Tier-Tod: Bestattungen, Friedhöfe und Grabmale für Tiere. 13. Tagung der Reihe “Sterben, Tod und Jenseitsglaube”

Tier-Tod: Bestattungen, Friedhöfe und Grabmale für Tiere. 13. Tagung der Reihe “Sterben, Tod und Jenseitsglaube”

Organisatoren
Schwabenakademie Irsee
Ort
Irsee
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
23.06.2014 - 25.06.2014
Url der Konferenzwebsite
Von
Andrea M. Gáldy, International Network Collecting & Display

The recent conference at Schwabenakademie Irsee explored our changing relationship with the non-human animal world, putting a particular focus on pet cemeteries and on monuments to heroic animals. It was the 13th event in the series “Sterben, Tod und Jenseitsglaube” and the first scholarly conference on this topic. As discussed by MARKWART HERZOG (Irsee) in his introduction, relations between humans and companion animals have changed drastically, specifically during the 20th century, and completely redefined the role pets play in their human families during life and death. The emphasis lay on companion animals and burial customs in Europe even though, according to PIA SCHMITT (Frankfurt am Main), Japan offers a particularly rich field for this kind of research: archaeologists discovered animal burials in a human cemetery dating back to prehistory. During the Kofun period (late 3rd century-mid 6th century) clay figures shaped like roosters, dogs or horses formed part of the grave goods for human dignitaries. But cats and dogs also received burial during the 17th to the 19th century when more pets were kept at home. After World War II, as the nuclear family became the standard and birth-rates plummeted, the “pet-industry” rose in Japan to become a trillion-yen business by the 1990s.

ULRIKE NEURATH (Kassel) investigated animal burials as part of European cultural history. The aristocracy kept mostly (war-) horses and hunting dogs with whom they developed close friendships and shared moments of triumph as well as hardship. The rising urban bourgeoisie imitated the customs of the nobility and started to appreciate pets independently from the potential economic gain. Pets were now finally regarded as individuals who felt joy and pain much like humans. From the Enlightenment onwards, pets acquired a special status within the families and were admitted into the private sphere; eventually this development gave rise to animal rights movements. According to the speaker, the increase of leisure time during the 19th century finally gave the working classes access to hobbies such as sports and the keeping of pets.

According to MATTHIAS MEITZLER (Frankfurt am Main) the consensus of who is a pet with quasi-human rights and what is a working animal only works within closely defined cultural areas: man’s best friend quickly becomes man’s favourite food. Since sociology is traditionally geared towards humans, thanato-sociology as a sub-branch generally investigates social attitudes towards death and mourning as exercised by humans for humans. Only recently has the impact of human-animal studies led towards a new research focus which affects not only human perception of animals but also softens the borders between human and animal. Even though thanato-sociology is still a niche topic, the mourning process is today treated differently from what used to be the norm and, therefore, includes the administration of death, the actors of death and the empirical research on the cemetery. Individualisation and secularisation have reached the cemetery as regards humans and animals; therefore, human sepulchral culture now extends to pet funerary culture. Animal cemeteries are booming: after a life shared with a pet it seems wrong to dispose of it without ceremony. In Germany, a federation of animal funerary parlours and animal cemeteries advises in a situation of loss and grief. A visit to animal cemeteries attests to the representation of pets via names, inscriptions, and photos. Portraiture makes the pets more like humans, whereas the inscription can turn the human owner into an honorary animal. References to pets not buried in the same tomb as well as symbolic messages allude to a world in which humans and their pets will be reunited forever in the happier hunting grounds behind the rainbow.

