Speaker 1: How to everyone. It's Saturday morning, and this is your
Speaker 1: weekly Selects episode aka Stuff You Should Know reruns handcrafted
Speaker 1: and curated by me, Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and my
Speaker 1: lovely and handsome co host Joshua Clark. This week, I
Speaker 1: am on the hook for this one, and so I'm
Speaker 1: going to pick how coffins work. From May thirtieth, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: I feel like we kind of came down a little
Speaker 1: bit hard on the funerary industry on this one. These
Speaker 1: coffins are expensive. Boy, oh boy, who wants to pay
Speaker 1: that kind of money once you're dead? Not me to
Speaker 1: grind me up and plant me as a tree or something,
Speaker 1: or maybe just throw me on the woods and let
Speaker 1: the worms take care of it at any rate. That's
Speaker 1: my journey, not yours. I don't want to yuck anyone's yum.
Speaker 1: If you want a big, fancy mahogany coffin, go for it.
Speaker 1: The podcast is going to teach you all about him.
Speaker 1: Please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast on Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should
Speaker 2: know the podcast.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: This is part of our ongoing death Sweet, which is sweet.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We've covered death a lot because death is multifaceted,
Speaker 1: sure you know. And this reminded me of the I
Speaker 1: guess we covered green burial not in its own podcast
Speaker 1: yet and like different ways to what to do with
Speaker 1: the dead body. There you go, That's what I thought
Speaker 1: it was into.
Speaker 2: But I'm surprised we didn't do a podcast dedicated just
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should. Yeah, I looked up because I'm interested
Speaker 1: in that for myself. And there are some lovely places
Speaker 1: right outside Atlanta.
Speaker 2: To be buried Greenley, Yeah, where you can just.
Speaker 1: Be wrapped in a shroud and buried in the field,
Speaker 1: which ripped to death by coyotes.
Speaker 2: Left in a field.
Speaker 1: They don't leave you, no, well they bury you in
Speaker 1: a shallow grade.
Speaker 2: Oh okay for the coyotes to come get you.
Speaker 1: No, they said they don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1: But I'm not one of those people that cares about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, about what happens to your body, Like I would
Speaker 2: do a sky burial.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't bother me for vultures to pick me apart,
Speaker 1: Like use the body if it would feed an animal.
Speaker 2: Great, why not donate it to science.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe I'll do that. I'm not precious about that
Speaker 1: my body after death. I'm not precious about my body
Speaker 1: in life. Why start then, exactly? Yeah, that's funny. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Well, a shroud does kind of technically count
Speaker 1: as a coffin chuck, Yeah, back in the day if
Speaker 1: you didn't have a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Right, or if you're into being picked apart by coyotes.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But the whole point of a coffin, or what constitutes
Speaker 2: a coffin is it provides a barrier between the body
Speaker 2: and the ground. Yeah, and technically a shroud does that.
Speaker 2: It's a really, really poor coffin. Yeah, but that's the
Speaker 2: whole point. It's that the body is encapsulated in something
Speaker 2: that just dropping a body into a grave is undignified.
Speaker 2: You might say even cremating a body without some form
Speaker 2: or fashion of a coffin is considered undignified. And you'll
Speaker 2: be hard pressed to find a crematorium that will let
Speaker 2: you just put your loved one on the conveyor belt
Speaker 2: and let them just kind of flop lifelessly toward the flames.
Speaker 1: I don't think they flop.
Speaker 2: I mean, if they're jostled, they're gonna flop. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: especially after Rigger's done.
Speaker 1: The coffin the word coffin. We're not gonna do any
Speaker 1: Merriam Webster stuff because that's who would start an article like.
Speaker 2: That or do it six times in an article.
Speaker 1: But we will say we'd like to give root words.
Speaker 1: And of course Greek and Latin are involved here with
Speaker 1: the Greek koffinos and Latin koffin uts. M h. They're
Speaker 1: always like, oh yeah, I'll change that kto a C
Speaker 1: and that O too a.
Speaker 2: U, and no one will ever even remember the Greeks
Speaker 2: happen exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's where the word coffin came from. But here
Speaker 1: in the United States we generally refer to that vessel
Speaker 1: as a casket, whereas in places like England and Australia
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Great Britain and Australia they might say coffin,
Speaker 1: even though a lot of people here think that's like
Speaker 1: a word you shouldn't use.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, their casket still means a place to keep
Speaker 2: your valuables.
Speaker 1: Right right, your bubbles right yeah.
Speaker 2: Here in the US, if you go to a funeral
Speaker 2: directorium also called a funeral home. You're going to find
Speaker 2: that they'd never use the word coffin.
Speaker 1: No, and you know it's pretty subtle, but the language
Speaker 1: is definitely. They don't say, uh, we'd love to pick
Speaker 1: out for you to pick out a coffin for your
Speaker 1: husband's dead body, and then we'll dig a grave over
Speaker 1: there and put it in the ground. Wah that we'll
Speaker 1: say things like we would like you to pick out
Speaker 1: a casket for your husband and.
Speaker 2: From our display area, from the display.
Speaker 1: Area, and we will take you there in the casket coach,
Speaker 1: not a hearse, and and place him in the internment space,
Speaker 1: which is not.
Speaker 2: A grave opened, and then we'll close afterward, rather than
Speaker 2: filling or digging the grave.
Speaker 1: They don't say words like digging and ground.
