Performed in the axial and southern highlands of Peru, the Scissors Ball is a acceptable accident that tests the concrete and airy backbone of the participants.
Westerners usually attention “La Danza de las Tijeras” as a concrete analysis area two men accept to prove their ability and attrition to pain, but to the humans of the Andes, this ball is a angelic ritual. The dancers, alleged danzaq, accomplish difficult stunts and leaps, alleged atipanakuy, accompanied by the music of a violin, a harp and the complete of the scissors they anniversary authority in their hands. So abundant about not arena with scissors, right?
The agent of the danzaq and their Scissors Ball is buried in mystery, but some anthropologists accept they appeared in 1524, during the apostasy adjoin Spanish colonial rule. According to old Spanish chronicles, Huancas (pre-Hispanic deities) bedevilled the bodies of aboriginal adolescent men, acceptance them to accomplish an impossible-looking ball signaling the acknowledgment of the Old Gods to vanquish the Christian God of the Spanish. As we all know, that didn’t happen, but the attitude of the Scissors Ball was kept animate by the Andean people.
It’s about absurd to accept anyone can achieve this affectionate of acrobatic moves, while administration a brace of scissors fabricated out of two alone bedding of metal, 25 cm each, but the danzaq do abundant more. To appearance airy superiority, they go through a alternation of challenges that cover afraid aciculate altar through their bodies, bistro bottle or walking on fire. The Scissors Dance is sometimes performed continuously for hours, until one of the competitors proves his superiority.
The best Scissors Dances can be witnessed in Ayacucho, Apurimac, Arequipa, Huancavelica and Lima.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Mysterious Scissors Dancers of Peru
Sunday, April 4, 2010
13 Most harshest people in World recorded history
Apparently there are many cruel people in this world, including 13 people most of the world's harshest the entry in the history list. 2 They are the ones who may not have pity, too concerned with politics and personal ambition. Their actions are necessary in scorch the earth, Do so until his successor well of you.
Jump aja dah, the following 13 people most of the world's harshest :
Josif (Josef) Stalin Vissarionovich , Iósif Vissarionovich Stalin), real name Ioseb Jughashvili, (December 21, 1879 (Gregorian calendar chronicle) - March 5, 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union and a very cruel dictator, also known as the Man of Steel. He is thought to have ordered the murder of about 30 million population of Russia and surrounding countries. He is also known as people who hate religion. He had entered the seminary in Tbilisi, but he then became lost faith in God after reading the book Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Stalin is the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. IN under the leadership of Stalin, State of Ukraine suffered very severe famine (Holodomor), by most people this is considered a result of mass extermination is part of the policy of Stalin's rule. Estimated number of deaths varied from 2.5 million to 10 million. Hunger caused by political and administrative decisions.
Besides famine, Stalin ordered the cleanup in the Soviet Union any person who is considered as an enemy state. In total, the approximate number who were killed under Stalin's rule ranged between 10 million to 60 million people.
Mao Zedong (Shaoshan, Hunan, December 26th, 1893 - Beijing, 9 September 1976), is a name of a prominent philosopher and founder of the People's Republic of China.
Mao and the party
Mao's Party was founded in 1921 and Mao's increasingly vocal. Between the years 1934 - 1935 he held a central role and led the Chinese Red Army undergoing "Length of Mars." Then since the year 1937 he participated to help Dai Nippon combat troops that occupied much of China's territory. Finally, World War II ended and civil war broke out again. In the war against these nationalists, Mao became the leader of the Reds and he finally won in 1949. On October 1 1949, People's Republic of China was proclaimed and the Chinese nationalist leader, Chiang Kai Shek fled to Taiwan.
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 - April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Führer (Leader) (Third Reich), Germany since 1934 until he died. On August 2, 1934, he became dictator of Germany after President von Hindenburg died. He unites the position became chancellor and president of the Nazi Führer at once made as a single party in Germany. He is also a Chairman of the Nationalist-Socialist Party (National Socialist Germany Workers Party or NSDAP / Nazi) who is known by the Nazis.
