MUMMY WRAP
Well, it all comes down to,
the most, to what you need,
even more than what you
want. And besides, you're
pretty much dead and this
just makes you dead for
the ages. The day I invented
mummy wrap I was playing
in the ossuary - all these bones
around, and skulls staring me
in the face. I wondered and
said,' why not?' Little did I
know, of course, that humans
a thousand years later would
use that very phrase - even
Edward Kennedy used it about
his brother Robert (dead political
guys in the 1900's, a place called
America), about, instead of cursing
the darkness, lighting a candle and
saying 'why not?' Pretty weird. But,
as I was saying, the thought occurred
to me of all these living people dying
and turning to rot and dust and bones.
Just like in that room. Some would
come to mourn, others just to stare.
But you couldn't tell a thing, who
was where. It was all just a jumble.
-
So, what I figured out was a way
of draining the dead body, keeping
it whole, drying it and, with some
local chemicals. Not chemicals
really - we didn't quite have that
stuff, just the tars and saps and fluids
we'd find, and all the different things
they'd do - learning by experience.
The body would be preserved; in wrap,
in dipped fabrics and woven linens
we'd get (We rounded up women
crews and forced them into service
as seamstresses, the types in bondage
who, living well, did nothing but sew
and little else). It soon became a growing
form of ritual - all these sendings off,
incantations and prayer-words, and the
separate quarters, built of stone, or even
as grandiose pyramids, in which the
exalted would wait. In death, preserved.
The ritual guys came up with all sorts
of ideas, about journeys, and tracks
across the skies and Heavens, 'sacred'
belongings to be taken along, and even
foods and beverages for the journey.
A class of 'Gatekeepers' arose, whose
task alone it was to guard the dead.
-
It all grew wildly from there, and then,
after everything was established and
set, (if anyone had told me, in 6000
bc, by our reckoning of years then,
that this would still be spoken about
in human-time NOW, whew! I'd have
never believed). The funny thing is,
actually, that for so many years in the
middle, all of this was forgotten, for
centuries, and mostly lost, and when
it was rediscovered it was all a new
mystery, and stories and tales got all
twisted up, jumbled over and again,
and now all that later stuff is what
the people have ended up believing.
They even kill each other over it.
And I thought we were bad!
No comments:
Post a Comment