Speaker 2: Basically anything that brings to mind the guy from Phantasm.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Those the funeral industry avoids those words.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And of course we've ruined six feet under and
Speaker 1: the Fisher and Sons the boys such a great Yoh,
Speaker 1: Michael always did such a great job of, you know,
Speaker 1: being the proper funeral director and using all the all
Speaker 1: the words that you should use, like casket.
Speaker 2: He's good at it. And then he turned into a
Speaker 2: serial killer.
Speaker 1: No, well, dexter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there actually is a distinction beyond where you
Speaker 2: live with the word casket in coffin. Sure, there's a
Speaker 2: slight difference. Shape, Yeah, it's it's all. It's basically shape.
Speaker 2: A casket is a long rectangle and the top is
Speaker 2: usually split, so you can know that's a coffin. That's
Speaker 2: a casket.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a casket. Coffin is the hexagonal a
Speaker 1: hexagonal box. Yeah, and that you know, back in the
Speaker 1: day he had the old pine box. Actually a lot
Speaker 1: of those were just rectangular, but some were you know,
Speaker 1: had that familiar sort of keyhole shape.
Speaker 2: Well, back in the day, in the nineteenth century, the
Speaker 2: person who was responsible for carrying out your funeral services
Speaker 2: and building your coffin was usually the local carpenter, and
Speaker 2: he undertook your funeral service, hence the word undertaker from
Speaker 2: what I understand, Yeah, but it was usually somebody who
Speaker 2: built wagons and kitchens and whatever. They also built coffins too,
Speaker 2: and they built them to suit.
Speaker 1: That sounded to me like our first casket. Fact. Well done, Chuck, wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you Jerry for going the extra mile there.
Speaker 2: And if you like that, you're going to love this
Speaker 2: episode because this place is lousy with casket facts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we won't play the sound effect on this one.
Speaker 1: But I thought another interesting fact, because you know, I
Speaker 1: like origins of phrases and things. If someone casts a
Speaker 1: Pall over a room, yeah, a Paul was actually a
Speaker 1: dark cloth that they would put over the casket to
Speaker 1: I guess cover, you know, block out the bad juju
Speaker 1: of having the dead body in there. Right, So you
Speaker 1: would cast a Paul over the casket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Or if you're me, you cast a Paul over
Speaker 2: any room you enter. That's fun, no fun anymore, everybody
Speaker 2: can Can we talk a little bit about the funeral
Speaker 2: industry for a second. Yeah, about the casket industry, I
Speaker 2: should say specifically, there's still some furniture companies that make
Speaker 2: caskets on the side, like Lazy Boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know if Lazy Boy does it, but there's
Speaker 2: they represent a very small shit of the casket that's an.
Speaker 1: Ultimate lazy boy. You know your forever chair.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. Well, they actually have caskets for those people.
Speaker 2: It's called Goliath Caskets. Oversized Caskets, Order Oversized Caskets dot com.
Speaker 1: Huh. Anyway, of course, there's someone that does that, because
Speaker 1: that's a common thing. You know, caskets aren't you know
Speaker 1: some people of girth. Sure, that's pretty embarrassing, you know,
Speaker 1: when you can't fit in your casket.
Speaker 2: Right, And I went and looked, and these are very
Speaker 2: dignified caskets.
Speaker 1: They're just larger.
Speaker 2: They're for the larger person.
Speaker 1: Double widse. Wow.
Speaker 2: There's also uh okay, so one of the largest casket makers, Batesville,
Speaker 2: originally started out as.
Speaker 1: A furniture company.
Speaker 2: So there's like this whole origin of yeah, I'll build
Speaker 2: your chair and I'll build your coffin for your uncle too.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, it's carpentry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then that's kind of the way it went.
Speaker 2: There were some some groups that started to consolidate and
Speaker 2: just make caskets around the late the turn of the
Speaker 2: twentieth century, the beginning of the twentieth century, and you know,
Speaker 2: that was fine. They kind of created the industry. And
Speaker 2: then it was like the fifties after the Korean War,
Speaker 2: when metal caskets became like all a rage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that was mod looking and that was popular
Speaker 1: at the time. It was.
Speaker 2: And you'll also find in the funeral industry it was
Speaker 2: easy to subtly exploit the grieving out of their money.
Speaker 2: There it was very cheap to mass produce metal caskets,
Speaker 2: and so they were sold, sold, sold, There was a
Speaker 2: huge profit margin with them, and I think by the
Speaker 2: seventies half of all caskets were metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, because what better way to protect your loved
Speaker 1: one from the elements and the harsh afterlife that they
Speaker 1: may encounter than with a good old solid metal in casing,
Speaker 1: yes exactly, which also happens to be have greater profit margins,
Speaker 1: and it's cheaper to produce, so.
Speaker 2: It is it's cheaper to mass produce the other aspect
Speaker 2: of a metal coffin. In the rise of the metal coffin,
Speaker 2: it changed the casket making industry because it's really expensive
Speaker 2: to get into metal coffin making. Apparently it costs about
Speaker 2: a million dollars just for the dies to make a
Speaker 2: standard metal coffin, just for the dies alone. So this
Speaker 2: kind of consolidated the industry down to fewer and fewer
Speaker 2: companies that were making metal caskets, so it became a
Speaker 2: real industry at that point. And then ultimately the casket
Speaker 2: industry started to suffer and decline thanks to advances in
Speaker 2: medicine there were fewer deaths, so their profits.
Speaker 1: Dropped or the revenue dropped.
Speaker 2: And then starting in the eighties, people said, you know what,
Speaker 2: maybe cremation isn't so bad, right, And so in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty five, I think fifteen percent of people opted for cremation,
Speaker 2: and then by two thousand, I think, no, twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: it's like forty five percent. Oh really, yeah, and every
Speaker 2: time somebody gets cremated, the coffin industry dies a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, although you know, like you said, you can still
Speaker 1: have a casket to be cremated in I know, we
Speaker 1: covered this in the Cremation podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you have to, like you can't find somebody
Speaker 2: who just let your.
Speaker 1: But that can be super cheap. Like sometimes it's even cardboard.
Speaker 2: Well it's supposed to because it's got to burn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean at the very least wood will
Speaker 1: also burn. But you can you can spend a little
Speaker 1: bit more money, or you can get a temporary encasing,
Speaker 1: an outer encasing that is more attractive to show the family.
Speaker 1: And then when push comes to shove, they shove. They
Speaker 1: remove the outer casket and shove. Yeah, you in.
Speaker 2: It's like a rental casket just for the service.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and it can actually rent caskets period, like
Speaker 1: even if you aren't being cremated, just for a more
Speaker 1: showy experience and then they'll, you know, then you get
Speaker 1: the pine box treatment, right because nobody loves you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's expensive, man, people, a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: have the money to pay for a big funeral, and
Speaker 1: it's a lot of people really believe in that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Is really sad for them, you know, it is.
Speaker 2: Luckily there's such a thing as Walmart and Costco. Both
Speaker 2: of them sell caskets. Walmart has a casket for eleven
Speaker 2: ninety nine one ninety nine dollars, it's the Lady of
Speaker 2: Our Lady of Guadalupe casket model. And then Costco Yeah okay,
Speaker 2: and then Costco has the same same model for one
Speaker 2: hundred bucks more.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was surprised that it's not exactly the same.
Speaker 2: But it's nice to see that the big box retailers
Speaker 2: aren't price fixing coffins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great to see Walmart's on coffins.
Speaker 2: But I mean it's like that, you if you need
Speaker 2: a coffin and they're attractive looking coffins, I think they're fiberglass.
Speaker 1: Have you ever laid down in a coffin? Probably not,
Speaker 1: I haven't. I haven't either. I would just to see
Speaker 1: what it felt like. They look compy.
Speaker 2: Did you see the thing about the six feet Under
Speaker 2: Club in San Francisco? There is a club where it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you and your partner, life part swinging partner, shartner, whatever
Speaker 2: you yeah, your sex partner.
Speaker 1: Let's just call it what it is.
Speaker 2: Can Wright can come lay down in our coffin and
Speaker 2: will bury you and you guys can do it, and
Speaker 2: we are going to watch you on a night vision
Speaker 2: webcam that's going to be projected on the walls of
Speaker 2: the club above versus San Francisco, San Francisco six Feet
Speaker 2: Under Club, and you can email and reserve a space
Speaker 2: in their coffin.
Speaker 1: Huh is there? I mean, is there any room in
Speaker 1: the coffin this preak.
Speaker 2: I'd imagine it would have to be a larger, but
Speaker 2: maybe a goliath coffin double one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, huh, Well I will never do that, but it's
Speaker 1: interesting to know it's out there. It is out there
Speaker 1: in San Franciscos, like knowing my options. Well, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the anatomy of a coffin, chuckers h. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: the most important thing, of course, is that it is
Speaker 1: a barrier too, from the body to the you know,
Speaker 1: the elements. No one, Actually I don't care, like I
Speaker 1: already said, but most people, most normal people don't want
Speaker 1: to think about their loved ones bodies like decaying and
Speaker 1: being eaten by you know, being worm dirt. But one
Speaker 1: thing they cannot tell you is that it's illegal to
Speaker 1: say that we have a casket that will permanently seal
Speaker 1: the body, Like it's against the law to claim any
Speaker 1: sort of permanence, even if it's one of these new
Speaker 1: gasket coffins. What are those called. It's called a protective coffin, yeah,
Speaker 1: which actually has a rubber gasket, so it sealed much tighter.
Speaker 1: But they still legally can't say like it'll protect them forever.
Speaker 2: Right, because it will protect them from the elements. But
Speaker 2: there is such a thing as decay, like your body's
Speaker 2: going to decay in the nothingness. And apparently, I guess
Speaker 2: the funeral industry was selling coffins based on the idea
Speaker 2: that the body was going to survive forever. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: with this impermeable seal that the protective coffins had. I
Speaker 2: mean it wasn't letting anything in, but it also wasn't
Speaker 2: letting anything out, which is a problem. And in an
Speaker 2: air tight environment, anaerobic bacteria gets to work and as
Speaker 2: they start putrefying the flesh, they expel methane gas as
Speaker 2: a byproduct. And there's this thing called exploding coffin syndrome,
Speaker 2: which was most apparent in mausoleums, where a coffin would
Speaker 2: just blow up, and sometimes they would blow up so
Speaker 2: much that it would blow the mausoleum door open. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like a huge methane explosion from the gas built up
Speaker 2: from the decaying corpse in this protective coffin. So now
Speaker 2: they have ones that that don't let anything in, but
Speaker 2: they burp gas out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're called burping coffins, which is a great name
Speaker 1: for a coffin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but so is exploding casket syndrome.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Boy, could you imagine being a cemetery worker and
Speaker 1: seeing a mausoleum door explode wide open? Yeah, you're just
Speaker 1: like seeing it. Oh, I would quit my job that day.
Speaker 1: So it depends on where you are in the world.
Speaker 1: What you're going to get with your with your coffin
Speaker 1: and with regulations, you know, and less developed countries. Obviously
Speaker 1: they're less regulated. You could still be wrapped in a
Speaker 1: shroud in some parts of the world.
Speaker 2: Right here in the US, in the West, they're basically
Speaker 2: public health regulations, which is why that that place for
Speaker 2: the green burial is designated a green burial place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm sure.
Speaker 2: You the body won't come in contact with the groundwater,
Speaker 2: I think is what they're trying to keep from happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was in their fac Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's pretty much the whole public health regulation, and
Speaker 2: it's gotten to the point where most most people are
Speaker 2: buried with cement encasement around them, right.
Speaker 1: Oh, is that what they do these days? I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I knew that.
Speaker 2: Actually, it's so funny, like we're all still six year
Speaker 2: olds at our court.
Speaker 1: It's like, ewe, dead body. Gross. I can't let that
Speaker 1: get into the water. Yeah, that stuff doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1: You gets bodies, no not. I wouldn't want to drink
Speaker 1: a dead body now, but seeing one, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: the guy who poked a head floating in a bucket,
Speaker 1: you know, in the hospital that way. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: forgot about that story. I didn't poke it, but I
Speaker 1: mentally poked it. It didn't bother me. If you are
Speaker 1: in the Western world, you're probably gonna be dealing with
Speaker 1: wood or metal or fiberglass. If you live out in
Speaker 1: the desert, they may use things like local products like
Speaker 1: clay or stone, which is kind of interesting. I guess
Speaker 1: we got a lot of wood here in the United
Speaker 1: States though. Particle board yep. And like we mentioned the sad,
Speaker 1: sad cardboard cremation vessel.
Speaker 2: Right, which, again, if you're being cremated, you probably don't care.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was also up for cremation, and then I thought,
Speaker 1: I don't know, is there anything that's in the green
Speaker 1: burial seems like a good option.
Speaker 2: Sure, just become one with the dirt.
Speaker 1: Maybe, but I like the idea being scattered as well.
Speaker 2: Or again helping somebody helping other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they'll still like if you donate your body
Speaker 1: to science, did they not give you any sort of like.
Speaker 2: No, you can't be EMBALMD or anything. I guess you
Speaker 2: probably could if like, say you're going to the body farm.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be able to be INBALMD. Sure, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure there's like memorial services but I don't as I
Speaker 2: understand it. That's another thing that's eating into the casket
Speaker 2: industry's profits is body donation. Hey man, I think this
Speaker 2: is a perfect time to have a message break from
Speaker 2: our sponsor agreed, which means our jingle.
Speaker 1: Fish. All right, So I think this is actually a
Speaker 1: great time for a second casket. Fact.
Speaker 2: Oh, I like these already.
Speaker 1: All right. Back in the day, in the early nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: that was sort of a they called it a grave
Speaker 1: body snatching period, and people were into snatching up bodies,
Speaker 1: digging up graves, exhooming people, if you will, and basically
Speaker 1: selling bodies for money for medical research. It was a
Speaker 1: way to make a buck or doing research on your own.
Speaker 2: Medical College of Georgia was they found dozens of skeletons.
Speaker 2: I was like, I think it was one hundreds, dozens
Speaker 2: of skeletons of people who were dismembered, and they figured
Speaker 2: out that all of them had been stolen from graves.
Speaker 1: I remember that. Yeah, of course that wasn't in the
Speaker 1: early nineteenth century, was it.
Speaker 2: It was in the nineteenth century, Now, it was early,
Speaker 2: but it was.
Speaker 1: It was in the nineteenth So they developed something well,
Speaker 1: various things to you know, protect bodies like locked mausoleums
Speaker 1: and vaults, and then something I think it's kind of
Speaker 1: eat called a mort safe, which is basically an iron
Speaker 1: cage put over the coffin. It's like sunk into concrete.
Speaker 2: It's like what people used to protect their air conditioners today. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: but over like a grave.
Speaker 1: So that that was a mort safe and that kept
Speaker 1: people out. They had guards, sometimes staffed guards.
Speaker 2: I think the money the caretaker doubles as a guard,
Speaker 2: but they had people who they hired as guards would
Speaker 2: protect a specific grave.
Speaker 1: I think if you had enough dough, wow, you could
Speaker 1: have like, you know, the mausoleum with a guard. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. And that's you know, that's if you're rich
Speaker 1: and wealthy.
Speaker 2: They were also if you weren't wealthy. The other way
Speaker 2: to thwart grave robbers was to put heavy planks, yeah,
Speaker 2: to backfill the grave with rocks instead of dirt, which
Speaker 2: might not have kept somebody out, but they would have
Speaker 2: made quite a bit of noise digging you up. Sure,
Speaker 2: and uh yeah, have you ever been to Oakland Cemetery?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I go all the time, Well not all
Speaker 1: the time, but I go. It is BEAUTIFU couple of
Speaker 1: times a year. Yeah, you me and I went and
Speaker 1: just did like this, just walked around. Yeah, like there's
Speaker 1: some there's some mausoleums there that like there's no way
Speaker 1: you could have gotten into. Yeah, for those people that
Speaker 1: haven't been to Atlanta, that is what our probably oldest
Speaker 1: and like most famous cemetery. Yeah, it is our Parade
Speaker 1: de la Che.
Speaker 2: It's a yes, it's our Nicholas.
Speaker 1: I've been to that one too, actually, the one in Paris,
Speaker 1: what Parade de Lache? Oh is it the one with
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison. Yeah, of course nice, And I think Oscar
Speaker 1: Wilde is there and Chopin Well, but you know, Morrison's
Speaker 1: the one that you go by and there's like joints
Speaker 1: on the ground and like tabs of acid and stuff,
Speaker 1: and then you always see like the random guy kind
Speaker 1: of hanging out like waiting for everyone to turn their back,
Speaker 1: a bunch of dirty hippies, basically.
Speaker 2: Jackets give me a break.
Speaker 1: In Ghana and other parts of Africa, it is kind
Speaker 1: of cool because they will they have a very sort
Speaker 1: of a joyous way of celebrating death with their bright
Speaker 1: colored coffins and even odd shapes that would pay honor
Speaker 1: to what this person loved in life. I saw one
Speaker 1: that was like a giant shoe and this sky, this
Speaker 1: this Attacan dude was just like, you know, it must
Speaker 1: have been as relative and he was just so proud
Speaker 1: to show that they were bearing him in a giant shoe.
Speaker 2: So it's like it's like to the dead in Ghana,
Speaker 2: what a pinata.
Speaker 1: Is to like a kid in Mexico.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, they have like pinanas that are like shaped
Speaker 2: for they're like different specific Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not always just a kooka burro.
Speaker 2: No, Okay, there's like's a hello and like really yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's there's some great piontas out there.
Speaker 1: And then the other example they gave in here is
Speaker 1: like if it was a businessman, he might be buried
Speaker 1: in something that resembled his luxury car, Yeah, I saw.
Speaker 1: Or a fisherman, it might be a fish shaped coffin.
Speaker 2: The fish finally got him back.
Speaker 1: He's in the belly of it.
Speaker 2: So, Chuck, you mentioned things that coffins may be made
Speaker 2: out of. Yeah, you mentioned like wood, fiberglass.
Speaker 1: Elm oak, hardywoods.
Speaker 2: Bronze is still used on occasion. Yeah, sure, And that's
Speaker 2: the shell of the coffin. Yeah, and then the inside
Speaker 2: you'll find the lining, usually some sort of rich fabric
Speaker 2: like taffeta or velvet or something that looks like that.
Speaker 2: Maybe valure if they like juicy clothes that.
Speaker 1: Kind of thing, Yeah, silk maybe, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's stuffed with batting, yeah, to keep the corpse
Speaker 2: nice and comfortable. Sure, And that's pretty much it. You've
Speaker 2: got hardware on the outside, and that's a casket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably gonna be warm colors here in the
Speaker 1: Western world. Old, it's not Ghana. You're not gonna see
Speaker 1: a lot of like brightly painted coffins and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: No, but also they kind of avoid like you're probably
Speaker 2: I can see a black coffin anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Those are called receding colors. They're they're dismal and of
Speaker 2: desperation and despair.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen a lot of like light
Speaker 1: gray and things like that. Yeah, or just wood color.
Speaker 1: If you get like a really nice wood, like cherry,
Speaker 1: sometimes it'll just be in that, you know, that'll be
Speaker 1: the outer shell.
Speaker 2: Right, And those are pricy, yes, they are. As a
Speaker 2: matter of fact, the average cost of a funeral in
Speaker 2: the US in two thousand and nine was six five
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty, which was less than I thought.
Speaker 1: I think a green barrel is about half that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1: I think they're like two or three grand.
Speaker 2: Because the coffin in that average funeral was two two
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety five dollars the average cost of a
Speaker 2: metal coffin in two thousand and nine, which in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, funeral homes and crematories pulled in eleven
Speaker 2: point nine five billion dollars, and one of the ways
Speaker 2: they pulled in that much was from cost casket sales.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't know if we even should say
Speaker 1: this out loud, because it sounds like an unfounded accusation
Speaker 1: that cheap coffins are purposely made ugly so they can upsell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you think that's true? Ah, that's probably true.
Speaker 2: Well, I know I've read that the funeral home industry
Speaker 2: marks up caskets that they buy. They resell them for
Speaker 2: up to five Yeah, more than they paid for them.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a business, and that's their product, you know
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: It's a business in the the customers are in a
Speaker 2: really really uh easily exploited place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I don't know though, I just think
Speaker 1: it is a business, and because it deals with death,
Speaker 1: it's very easy for someone to say, like, you're exploiting
Speaker 1: these people or taking advantage of them when they're I
Speaker 1: just don't think that's true. It's not.
Speaker 2: I think that you can't cast that net across the
Speaker 2: entire industry.
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's sure. There's some shysters s,
Speaker 1: but they're also for everybody. Yeah, you know, bad apples, Josh. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a lot of opulence here in
Speaker 1: the United States. Some people get into that, but apparently
Speaker 1: in Australia and Great Britain they're a little more reserved
Speaker 1: with what they'll spend on a casket. In some cultures,
Speaker 1: like the Jewish faith, it's very common to to not
Speaker 1: have any sort of garish thing. They want you to
Speaker 1: be buried in something very plain, so you're not distinguished
Speaker 1: as to your place in life, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently they'll even the hardware that they used to
Speaker 2: carry now is removable, so like.
Speaker 1: When you're buried, you're buried in a plane box.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that, that's yeah, that's cool. You want
Speaker 2: to talk about the bow people.
Speaker 1: The hanging coffins of the bow not to.
Speaker 2: Be confused with the Hell of the upside down centers
Speaker 2: in Big Trouble in Little China, right, although this is
Speaker 2: in Sechuan Province of China.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Bo people are an ethnic group that populated the area,
Speaker 2: and they have this really neat tradition of putting the
Speaker 2: coffins of their deceased up on like three hundred foot cliffs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just craigs, little caves, and for centuries, no one has
Speaker 2: had any idea how they got them up there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at one point they head close to three hundred
Speaker 1: Now it's only about one hundred and three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty to four hundred feet. And you've seen did you
Speaker 1: see pictures? Yeah, it's crazy. I mean they're like, I
Speaker 1: don't see how they did it. They think now they
Speaker 1: might have lowered them down, but they still you know
Speaker 1: that they're on it looks like they're on wood planks
Speaker 1: that are sticking out of the cliffs. So how they
Speaker 1: do that, Yeah, I can't figure it out. It's pretty neat.
Speaker 2: It's like a little village of coffins is kind of
Speaker 2: clustered on this cliff side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with the idea that having your relatives higher up
Speaker 1: is a place of greater respect to be looking up
Speaker 1: at them, because that's where the deities were, at the
Speaker 1: tops of mountains, and that would place them closer to
Speaker 1: the deities.
Speaker 2: Yes, you go up here now, yeah, because you're dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very interesting.
Speaker 2: What about the Egyptians, They had the money coffins if
Speaker 2: you ask me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we covered this with Tutt obviously, the big
Speaker 1: sarcopha guy. But they didn't they believe that you would
Speaker 1: just be sent to your you know, all this stuff
Speaker 1: would go with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you needed in your afterlife for your journey to
Speaker 2: the after world, the underworld, and I guess the whole
Speaker 2: it was the opposite of what the Jews think.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: The more socioeconomic status you can bestow upon a grave,
Speaker 2: the better off the person is going to be in
Speaker 2: the next life. Oh, you have a bejeweled casket, right,
Speaker 2: you're you're in our You're okay, in our book.
Speaker 1: But dazzled. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But they actually had texts. What we know called the
Speaker 2: Egyptian Book of the Dead was originally called the It
Speaker 2: grew out of what are called the Egyptian Coffin texts,
Speaker 2: and there were two the Book of the Dead, the
Speaker 2: Coffin Text that became the Book of the Dead was
Speaker 2: for everybody, regardless of your socioeconomic status, and it told
Speaker 2: you how to be buried. And we've done how mummies work,
Speaker 2: so we got into that a lot. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 2: basically what we relied on. But there was also one
Speaker 2: for the Pharaohs, the kings, the elite, and those are
Speaker 2: the pyramid.
Speaker 1: Texts, yes, and that's the one that later evolved to
Speaker 1: the Book of the Dead, right, the Pyramid text. I
Speaker 1: think the Coffin texts, I don't know. Hey, yeah's a
Speaker 1: pyramid text.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Pyramid text is separate. That's the one for
Speaker 2: the for the elite.
Speaker 1: Right, and that's what evolved to the Book of the Dead.
Speaker 1: Oh it did, okay, Yeah, but I think what was
Speaker 1: in the Coffin Text was contained within the Pyramid text, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the Coffin Text was an umbrella, right,
Speaker 2: that gave birth to both. It was the original one
Speaker 2: and it actually had the first described cosmology ever recorded.
Speaker 1: Yes, the Book of Two A's within the Egyptian Coffin
Speaker 1: Text was the first time they basically said here's what
Speaker 1: happens to you after death? Yeah, pretty cool. Could happen
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: And it's basically you you cross from one part of
Speaker 2: the sky into a lake of fire and then across
Speaker 2: into another part of this s guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the coffin texts have spells and things to
Speaker 1: help you out as well in your journey.
Speaker 2: Like check out my bejeweled casket. I'm okay in your book, O, Chuck.
Speaker 2: We couldn't talk about coffins if we didn't talk about
Speaker 2: a really interesting and neat trend of the eighteenth and
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, maybe even seventeenth, but I think eighteenth and
Speaker 2: nineteenth century called safety coffins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It's a common fear for people to
Speaker 1: it's called the tapaphobia taphophobia, and that's the fear of
Speaker 1: being buried alive. Yeah, and that it's a real thing,
Speaker 1: and people had it then and they have it now.
Speaker 2: Well, they had good reason to have it back then,
Speaker 2: because it happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There was a book called Premature Burial and How It
Speaker 2: May Be Prevented. It's an eighteen ninety six book by
Speaker 2: a social reformer named William Tebb and a couple of
Speaker 2: co authors. Actually, one of the co authors was a
Speaker 2: doctor who himself had been prematurely buried.
Speaker 1: Oh really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they went over like account after account, and they
Speaker 2: even had a chapter called Dubious Accounts. But they basically
Speaker 2: came up with two hundred and nineteen instances of narrow
Speaker 2: escape from premature burial, one hundred and forty nine cases
Speaker 2: of actual premature burial, ten cases of vivisection before death.
Speaker 2: So the person they thought was dead they started to
Speaker 2: cut open and they weren't dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then then six feet under club.