Nazi Germany was officially disbanded after the defeat in World War II because Hitler's dictatorship system. Hitler was a charismatic orator, Hitler is one of the most influential leaders in dunia.Ketika end of World War II, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin with his wife whom he married not long in the bunker, Eva Braun.
German Chancellor Adolf Hitler set in 1933, became the "Fuhrer" in 1934 until his suicide in 1945. At the end of World War 2, the policy of territorial conquest and extermination rasianya have brought death and torture millions of people, including the slaughter of approximately six million Jews now known as the Holocaust.
On April 30, 1945, after severe fighting street-to-Street, when Soviet troops appear in a block or two Chancellory Reich, Hitler committed suicide, shot himself, biting the cyanide capsule sebiji.
Vladimir Illich Lenin, Original name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (April 10 (April 22 according to Gregorian calendar in the year), 1870 - January 21, 1924), was a revolutionary communist Russia, the Bolshevik party leader, Prime Minister of the Soviet Union first and creators understand Leninisme.Nama Lenin is actually a a pseudonym, and took its name from the river Lena, in Siberia.
Russian Revolution
In February 1917, in connection with a major Russian defeat in World War I, the Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Then formed a cabinet led by Alexander Kerensky. Then Lenin on 16 April 1917 back to Petrograd, the name of the city of Saint Petersburg has di'Rusia' out.
General Idi Amin Dada Oumee (Koboko, Uganda, circa 1925-Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, August 16, 2003), also known by the name of Idi Amin, is a leader in the Ugandan military dictator who ruled on January 25, 1971 to 13 April 1979.
Innings
As soon as Idi Amin's rule, Uganda became the most famous countries in the international world. In August 1972, all British Asians berwarga countries (60,000 people) were given ninety days to lift the foot from Uganda.
This action not because of racism, but because he wanted to give "real independence for the people of Uganda". A frenzy of course England, which its officials hurriedly contacted the Australian, New Zealand, and British Commonwealth countries to discuss other shelter, especially Kenya and Tanzania refused to give shelter to the refugees. Ten days later promulgated additional rules that foreigners who have become citizens of Uganda should get out of Uganda. The number is about 23,000 inhabitants.
Surely the citizens of foreign descent who was born in Uganda confusion. If they leave, their status is stateless (stateless). Moreover, the India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (their home countries) refused to accept their return. Nasionalisasai policy coupled with the companies of the European people in Uganda. Idi Amin was an actual "confusing many people."
Consequences of this decision, arising from a severe economic crisis in Uganda. Approximately 90% of trade and industry controlled by Asians. Uganda's own people are still very traditional agrarian and less skill, capital and skills. Actually, the expulsion of Asians plan had been designed by Milton Obote because it felt too grabbed the Ugandan economy, but is still targeting the next five years, by reason of preparing people of Uganda.
Ugandan government in such chaos that the UN International Law Commission to report to the UN secretary general at the time, Kurt Waldheim on June 7, 1974, which read: "Uganda is a land without law." One peak is requested asylum crisis Finance Minister Emmanuel Wakheya to England because they do not stand any more of the economic decisions taken by the military regime of Idi Amin's reign.
In early 1977, William Johnshon write a daily report to the Bangkok Post that read: "After four years in power, Idi Amin of Uganda has changed the lives of the poor. First-exporting country of Uganda tea and coffee, but because of administrative systems and poor transportation, hundreds of sacks of coffee piled in warehouses awaiting export, semetara tens of thousands of tons are smuggled into Kenya.
Uganda was once as one of the most fertile land in Africa, is now so scarce agricultural produce to city dwellers to plant sugar cane and bananas. Soap, sugar, and wheat are treated like gold was so scarce. While in rural areas so abundant harvests, the urban population can not enjoy the results. Five years ago, operates 298 buses run by the government, now only 11 are still the road. "In April 1979, Idi Amin had been overthrown by Ugandan nationalists soldiers who assisted in Tanzania. Prior to Idi Amin with the help of Libya trying to attack the Kagera, the northern province of Tanzania.
