Worlds of the Dead - NMS exhibition until 11/2/2001 (Museum of Scotland)

Member Name: stmatth

Product:	Museum of Scotland
Date:	20/08/00 (42 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wide range of ideas and cultures, well explained

Disadvantages: none

What happens to you after you die? Where will you be going? These are the questions that the exhibition "Heaven and Hell" is trying to answer. Well, the real answer is of course unknown, but this exhibition is a fascinating journey into rituals and beliefs about death worldwide. Its strength lies in its multicultural, comparative approach: For each of the relevant aspects of death and afterlife, the view is not restricted to one culture or a few religions. Instead, exhibits from different times and places give you a glimpse of the wide variety of approaches that humans have taken to understand and live with the experience of death and dying. The displayed objects are well chosen, and the explanations and introductory texts are clear and concise.

Although the exhibition covers a surprisingly large range of topics and cultures, it still manages not to oversimplify and retain depth. For example, the corner on reincarnation in the section "Worlds of the dead" does not try to present the concept of reincarnation as a single, monolithic Eastern belief system (as is sometimes the case in popular books), but highlights the differences between e.g. India and China, where the mix of Buddhism (from India) with Confucianism lead to the idea of the somewhat bureaucratic "Di Yu" (prison of the earth), where souls are judged and have to serve a sentence before being allowed to reincarnate on Earth. Furthermore, the visitor can then compare the Far Eastern belief systems with reincarnation beliefs in Nigeria in the next showcase.

Although death is a serious topic, the exhibition does not really leave you sad. Quite the opposite, I found myself fascinated by the many ways how humans deal with the serious experience of death and dying. Some of the practices and beliefs are quite unusual. For example, in the section "Farewell to the dead" (covers the different burial rites and methods like inhumation, creation, mummification,
cannibalism, tree burials etc.), the visitor is informed that in Ghana fantastic coffins in the shape of animals or even cars are en vogue. But: Even though the rituals are Christian, these fantasy coffins are only allowed in Church if they are in the shape of a Bible.

And when you make "the final journey" (so the title of another section in the exhibition), do your relatives have to burn flight tickets from "Hell Airlines", a "Hell Passport" and some Cheques from "The Otherworld Bank"? These may seem as jokes (and obviously many visitors found it hilarious), but they are real items from contemporary funerals in Singapore. However, I would think that these items only seem funny to people with a Christian background who see the afterlife as a more spiritual place, where material gravegoods are of no use. In a wider cultural perspective, the ticket for "Hell Airlines" is not dissimilar to the coin that is needed for the ferry across the river Styx in ancient Roman beliefs, or - a step further - the boats in viking ship burials, or Egyptian model boats. In many cultures, the dead are given useful "Otherworldly possessions": From clothes and food to terracotta companions (e.g. in precolumbian Mexico or Peru) or even whole armies of terracotta servants (e.g. in Egypt and China).

Also, it is a relief to know that you can now get a mobile phone in the afterlife - if your relatives burn a paper model, as can be seen in the section "the living and the dead". This section focusses on the rites that the living perform to commemorate the dead, from spiritualistic mediums to communal "days of the dead". Halloween e.g. is the remnant of a "day of the dead" - almost extinct in Europe after the reformation, it came to the USA with catholic Irishmen, and is now reimported back to Europe "with a heavy coating of cartoon horror".

The exhibition is accompani
ed by a lavishly illustrated book - very useful, because the exhibition covers so many aspects and cultures that you certainly want to look up things later. However, the book does not have literature references - which is a serious shortcoming when you want to research one of the topics in more detail.


Heaven and Hell - and other worlds of the dead
15 July 2000 - 11 February 2001
National Museum of Scotland
Chambers Street
No extra admission, but £3 to the museum if you don't have a season ticket

Book:
Alison Sheridan (ed.)
Heaven and Hell and other worlds of the dead
NMS publishing, Edinburgh 2000
ISBN 1-901663-41-8
168 S., £ 14.99 (£ 12.99 in the Musum shop)

Summary: