Even if showcasing your grandfather ’s skull on your living way mantelpiece is the type of quirky protection he absolutely would have loved , your fortune of make it pass are essentially zilch . Mortician Caitlin Doughty explains precisely why in her newbookWill My Cat Eat My Eyeballs ? : Big Questions From Tiny Mortals About Death , excerptedbyThe Atlantic .
Having spell license from dear old granddad put forward that you are allowed to — and , in fact , should — expose his skull after his death simply is n’t enough , for two intellect . First of all , mostfuneral homeslack the equipment required to decollate a corpse and thoroughly de - flesh the skull . Doughty admits that she does n’t even know what that process would entail , though her best surmisal for a right cleaning involvesdermestid beetles , which museums and forensic science laboratory often apply to “ delicately corrode the dead anatomy off a skeleton without destroying the bones . ” Unfortunately , the average funeral home does n’t keep flesh - eat beetles on consideration .
The second hinderance to your macabre mantle program line piece is a sound issue . to maintain obedience for the dead , abuse - of - remains laws forbid funeral home from pass over cadaver or bones , but the terms take issue widely from state to state . Kentucky ’s law , for example , forbid using a stiff in any way that would “ outrage average family sensibility , ” but leaves it completely loose to interpretation how an “ average menage ” would behave .
Sometimes , of trend , it ’s relatively obvious . Doughty tell the case ofJulia Pastrana , who suffer from hypertrichosis , a term that get hair growth all over her face and dead body . Her hubby had her corpse taxidermied and display it in junkie show during the nineteenth C as a money - making scheme — a clear example of corpse insult . Since the laws are so equivocal , however , funeral professionals stray on the side of care .
Funeralhomes also must submit a burial - and - transit permit for each soundbox so the province has a record of where that body went , and the common option are inhumation , cremation , ordonation to science . “ There is no ‘ trim down off the head , de - flesh it , preserve the skull , and then cremate the quietus of the eubstance ’ option , ” Doughty says . “ Nothing even closelipped . ”
If you ’re think the law go vague enough that it ’s worth a pellet , jurisprudence professor and human - corpse law expert Tanya Marsh might convince you otherwise . As she severalize Doughty , “ I will argue with you all daylight long that it is n’t legal in any state in the United States to boil down a human head to a skull . ”
The laws about buying or selling human cadaver also variegate by state , and are “ vague , confusing , and impose at random , ” according to Doughty . Many privately sold pearl come from India and China , and , though eBay has banned the sales agreement of human clay , there are other agency of secure a unknown ’s skull online “ if you are willing to engage in some suspect net Commerce Department , ” Doughty says .
[ h / tThe Atlantic ]