Idi Amin fled to Libya, eventually flying which then asked for asylum in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and settled there. According to him, the death rate of 100,000 to 300,000 people and killed dianiya is due to improper intelligence section. National Research Bureau even threatened to kill him. According to Amin, a lot of bad things that are hidden when he took power. When he knew the existence of the firm, it was too late.
However, during the Amin has not been falling, David Martin in his article in the South China Morning Post revealed how Idi Amin know football lunge-oknumnya elements. He claimed to not want to be president, tentaranyalah asked for it, but about the expulsion of Asians, he says: 'They are too powerful and mocked our people'.
Idi Amin has four wives. His first wife was Sarah or Mama Malian whom he married in 1958, which both Kay, Norah third, fourth and Medina, whom he married in 1971. In early 1974 he divorced his first wife so that the three lived Medina. On August 1, 1975, he married Sarah, a daredevil racer Army troops of Uganda. Four months later, she married the daughter of a businessman Babirye of Uganda. Idi Amin's that time already had 34 people anak.Pada dated July 20, 2003, before his death at the King Faisal Hospital in Jeddah, she pleaded to President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda to Idi Amin was buried in his country, but this request was rejected. Idi Amin died in Saudi Arabia on August 16, 2003 and is buried in Jeddah.
Ivan IV Russia, also known as Ivan the Terrible, was the magnificent Duke of Muscovy from 1533 until 1547 and was the first ruler of Russia who took the rights of the Emperor. In 1570, Ivan under the belief that planned by the elite of the city of Novgorod to cross into Poland, and sent an army to stop them on January 2nd. Ivan soldiers built walls around the city perimeters to prevent people from town who is independent. Between 500 to 1000 people gathered every day by the troops, then tortured and killed in front of Ivan and his son.
In 1581, Ivan's daughter hit her full-in-law for wearing clothing that was not polite, causing keguguran.Anak son, also named Ivan, causing ayahnya.Yang argue with his son Ivan who struck in the head with pointy sticks, then her son died instantly.
Vlad III, Romania (Also known as Vlad the Impaler) was Prince of Wallachia three times from 1448 until the year 1476. Vlad is better known as a legend of a very cruel punishment. He was forced during his reign, and he also used as the principal inspiration for the main character a vampire "Bram Stoker" in the popular new Dracula.
In Romania he is considered as a prince with a deep sense of justice. List of torture he was declared to have employed extensive: nails on the head, cut off limbs, blinding, choking, burning, cutting off noses and ears, cutting sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalp, skin, disclosure to the elements or to animals, and orangery boil stake. There are claims that on several occasions ten thousand people had been stabbed in the year 1460.
Pol Pot is the leader of the Khmer Rouge and the Prime Minister of Cambodia from 1976 until 1979, has been de factor leader since mid-1975. During his reign, Pol Pot's agrarian communism impose extreme version in which all city dwellers moved to the countryside to work in plantations and collective labor projects. The combined effect slave labor, malnutrition, poor medical Perelman and implementation are estimated to have killed around 2 million Cambodians (about a third of the population). His regime achieved special notoriety for selecting all the intellectuals and the "bourgeois enemies" for murder of another.
The Khmer Rouge executed en masse in the place known as "The killing fields." Executed were buried in mass graves. To save ammunition, executions often dillakukan use a hammer, ax handles, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks.
Leopold II is the King of Belgium from 1865-1909.
With financial assistance from the government, Leopold create "Congo Free State", a personal project to tap rubber and ivory in the Congo region central Africa, which relies on forced labor and causing death by approximately 3 million people of Congo.
Congo Free State regime became an international scandal one turn of the century more notorious. Parcels of land privately owned by King is 76 times larger than Belgium, that he is free to master it as a private sphere through his personal army, Force Publique. Leopold owned the rubber plantation workers were tortured, brutally maim and kill until the end of the century, the heart nuran, i Western World and force Brussels to hold worship.
Ayatollah Khomeini Iran is the Islamic religious leaders from 1979 until 1989.
At that time he was implementing the Islamic Shari'a (Islamic religious law) with the Islamic dress code applies to both men and women by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and other Islamic groups. Opposition to the rules of Islamic religious scholars or the public is often met with harsh punishment.
In conversations in Fayzieah School in Qom, August 30, 1979, Khomeini said:
"Who is trying to bring corruption and destruction for our country in the name of democracy will suffer. They are worse than Bani-Ghorizeh Jews, and they should be hanged. We will torture them on the orders of God and God's call to prayer."
In 1988 mass slaughter of Iranian prisoners, following the operation Forough-e Javidan mujahideen fighters against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Khomeini gave orders to his court officials to judge every Iranian political prisoner and kill all who do not repent of counter-regime activity. Many say that the thousands who quickly killed in prison. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Living History-Ali Montazeri reported details of the execution of 30,000 political activists. After eleven days in the hospital in surgery to stop internal bleeding, Khomeini died of cancer on Saturday, June 04, 1989, at the age of 86 years.
Maximilien Robespierre is a leader of the French revolution and was the argument that makes the revolutionary government kill the king without a trial. Robespierre was one of the main actors behind the cruel reign, 10 months since he led the post-revolutionary terror and mass executions. Terror that threaten between 18,500 to 40,000 people, with 1900 killed in the last month.
Among persons convicted by a revolutionary court, about 8 percent were of nobles, clergy as much as 6 percent, the middle class as much as 14 percent and 70 percent of the remaining employees or workers taniyang accused of hoarding, refusing military conscription, desertion, mutiny, and other crimes claim . For his actions, Robespierre was beheaded by not through the trial in 1794.
Attila King of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453.
He is the leader Hunnic Empire that stretched from Germany to the Ural River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. In the largest part of Western Europe, he was remembered as an example of cruelty and greed. The campaign failed in Persia in the year 441, followed by the invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire, Attila the success of them dared to attack the West.
He passed unhindered Austria and Germany, across the Rhine into the Gael, he was seized and destroyed all the people on the street with a ferocity not unlike the record of a savage assault and forced the deal to add that he's very large army. Attila drowned in his own blood on the perkiness night.
This guy is the most sadistic men in the world this century with a sacrifice fly the war directly to tens of thousands of troops and coalition troops and tens of millions of human beings
**
Kira-2 they 13 The most harshest people in the World recorded in the history of the world. Maybe there are many more people-2 other cruel, but let's not from your 2-2 well.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Woman who remembers everything
A woman who has baffled doctors with her ability to remember every detail of every day has broken her anonymity to speak of her condition.
Jill Price, 42, can remember every part of her life since she was 14 but considers her ability a curse as she cannot switch off.
She described her life as like a split-screen television, with one side showing what she is doing in the present, and the other showing the memories which she cannot hold back.
Every detail about every day since 1980 - what time she got up, who she met, what she did, even what she ate - is locked in her brain and can be released to come flooding back by common triggers like songs, smells or place names.
Mrs Price, a widow who is a school administrator, sometimes struggles to sleep because the vivid memories crowd her mind and stop her relaxing. Her condition is so rare that scientists had to coin a term for her condition - hyperthymestic syndrome from the Greek thymesis, for remembering, and hyper, meaning well above normal.
For years she remained anonymous, referred to only by initials in scientific journals while experts at the University of California-Irvine tested her ability.
Mrs Price said her memory started working overtime after her family moved to Los Angeles when she was eight and from the time she was 14, in 1980, she can remember absolutely everything. Neuroscientists say a trauma such as moving the family home can trigger major, lingering changes in the brain, especially in children who cling to memories of how their life had been. Mrs Price said: "Some memories are good and give me a warm, safe feeling.
"But I also recall every bad decision, insult and excruciating embarrassment. Over the years it has eaten me up. It has kind of paralysed me." Mrs Price was so worried by her condition that in 2000 she asked neuroscientist Professor James McGaugh, a world expert on memory, what was wrong. She wrote to him: "My memory is too strong. It's like a running movie that never stops.
