Pens with human remains in them

[Lamy4life]

I found out about the JFK assassination pen stand, which lead to me think about pens with human remains in the. It dont imagine it being hard to work with cremated ashes in a pen with resin. You could also try a glass dip pen with cremated ashes. There are so many odd vintage pens and I must know if one has human remains in it. 

There are human skin leather books which I find quite interesting too, I think one of them was a journal. I think removing the skin off a corpse would be corpse abuse but the laws in the US at least are quite broad. 

 

[Aether]

In Britain history the grave robbers were not charged with stealing bodies - which wasn't a crime - but with desecrating holy ground - which was.   

 

As for my use of pens, I sure that some have pieces of finger jammed in the nib from time to time when I accident to stab me with them! 

[Paul-in-SF]

23 hours ago, Lamy4life said:

There are human skin leather books which I find quite interesting too, I think one of them was a journal. I think removing the skin off a corpse would be corpse abuse but the laws in the US at least are quite broad. 

 

This is a little too close to practices (that I have heard about, not verified) in the Holocaust to make comfortable reading. 

 

My sister had a glass object, I think a paperweight but I have never seen it, made with some of both my parents' cremated remains in it, done by a friend of hers. She asked me if I wanted one but I declined. I guess I'm too sentimental, but the only good reason I can think of for dismembering a dead body are voluntary scientific research, voluntary organ donation, or determining cause of death. Anything else seems (to me) the definition of ghoulish. 

[Aether]

Depends on how you mentally/spiritually/emotionally regard the separation of self from meat. 

[miwishi63]

Having worked closely with the funeral industry for the past three decades, I have witnessed a movement from more burials than cremations to more cremations than burials with an exponential growth in the "extras" offered with cremations. I suspect, though I have not seen it personally, that one could commission a pen made using cremains without too much trouble.

 

If the OP is wondering about pens made with skin, blood, or bone, I suspect that this would be difficult today though there is no reason not to believe that it may have been done in the past when bits of human remains were incorporated into all sorts of objects. All speculation, of course. There seems to be less concern about dividing up cremains than about dividing up bits of bodies for relatives and friends to share. I don't advocate either practice, by the way, though I am largely unopposed to the former.

[alexwi]

When fountain pens were the writing instrument of choice, gold and silver prosthetic teeth were common, so if this discussion presented itself back then, those would've been a perfect candidate for nibs. 

 

On the other hand, being Jewish, something like this, as @Paul-in-SF wrote, hits a bit too close to home to be something I'd be comfortable with.

 

Alex

[Paul-in-SF]

17 hours ago, Aether said:

Depends on how you mentally/spiritually/emotionally regard the separation of self from meat. 

 

It also depends on how the self was separated from the meat -- i.e., in case it's not clear, how the person became a body and lost the self. 

[Lamy4life]

Oh my sorry, I didnt mean to offend anyone. I heard about human leather notebooks from a teacher I think but it was from medical stuff as there was a large disconnection between patient and doctor. Dont quote me on it. 

 

[inkstainedruth]

I'm with Paul-in-SF.  Especially after going to an estate sale a while back that was at some former dentist's home.  There was a guy standing near me in line, who was hoping to be able to find stuff like extracted teeth because he had a business selling stuff like that -- often coming from mortuaries where nobody ever came to collect the bodies which otherwise would have been buried in a "potters field" type cemetery -- mostly to med students, IIRC, but also to people who did weird things like make books -- generally for people who were into stuff like "the dark arts" -- that were bound in leather made from human skin....  It kinda grossed me out but apparently there ARE people into that sort of thing who will pay big money for such....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[essayfaire]

Mourning jewelry was a thing in the past - people would have lockets of the braided hair of soldiers who died in wars, and it was sometimes braided into objects.  I actually have had jewelry and key rings made from the tail hair of dead horses, as a sentimental reminder.  I suppose one could do one of those wearable pens attached to a dead loved-one's hair if their hair was long enough to braid into a ring top, which would be like the horse hair keyring.

 

It's grim, but it isn't.  But when it isn't part of a family thing, and instead is a macabre interest, it gives me the heebee jeebeez (sp?).

 

I also know someone who had her dead cat turned into some sort of lab-created diamond.  For some reason I found that weird in a way that I did not the braided items - maybe because of the lack of historical precedent.

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

I've heard of people who take their deceased pets to taxidermists.  That sounds even weirder and more morbid than the cat turned into a diamond.

As for ashes in general, there's a part of me that (assuming I ever had the kind of money to do such a trip) like to dig up my parents' ashes and travel to all the places they had been to in the world that meant something to them (my parents LOVED to travel) kind of like what Martin Sheen's character does in the movie _The Way_ (where the character's somewhat estranged son is killed in a hiking accident as he's starting out on the pilgrimage route from southern France to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of Spain).  So, places like the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, a bunch of historic sites in the UK, the archaeological site at Mycenae in Greece, The Great Pyramids, and some hotel in a safari park somewhere in Kenya which is basically treehouses around a watering hole.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Aether]

None of it should be weird or morbid, it is how we are socialised that makes it so, there is no objective truth to the labelling.   In Tibet, as an ensample, discs of bone used to be (and as far as I can tell still are) cut from the skulls of dead monks and used to make mala beads.  The concept of respect for remains rests mostly (if not entirely) in superstition.  Consider the concept of 'sky burials' - the body rendered in such a manner that it's substance passes back into the world in an active way.  Death in the service of life, as it were. 