Such close, parasocial ties can also be documented on human cemeteries. As THORSTEN BENKEL (Passau) showed in his talk on animal representations on human burials, animals as the “other” help to identify human traits. Animals were worshipped as totem or hunted as prey; they may present danger and are exploited by humans. The references to the animal world can be classified by five categories such as the profession of the late departed; the comfort provided by the dead animal companion(s); animals and humans presented as one family; cute animal symbols (deer, owl, little mice); insider references to squirrels, dolphins, pigeons, tigers, whales, or a lion for Mr. Leo; and, finally, a new codification of long-standing religious elements such as the pigeon. The zodiac, expressions such as “strong as a lion”, mascots and animal nicknames attest to a relationship which defines as well as annihilates “otherness”. The emotional ties go well beyond what has long been regarded as the “normal” relationship between human and animal. The animal becomes a zoon politikon who participates in a network of affection. Such bonds are facilitated by the fact that animals and humans share most of their genes and behaviour. Even though the relationship between humans and pets can never be symbiotic and necessitates prior domestication, pet owners constantly strive to accommodate their companions' desires.

BIRGIT LETTMANN’s (Berlin) paper explored post-mortem photography of pets which originally imitated post-mortem photography of still-born children. These private photos of dead pets document the changing perception of a pet’s death and are, therefore, part of memorial culture. Still rare, one of the earliest examples of animal post-mortem photography consists of a 19th-century daguerreotype from the Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City. A dead rabbit in a white dress attests to the special status the pet acquired while alive, since its corpse was something to be preserved beyond death. Additional examples from Paul Frecker’s archive of animal photos show photos of people and their dead pets as part of a rather theatrical memorial culture. The audience becomes part of the mourning congregation and learns the accepted way to behave on such occasions, as in the photo by De Voogt (1905), depicting the burial of a dead dog on a pet cemetery with children attending in a sort of dress rehearsal.

The funerary industry was represented by OLIVER WIRTHMANN (Düsseldorf) whose paper focused on the change of paradigms which turned working animals into companions deserving proper burial. In mediaeval Europe horses and exceptional pets such as a domesticated stag were occasionally buried. In the 19th century the Cimetière des Chiens was established in the north of Paris; such institutions have become the norm for animal burials; they rose steeply during the 20th century.

The final session looked at particular examples of burials and monuments created for animals at different moments in history. FABIAN JONIETZ (Florence) discussed early modern animal burials and monuments. In a particular case at Mantua, Duchess Isabella allegedly cried over the death of her dog Aura as if her own mother had died. Aura was to be buried in a lead coffin inside a beautiful tomb with a variety of epitaphs. A poetry contest was held in order to find the most touching words. Dogs as a symbol of fidelity have long played an important role in the arts and in human funerary culture. Gisant tombs depicted the departed with his or her dog at the feet of the effigy. Cellini’s plaquette of a levriero (greyhound), as well as the examples of dogs included in early modern portraiture, for example Titian’s portrait of Federigo II, seem to hint that the canine sitter was a real, much-loved dog rather than an allegorical model. If the personality of dogs was occasionally celebrated in verse, so could be the achievements of less noble animals such as a fly. The ironic laus-literature known from Antiquity returned in the 16th century. Epitaphs on walls, such as a plaque on the Florentine Lungarno degli Archibusieri, praised the services of a horse during the siege of 1530 but there is no information about what happened to the earthly remains. At the courts real tombs were commissioned with specific requirements. Ludovico II wrote to Barbara of Brandenburg that he wished for the tomb of his dead Rubino to be visible from their “camera” which apparently had been a favourite haunt. Such tombs’ epitaphs praised the particular diligence or fidelity, as in the case of the monument to a mule in Ammannati’s courtyard at the Pitti palace in Florence.

The London memorial for animals in war was discussed by AMINA GRUNEWALD (Berlin). Pigeons, dogs, elephants, and mules suffered great losses during World War I and World War II; worst of all horses whose fate inspired the theatre play War Horse telling the story of Joey in World War I. In 2004 Princess Anne opened the 18 x 18 m monument, erected – not without opposition – by public subscription. The monument consists of a wall with depictions and inscriptions regarding the numbers of animals killed. One side is for a horse who escaped and a dog who looks back towards a gap in the wall. On the other side, two mules borne down by heavy equipment show signs of distress. Their vocal chords are cut so that they cannot betray the army. Visitors still remember the trauma of war when humans and animals were caught up in the same cruel events. According to the speaker one major criticism ought to be that the monument honours the past achievements of soldiers’ animal comrades but does nothing to prevent the future abuse and cruelty towards animals.

Finally, MARKWART HERZOG (Irsee) presented a paper on the Cimetière des Chiens in Asnières-sur-Seine which was opened in 1899 in the place of former dust heaps. The feminist journalist Marguerite Durand famously buried her tame lion Tigre and a horse on the cimetière. By the 1980s the cemetery was threatened by closure but now has become a main tourist attraction. All sorts of pets are buried at the cemetery and markers bear inscriptions in French, English, and Russian; the tombs can be so covered by decoration, flowers, candles and toys that it is hard to see who is buried. Post-war photos show pet and owner together as part of the same family. Pets are treated and addressed as babies and at least in one case “Bébé” seems to have been the name of choice. The late pets are called “Fetiche” in the tradition of totems, others are described as “adorée” or “mon petit ange”. Poodle Tipsy rests in a tomb that documents the owner’s broken heart emotionally and cosmologically via the decoration on the tombstone.

In sum, this was a timely conference which attested to the importance of companion animals to the human world across a range of functions. The mixture of speakers from a number of different academic disciplines such as social sciences, medicine, history and art history would in itself have provided an interesting approach to the changing attitudes regarding animal burials at different times and in different parts of the world. Having professional undertakers among the contributors and in the audience added a practical note to the debate which made it all the more obvious how much the relationship between human and non-human animals has changed, in particular during the past two centuries. Even though animal burials have always happened at different times and in diverse cultures, they never became the norm. Monuments to specific heroic animals have a long history, while a more inclusive memorial like the one dedicated to animals in war in London with its direct and barbed reference to human cruelty is still the exception. Current research in cognitive science in conjunction with the politics of the animal-rights movement and a first-world human tendency to empathise with pets if not with the animal world at large will ensure a continuing boom in animal burials and a gradual change in paradigms and rules as regards funerary culture.

Conference Overview:

Markwart Herzog (Irsee), Begrüßung und Einführung

Sektion 1: Kulturhistorische Perspektiven

Ulrike Neurath (Kassel), Tierbestattungen als Gradmesser der Mensch-Tier-Beziehung. Kulturhistorischer Rückblick

Pia Schmitt (Frankfurt am Main), Menschen und Haustiere in Japan. Zur Bedeutung des Beziehungsgeflechts für Tierbestattungen

Sektion 2: Gräber und Grabsteine

Matthias Meitzler (Frankfurt am Main), Tiere als Projektionsfläche. Symbolik und Fotografie auf Tierfriedhöfen

Thorsten Benkel (Passau), Tierdarstellungen auf Menschengräbern. Zur parasozialen Verbindung menschlicher und tierischer Bestattungsformen

Markwart Herzog (Irsee), Klosterführung mit Besuch der „Euthanasie“-Gedenkstätten

Birgit Lettmann (Berlin), „In loving memory …“ – Postmortemfotografien von Tieren

Oliver Wirthmann (Düsseldorf), Handlungsmaximen für die Bestattungsbranche. Der Paradigmenwechsel in der Wahrnehmung des Tiers vom Nutztier zum Heimtier

Sektion 3: Historische Sonderfälle

Fabian Jonietz (Florenz), Trauerschmerz und Scherzverse. Tiermemoriale in der italienischen Frühen Neuzeit

Amina Grunewald (Berlin), „They had no choice“ – eine Londoner Gedenkstätte für Tiere im Krieg

Markwart Herzog (Irsee), Fotografischer Streifzug durch den „Cimetière des Chiens“ in Asnières-sur-Seine


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