"Most have called it a gift. But I call it a burden. I run my entire life through my head every day and it drives me crazy!"
Professor McGaugh spoke to her and was astonished. He said: "You could give her a date picked at random from years ago and within seconds she'd tell you what day of the week it was, and not only what she did but other key events of the day."
From the age of 10 until she was 34, Mrs Price kept a daily diary, which allowed scientists to check events as she remembered them now against what she wrote down at the time. Mrs Price, who has written a book called The Woman Who Can't Forget, blames her vivid memories for many years of depression. Professor McGaugh has since discovered five other adults with similar powers and 50 more "possibles".
He said MRI scans indicated their brains were a slightly different shape to normal. Two other patterns have emerged. Mrs Price and three of the other five are left-handed and they all compulsively collect things like TV guides, old films and theatre programmes.
10 Words You Won’t Believe Shakespeare Invented
It’s kind of like what rappers do today, except the words Shakespeare made up got embedded into our culture and have formed the cornerstone of our discourse, rather than being obnoxiously spouted by white college students trying to be ironic. And while they weren’t all winners (”unhair” still seems to be struggling) others, as you’ll see, are so common you’ve probably already quoted Shakespeare today and you didn’t even know it. Fo’ sheezy.
Eyeball First Used:A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii, Oberon to Puck.“Then crush this herb into Lysander’s eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error with his might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.”
Translated: “Grind leaves and shit into that guy’s eyes until he goes blind.
Where We’d Be Without It: Totally unable to explain where we sniped this guy in Call of Duty 4.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Yep, as far as we know that’s the first time anybody wrote the word “eyeballs.” “Eyes” were there, “balls” were there, yet no one until Billy thought to put the two together. Well, there was one guy, but according to historical records that ended in an arrest for assault and indecent exposure.
PukingFirst Used:As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii, Jaques to Duke Senior.
“They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.”
Translated: “All humans have seven things in common. One of those things is that when they were babies, they threw up on their governesses.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Without a proper search term for many of the funniest videos on the internet.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Imagining Shakespeare’s quill scratching parchment whenever we’re hugging the toilet after our ninth vodka tonic gives it a surreal quality that certainly doesn’t help the hangover.
Skim MilkFirst Used:Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene iii, Hotspur Soliloquy.
“O, I could divide myself
and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of
skim milk with so honourable an action!”
Translated: “I should knock myself out for telling our awesome plan to such a douche nozzle.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Drinking only thick, full, silky whole milk, the way God intended.
Why It’s Un-Believable: We haven’t done the research necessary to determine whether people in Shakespeare’s time drank skim milk, so we’re going to assume that he not only coined a word, but simultaneously launched an entire branch of dairy products. For a modern rap corollary, imagine if the Milkshake Song had invented the word milkshake, and the concept of milkshakes. Pretty unbelievable.
ObsceneFirst Used:Love’s Labours Lost, Act I, Scene i, Ferdinand to Costard.
“Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter
that obscene and preposterous event, that draweth
from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which
here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest;”
Translated: “That’s where I saw it happen, the thing I wrote about which you now see, see, see or see.”
Where We’d Be Without It: The FCC would have to describe 50’s next album as “probably not something you want the kids to hear.”
Why It’s Un-Believable: Shakespeare was such a filthy writer, it’s hard to imagine him inventing a word that would inevitably be used against him. After all, this is the man who used the word “country matters” in Hamlet to mean “matters pertaining to the cunt.” Beat that, Fiddy.
Hot-BloodedFirst Used:King Lear, Act II, Scene iv, King Lear to Regan.
“Necessity’s sharp pinch! Return with her?
Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took
Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
To knee his throne, and, squire-like;”
Translated: “I’d rather blow the King of France than do what you just said.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Without any tactful way to describe our angry drunk of a boyfriend when our friends ask where those bruises came from.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Because the wild, untamed riffs of Foreigner have no place in classical English literature, except maybe the fight scene at the end of Macbeth. Nothing underscores a beheading like electric guitar.
The Game is AfootFirst Used:Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene iii, Northumberland to Hotspur.
“Before the game is afoot, thou still let’st slip.”
Translated: “Dude, we haven’t even shuffled the cards and you’re already in the Lollipop Woods.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Reading the less-than-gripping adventures of Sherlock Holmes and his signature catchphrase, “My dear Watson, I do believe this shit is bananas.”
Why It’s Un-Believable: Because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle owned it so thoroughly, we’re surprised his estate hasn’t filed a retroactive copyright lawsuit. Of course Shakespeare could only pay in ducats, so it probably wasn’t worth the effort.
EpilepticFirst Used:King Lear, Act II, Scene ii, Kent to Cornwall.
“A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I’ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot.”
Translated: “Fuck you, retard. I want to fight you.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Without the medical definition to apply when we see someone flailing wildly, we’d quickly start staggering dangerously into politically incorrect territory, just as those afflicted stagger dangerously towards…well, whatever’s around them at the time. We’d also have one less legitimate reason to hate anime.
Why It’s Un-Believable: He was a poet, an actor, and a doctor?! It makes us wonder if Shakespeare might have invented other afflictions that didn’t catch on, like tuberculasers or genital slurpees.
WormholeFirst Used:The Rape of Lucrece.
“To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings.”
Translated: A more eloquent version of what goth kids are thinking all the time.
Where We’d Be Without It: Well, for one, we wouldn’t have a handy phrase to describe what worms create when they burrow through moist earth. Also, we wouldn’t be able to FLY FUCKING STARSHIPS THROUGH SPACE AND TIME.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Mainly because it’s from the goddamned future. When you invent a word that describes technology so far beyond your own time’s that it makes the neutron bomb look like a guy clapping really hard, you can take the rest of the day off. The Starfleet Federation, producers of Sliders and future population of Tau Ceti IV Alpha Base thank you, William Shakespeare.
AlligatorFirst Used:Romeo and Juliet (First Folio), Act V, Scene I, Romeo Soliloquy.
“And in his needie shop a Tortoyrs hung,
An Allegater stuft, and other skins
Of ill shap’d fishes, and about his shelues,
A beggerly account of emptie boxes.”
Translated: No one knows.
Where We’d Be Without It: Try and think of a single word that rhymes with “see you later” and pairs well with “in a while, crocodile.” What’s that? You can’t? Shakespeare, bitch.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Because it’s hard to imagine what people called them before then. We figure cries of “Ye Gods, watch out for that Chompapottamus!” were much more common in those days.
Household WordsFirst Used:King Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii, Henry to Westmoreland.
“Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.”
Translated: “Five hundred years from now, there won’t be a single man, woman, or child on Earth who doesn’t remember the names Bedford, Talbot, and Exeter. Everyone will know exactly what happened in this war and what’s important about St. Crispin’s Day, especially people who read comedy articles on the internet during their coffee breaks. The reference will not go over their heads in the slightest, for they will recall Salisbury as a brilliant tactician and ingenious statesman, and certainly not as a bland slice of cafeteria meat.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Unable to describe the entries in this list.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Because so few people have the foresight to invent words to describe their own legacy. In fact, other than this phrase, we can only think of one person who invented a word that perfectly captures the sum of their impact on the planet. And even then, not everyone counts “strategery” as a word.
10 Things Your Body Can Do After You Die
Death is no obstacle when it comes to love in China. That’s because ghost marriage—the practice of setting up deceased relatives with suitable spouses, dead or alive—is still an option.
Ghost marriage first appeared in Chinese legends 2,000 years ago, and it’s been a staple of the culture ever since. At times, it was a way for spinsters to gain social acceptance after death. At other times, the ceremony honored dead sons by giving them living brides. In both cases, the marriages served a religious function by making the deceased happier in the afterlife.
While the practice of matchmaking for the dead waned during China’s Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, officials report that ghost marriages are back on the rise. Today, the goal is often to give a deceased bachelor a wife—preferably one who has recently been laid to rest. But in a nation where men outnumber women in death as well as in life, the shortage of corpse brides has led to murder. In 2007, there were two widely reported cases of rural men killing prostitutes, housekeepers, and mentally ill women in order to sell their bodies as ghost wives. Worse, these crimes pay. According to The Washington Post and The London Times, one undertaker buys women’s bodies for more than $2,000 and sells them to prospective “in-laws” for nearly $5,000.
Tour the Globe as a Scandalous Work of Art
Beginning in 1996 with the BODY WORLDS show in Japan, exhibits featuring artfully flayed human bodies have rocked the museum circuit. BODY WORLDS is now in its fourth incarnation, and competing shows, such as Bodies Revealed, are pulling in $30 million per year. The problem is, it’s not always clear where those bodies are coming from.
Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the man behind BODY WORLDS, has documented that his bodies were donated voluntarily to his organization. However, his largest competitor, Premier Entertainment, doesn’t have a well-established donation system. Premier maintains that its cadavers are unclaimed bodies from mainland China. And therein lies the concern. Activists and journalists believe “unclaimed bodies” is a euphemism for “executed political prisoners.”
The fear isn’t unfounded. In 2006, Canada commissioned a human rights report that found Chinese political prisoners were being killed so that their organs could be “donated” to transplant patients. And in February 2008, ABC News ran an exposé featuring a former employee from one of the Chinese companies that supplied corpses to Premier Entertainment. In the interview, he claimed that one-third of the bodies he processed were political prisoners. Not surprisingly, governments have started to take notice. In January 2008, the California State Assembly passed legislation requiring body exhibits to prove that all their corpses were willfully donated.
Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin wanted to be buried in his family plot. But when Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin insisted on putting his corpse on public display in Red Square, creating a secular, Communist relic. Consequently, an organization called the Research Institute for Biological Structures was formed to keep Lenin’s body from decay. The Institute was no joke, as some of the Soviet Union’s most brilliant minds spent more than 25 years working and living on site to perfect the Soviet system of corpse preservation. Scientists today still use their method, which involves a carefully controlled climate, a twice-weekly regimen of dusting and lubrication, and semi-annual dips in a secret blend of 11 herbs and chemicals. Unlike bodies, however, fame can’t last forever. The popularity of the tomb is dwindling, and the Russian government is now considering giving Lenin the burial he always wanted.
Unwind with a Few Friends
Today, most of us think of mummies as rare and valuable artifacts, but to the ancient Egyptians, they were as common as iPhones. So, where have all those mummies gone? Basically, they’ve been used up. Europeans and Middle Easterners spent centuries raiding ancient Egyptian tombs and turning the bandaged bodies into cheap commodities. For instance, mummy-based panaceas were once popular as quack medicine. In the 16th century, French King Francis I took a daily pinch of mummy to build strength, sort of like a particularly offensive multivitamin. Other mummies, mainly those of animals, became kindling in homes and steam engines. Meanwhile, human mummies frequently fell victim to Victorian social events. During the late 19th century, it was popular for wealthy families to host mummy-unwrapping parties, where the desecration of the dead was followed by cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.
Fuel a City
Cremating a body uses up a lot of energy—and a lot of nonrenewable resources. So how do you give Grandma the send-off she wanted and protect the planet at the same time? Multitask. Some European crematoriums have figured out a way to replace conventional boilers by harnessing the heat produced in their fires, which can reach temperatures in excess of 1,832 degrees F. In fact, starting in 1997, the Swedish city of Helsingborg used local crematoriums to supply 10 percent of the heat for its homes.
Get Sold, Chop Shop-Style
Selling a stiff has always been a profitable venture. In the Middle Ages, grave robbers scoured cemeteries and sold whatever they could dig up to doctors and scientists. And while the business of selling cadavers and body parts in the United States is certainly cleaner now, it’s no less dubious.