Speaker 2: And then two cases of embalming before death. Wow, so
Speaker 2: like it happened before embalming. It was like there was
Speaker 2: no way to tell you were dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess that was the problem. Is
Speaker 1: medical science had advanced to the point where you could
Speaker 1: always tell if someone was dead.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and there was such thing as cholera, which apparently
Speaker 2: gives you the appearance of being dead even when you're not,
Speaker 2: So there was good reason to fear being buried alive.
Speaker 2: And as a resultless thing called the safety coffin came up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there were I'm sure you've done some other
Speaker 1: research on this. They were all different sorts of methods
Speaker 1: that they had from a vault that had like a
Speaker 1: little window and a wheel you could turn on the
Speaker 1: inside to let yourself out, which would be nice. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it was just a breathing tube.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the one that was patented in eighteen ninety six
Speaker 2: by a guy named Count Carnice Carniki, which is awesome.
Speaker 2: He had something that was there was a tube with
Speaker 2: a spring going all the way the six feet down
Speaker 2: and there was a little glass ball at the end
Speaker 2: of the tube and it rested on the deceased chest
Speaker 2: and if any movement of the chest happened, like you
Speaker 2: took one breath anything like that, it would trip the
Speaker 2: spring and this passageway would fly open to let air
Speaker 2: in and a flag would rise up above your grade
Speaker 2: they were still alive. So that one was one of
Speaker 2: the most well known safety coffins and actually in premature
Speaker 2: burial and how it may be prevented. There's a whole
Speaker 2: little chapter dedicated to it, and actually you can find
Speaker 2: the full text of that online really for free. It's
Speaker 2: really interesting.
Speaker 1: There were also things that would trigger like a bell ringing.
Speaker 1: One that even had a long fused firecracker that I
Speaker 1: guess you could set off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that'll get the attention to somebody.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: So in that book, Teb and his friends they endorse
Speaker 2: to prevent premature burial, either safety coffin or cremation, whether
Speaker 2: like even if you are dead then or even if
Speaker 2: you're not dead, you're gonna be dead afterward.
Speaker 1: So we guarantee you won't be buried alive exactly because
Speaker 1: you'll be creamy. We're not even going to bury the
Speaker 1: ultimate safety coffin.
Speaker 2: And there's this guy named doctor Timothy Clark Smith in
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety three. He died in Middlebury, Vermont, and he's
Speaker 2: buried to this day, which is customary in Evergreen Cemetery.
Speaker 2: And if you go to his burial mound, there's a
Speaker 2: fourteen by fourteen inch of plate glass opens up onto
Speaker 2: what was once his face six feet down. Wow, so
Speaker 2: that people could come check on him and make sure
Speaker 2: he was dead because he had tatophobia and was very
Speaker 2: very much afraid of that fate.
Speaker 1: That's got to be tied to claustrophobia somehow.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they think the APA being they think that
Speaker 2: you've had some sort of early childhood encounter with an
Speaker 2: enclosed space yea, and either you developed tafophobia or you
Speaker 2: become the batman.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's their that's their judgment that you know what
Speaker 1: that sounds like. That sounds like a casket. Fact, let's
Speaker 1: hear it, ah man, that sweetenectar.
Speaker 2: Let's see what else. I got a couple more things.
Speaker 1: You got anything else? I got nothing else?
Speaker 2: So you can We said that the average kufsmin is
Speaker 2: like twenty two twenty three hundred dollars. You can also
Speaker 2: shell out thirty thousand dollars, of course you can. Batesville
Speaker 2: Casket Company makes the Promethean and it is the coffin
Speaker 2: that Michael Jackson and James Brown were buried in separately.
Speaker 2: They had their own coffins.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, what's the deal was it? Just like?
Speaker 2: It is nice looking, rich, luxurious like navy velvet interior
Speaker 2: lining this it looks it must be gold but polished
Speaker 2: to this high shine. It's a beautiful casket. I have
Speaker 2: to say. There is no reason in the world for
Speaker 2: anyone ever to be buried in a casket like this.
Speaker 2: But it's out there right. If you want to go
Speaker 2: the other way, you can go to di i y
Speaker 2: coffin dot com and there are schematics to build your
Speaker 2: own very plain coffin.
Speaker 1: I saw that, I thought about that might be a
Speaker 1: nice thing to.
Speaker 2: Do, build your own coffin that King of the Hill.
Speaker 2: There's a King of the where Hank builds his own coffin.
Speaker 2: He's talking about how he started. He's like, well, I
Speaker 2: looked into it and long story short.
Speaker 1: I got the bug. Now he's made. He made, he made.
Speaker 2: His first try was terrible, so he gave that to Peggy.
Speaker 2: And then his second try it's really nice. He's gotten
Speaker 2: it down pat and he Peggy gets the one where
Speaker 2: like the top doesn't close all the.
Speaker 1: Way right, That's what mine would look like.
Speaker 2: It's a good episode.
Speaker 1: I'm not a skilled craftsman, but I enjoy it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then lastly, you mean, I saw Mike Tyson do
Speaker 2: his little his little spoken word thing, but we saw
Speaker 2: him d C. It was great, and he talked about
Speaker 2: it was really sweet because I'm really ambivalent about him,
Speaker 2: because you know, it's just he's a really there's a lot.
Speaker 1: To him, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Sure, And but one of the things that he said
Speaker 2: he did was his mother was buried in a potter's
Speaker 2: field with an unmarked grave and like a just a
Speaker 2: cheap box. Yeah, and he said the first time he
Speaker 2: made money, he had her exhumed and bought like the
Speaker 2: most expensive headstone and the most expensive casket he could find,
Speaker 2: and had her buried in like this other night cemetery.