 

Right now there are pen makers using parts of animals to make pens, especially horns and pieces of whalebone and the like. There usually is no specific law in Western societies that prevents a person from bequeathing their bones to such an enterprise. 

[inkstainedruth]

1 minute ago, Aether said:

None of it should be weird or morbid, it is how we are socialised that makes it so, there is no objective truth to the labelling.   In Tibet, as an ensample, discs of bone used to be (and as far as I can tell still are) cut from the skulls of dead monks and used to make mala beads. 

Yes, but remember that in Tibet, the people who are involved in death rituals are considered somewhat low-class/low caste/unclean.  (I read the book Seven Years in Tibet a few years ago, and also saw the movie of it -- and corpses were taken to some cliff or mountaintop for birds to eat the flesh.)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ParramattaPaul]

7 hours ago, alexwi said:

On the other hand, being Jewish, something like this, as @Paul-in-SF wrote, hits a bit too close to home to be something I'd be comfortable with.

Alex, I'm a Catholic.  I share your sentiment that this echoes too loudly of the Holocaust. 

[Lamy4life]

Death in general is a touchy subject, especially in western culture.

I feel that a corpse isn't anything to be afraid of and its nothing disgusting. 

death rituals change alot due to culture, for example funeral strippers. 

I don't really know how to word this, it makes more sense in my head than words. 

[JungleJim]

I remember that Krone once made the Abraham Lincoln Fountain Pen that had his DNA incorporated in it.

 

Link:   https://www.peytonstreetpens.com/krone-lincoln-l-e-fountain-pen-woodgrain-ebonite-button-fill-18k-medium-nib-mint-in-box-restored.html

(for Reference Only.)

 

The Amethyst cabochon at the top of the cap contained a small amount of Lincoln's DNA.

[Aether]

5 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Yes, but remember that in Tibet, the people who are involved in death rituals are considered somewhat low-class/low caste/unclean.  (I read the book Seven Years in Tibet a few years ago, and also saw the movie of it -- and corpses were taken to some cliff or mountaintop for birds to eat the flesh.)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Rogyapas - the (usually) men who perform the dispersal of the remains are generally lay-Buddhists.   This does not mean that they are low class/caste per se, but that they are not part of the monastic sangha.  Sometimes the practice would be performed by a monk.   The work of the rogyapas is not looked down on or in disdain or revulsion.  This form of death practice is an action that helps understanding of the impermanence of life and is considered an act of generosity on the part of the deceased and their family - a virtue in Buddhist thought.   The practice is usually a little hard to stomach for people who come from alternate cultures. 

 

With Buddhism arising in a predominantly Hindu environment there is perhaps a degree of overlap in practices and who undertakes them, and it is likely that specific groups share some of what you state while others do not.   

 

Edit for clarity:  Buddhism in general does not support the notion of a caste system.  However, the larger society may do.

[Wahl]

Not for me, thank you !

[inkstainedruth]

19 hours ago, Aether said:

 

Rogyapas - the (usually) men who perform the dispersal of the remains are generally lay-Buddhists.   This does not mean that they are low class/caste per se, but that they are not part of the monastic sangha.  Sometimes the practice would be performed by a monk.   The work of the rogyapas is not looked down on or in disdain or revulsion.  This form of death practice is an action that helps understanding of the impermanence of life and is considered an act of generosity on the part of the deceased and their family - a virtue in Buddhist thought.   The practice is usually a little hard to stomach for people who come from alternate cultures. 

 

With Buddhism arising in a predominantly Hindu environment there is perhaps a degree of overlap in practices and who undertakes them, and it is likely that specific groups share some of what you state while others do not.   

 

Edit for clarity:  Buddhism in general does not support the notion of a caste system.  However, the larger society may do.

Thanks for the clarification.  It's been a long time since I read the book -- which, of course, was written by someone European, so that probably colored his perceptions.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[alexwi]

On 5/28/2022 at 9:11 PM, ParramattaPaul said:

Alex, I'm a Catholic.  I share your sentiment that this echoes too loudly of the Holocaust. 

 

I'm not offended at all by this discussion and, as much as I obviously loathe that period of history, I find it anything but taboo - http://photo.alexwieder.com/my-favorite-spoon/

 

If anything, it's an interesting thread - a few weeks ago, I purchased a couple of tiny pill holders on aliexpress that are marketed as vessels supposed to be filled with ashes and hung on a necklace, which I find utterly silly, but to each their own.

 

Alex