Today, the system runs like this: Willed-body donation programs, often run by universities, match cadavers with the researchers who need them. But because dead bodies and body parts can’t be sold legally, the middlemen who supply these bodies charge large fees for “shipping and handling.” Shipping a full cadaver can bring in as much as $1,000, but if you divvy up a body into its component parts, you can make a fortune. A head can cost as much as $500; a knee, $650; and a disembodied torso, $5,000.
The truth is, there are never enough of these willed bodies to meet demand. And with that kind of money on the mortician’s table, corruption abounds. In the past few years, coroners have been busted stealing corneas, crematorium technicians have been caught lifting heads off bodies before they’re burned, and university employees at body donation programs have been found stealing cadavers. After UCLA’s willed-body program director was arrested for selling body parts in 2004, the State of California recommended outfitting corpses with bar code tattoos or tracking chips, like the kinds injected into dogs and cats. The hope is to make cadavers easier to inventory and track down when they disappear.
Snuggle Up with Your Stalker
When a beautiful young woman named Elena Hoyos died from tuberculosis in Florida in 1931, her life as a misused object of desire began. Her admirer, a local X-ray technician who called himself Count Carl von Cosel, paid for Hoyos to be embalmed and buried in a mausoleum above ground. Then, in 1933, the crafty Count stole Elena’s body and hid it in his home. During the next seven years, he worked to preserve her corpse, replacing her flesh as it decayed with hanger wires, molded wax, and plaster of Paris. He even slept beside Elena’s body in bed—that is, until her family discovered her there. In the ensuing media circus, more than 6,000 people filed through the funeral home to view Elena before she was put to rest. Her family buried her in an unmarked grave so that von Cosel couldn’t find her, but that didn’t stop his obsession. Von Cosel wrote about Elena for pulp fiction magazines and sold postcards of her likeness until he was found dead in his home in 1952. Near his body was a life-size wax dummy made to look just like Elena.
Not Spread an Epidemic
In the aftermath of natural disasters such as tsunamis, floods, and hurricanes, it’s common for the bodies of victims to be buried or burned en masse as soon as possible. Supposedly, this prevents the spread of disease. But according to the World Health Organization (WHO), dead bodies have been getting a bad rap. It turns out that the victims of natural disasters are no more likely to harbor infectious diseases than the general population. Plus, most pathogens can’t survive long in a corpse. Taken together, the WHO says there’s no way that cadavers are to blame for post-disaster outbreaks. So what is? The fault seems to lie with the living or, more specifically, their living conditions. After a disaster, people often end up in crowded refugee camps with poor sanitation. For epidemic diseases, that’s akin to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Stand Trial
In 897 CE, Pope Stephen VI accused former Pope Formosus of perjury and violation of church canon. The problem was that Pope Formosus had died nine months earlier. Stephen worked around this little detail by exhuming the dead pope’s body, dressing it in full papal regalia, and putting it on trial. He then proceeded to serve as chief prosecutor as he angrily cross-examined the corpse. The spectacle was about as ludicrous as you’d imagine. In fact, Pope Stephen appeared so thoroughly insane that a group of concerned citizens launched a successful assassination plot against him. The next year, one of Pope Stephen’s successors reversed Formosus’ conviction, ordering his body reburied with full honors.
At cryonics facilities around the globe, the dead aren’t frozen anymore. The reason? Freezer burn. As with steaks and green beans, freezing a human body damages tissues, largely because cells burst as the water in them solidifies and expands. In the early days of cryonics, the theory was that future medical technology would be able to fix this damage, along with curing whatever illness killed the patient in the first place.
Realizing that straight freezing isn’t the best option, today’s scientists have made significant advances in cryonics. Using a process called vitrification, the water in the body is now replaced with an anti-freezing agent. The body is then stored at cold temperatures, but no ice forms. In 2005, researchers vitrified a rabbit kidney and successfully brought it back to complete functionality—a big step in cryonics research. (It may help in organ transplants someday, too.) But science has yet to prove that an entire body can be revived. Even worse, some vitrified bodies have developed large cracks in places where cracks don’t belong. Until those kinks get worked out, the hope of being revived in the future will remain a dream.