Speaker 1: It's sweet. Yeah. You know there's a pauper's grave over
Speaker 1: by the drive in movie theater here in Atlanta. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that right? Yeah, it's just yeah, it's a pauper's
Speaker 1: grave and lots of like bad stuff goes on there
Speaker 1: now apparently what oh like prostitution and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's way worse dragging. Yeah, I'm sure some teens are drinking.
Speaker 2: That's probably not a good safe place to do that.
Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's also Potter's Field pauper's grave in Oakland Cemetery.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's basically like a big expanse of grass. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a bunch of people who were poor were bearing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I did Mount Vernon when I was up there,
Speaker 1: you know George Washington's place. Is it cool? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really neat because they still do stuff the old fashioned way.
Speaker 1: You know, like if they need a room painted, they
Speaker 1: grind up dye and mix it with water and that stuff. Wow.
Speaker 1: But you know there is like you know, he and
Speaker 1: Martha are buried in this like beautiful mausoleum, and then
Speaker 1: there's also like the slave you know, grave sites, and
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, definitely like he freed all his
Speaker 1: slaves and his will, which was a good thing to do,
Speaker 1: I guess. But anytime you go to one of those
Speaker 1: plantation type things and you see like the opulence of
Speaker 1: his thing and then this other little side area where
Speaker 1: the slaves are buried, it's just sort of like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all that happened. That's a sad reminder, it is. And
Speaker 1: no one was visiting like the slave area as much even,
Speaker 1: and I was just sort of like that kind of
Speaker 1: rubbed me a little bit.
Speaker 2: Did you go over there and visit it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely good for you. Yeah. Nice. So you got
Speaker 1: anything else? I got nothing else.
Speaker 2: That's coffins.
Speaker 1: That's coffins. I was going to write this article a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago because it didn't exist, because I
Speaker 1: wanted to do this.
Speaker 2: Oh good, I'm glad it came along.
Speaker 1: I think that's just a lesson kids. If you wait
Speaker 1: around long enough, somebody else might do well.
Speaker 2: Then, since Chuck gave wait, I think Chuck, that might
Speaker 2: be a casket backed.
Speaker 1: What is that the last casket back? All right?
Speaker 2: Okay, well since we had our last casket fact. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I gotta say. If you want to read this article
Speaker 2: on coffins, you can go to HowStuffWorks dot com and
Speaker 2: you can type in that word c F F I
Speaker 2: N in the search bar, and that means it's time
Speaker 2: now for listener mail.
Speaker 1: Josh, I'm gonna call this very manipulative email from a
Speaker 1: Georgia tech fan. Here we go, Peter in Virginia, he
Speaker 1: knows it's coming. I want to tell you, guys how
Speaker 1: your podcast made a difference in my life. I recently
Speaker 1: found out that I have diffuse large B cell lymphoma.
Speaker 1: As a part of the testing process to determine what
Speaker 1: stage you are, they shoot you full of barium and
Speaker 1: then perform a CT scan. The cancer cells divide rapidly,
Speaker 1: so based on how much the barium glows during the CT,
Speaker 1: we'll tell them how much your cancer has spread. As
Speaker 1: part of the process, you have to remain still as
Speaker 1: possible for an hour prior to the CT, so as
Speaker 1: little circulation in the blood and barium as possible. Then
Speaker 1: you sit for another hour, also as still as possible,
Speaker 1: while getting the body scanned. Needless to say, you feel
Speaker 1: very woozy after the barium, and it's very anxious time.
Speaker 1: Your mind wants to wander into numerous worst case scenarios
Speaker 1: while you were alone in a cold, dark room. However,
Speaker 1: I was overjoyed when the nurses said I could listen
Speaker 1: to my MP three player. I am glad you replaced that.
Speaker 1: I spent both of those hours listening to your podcast. Actually,
Speaker 1: I even got one of the nurses to tape my
Speaker 1: phone next to my head during the scanning process to
Speaker 1: ensure I would hear. It provided a great distraction and
Speaker 1: really took my mind off what certainly would have been
Speaker 1: very gruesome two hours. Also, the doctor said that beating
Speaker 1: cancer certainly is partly mental, and the attitude and response
Speaker 1: from the treatment have a large part to do with
Speaker 1: your response. And I'm a graduate from Georgia Tech, and
Speaker 1: if I could hear a go jackets in the air
Speaker 1: seriously make my week and increase my odds of survival.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I know you both went to Uga. However,
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that we can put a side our differences
Speaker 1: and come together to rally behind something like cancer. And
Speaker 1: I emailed Peter back and said, you're very manipulative human beings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he laughed and thought that was really funny and
Speaker 1: gave me and you a go dogs in the email.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, and he thought that might be the like
Speaker 1: a carbon offset. Okay, So Peter, obviously, go jackets. Buzz
Speaker 1: buzz buzz, Go jackets. Go Jamblenreck from Georgia Tech, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And that's where it ends, my friend. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: wish you all the best obviously in your treatment and
Speaker 1: let us know how it's going. We'll be thinking about you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Peter.
Speaker 2: Hang in there, buddy, good luck, and keep us posted.
Speaker 2: And we're never going to say go jackets again.
Speaker 1: That's right. That's your one shot, yep.
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