the conclusion of the DNA test coming back as being genetically related, meaning that they were members of the same tribe. They stole women to make their wives from the enemy tribes. Even among enemies, the genetics would be similar in the same region. That body they buried with so much reverence, may have been a formidable foe of their ancestors. He feels that keeping these bodies and objects in museums, provides more value to the tribes and humanity as a whole, than putting them back into the ground.