Anthropology professor Jane Desmond is the author of “Displaying Death and Animating Life: Human-Animal Relations in Art, Science, and Everyday Life.” The book explores humans’ complex relationships with other animals. Here is an excerpt (edited for space) from a chapter on pet cemeteries and mourning practices.
There are many cases of formal animal burial practices worldwide. One of the earliest sites is in Palestine, dating from about 12,000 years ago, where excavation of a stone-covered tomb revealed the remains of a woman posed with her hand resting on the neck of a puppy. In Egypt, there is evidence of the mummification not only of dogs, but also of cats, monkeys and birds dating to as early as 1,000 B.C.
Greeks and Romans also honored animal dead during the pre-Christian era. Alexander the Great supposedly led a formal funeral procession for his hound Peritas, erected a large stone monument honoring the dog and ordered a yearly celebration in the animal’s memory.
A new book explores human fascination with animals in the context of life, death and art.
The latter half of the 19th century saw a blossoming of pet ownership and burial needs in parts of Europe. The poor often resorted to placing dead animals in a sack weighted with stones and throwing them in a river. The wealthy could bury pets on their estates. But others sneaked into municipal parks after dark to bury their pets illegally. Some even slipped into human cemeteries and buried their pets there under the cover of darkness, secretly fouling the line between human and animal geographies of death.
As animal aid societies developed in the latter half of the 19th century, so too did formal burial sites for pets, with the best-known predecessor of the contemporary pet cemetery being Le Cimitière des Chiens in the Parisian suburb of Asnières, founded in 1899 by Madame Mageurite Durand. Although the French name translates to “the Dogs’ Cemetery,” in fact, dogs, cats, monkeys, rabbits, parrots, lions and horses are buried there.
Victorian-era monuments mark burial sites of two dogs in Le Cimitière des Chiens.
During the Victorian era, when La Cimitière des Chiens was founded, wealthy pet owners engaged in commemorative acts for dead animals that closely paralleled those for humans. Elaborate monuments, including marble doghouses and animal sculptures, adorned many animal graves, and some people conducted formal graveside services for their pets, reading Bible excerpts and dressing in black mourning clothes. Famous pets even lay in state for viewing by mourners, like the Philadelphia canine thespian Zip, who received his public lying in a velvet robe in a walnut casket.
Some people commemorated their pets in photographs taken after death, the animal posed as if sleeping on a pillow, following the custom of the time portraying dead children. Special lockets or rings provided a hiding place for a lock of fur, and some pets were stuffed and set on the mantle, next to portraits of deceased human members of the family.
The author created her own memorial of her pet dog, Jasmine.
Today’s rituals are different, but can be just as elaborate. With a majority of U.S. households owning a pet, many seek the services of the roughly 600 formal pet cemeteries in America. Special hand-carved grave markers, exuberant Snoopy decorations, newspaper obituaries and even graveside services are some of the creative ways that mourners adapt human rituals to say goodbye to animals in an era when, for many, the pet is considered part of the family.
Editor’s notes:
Jane Desmond is a professor of anthropology and of gender and women’s studies at Illinois.
To read more, see “Displaying Death and Animating Life: Human-Animal Relations in Art, Science, and Everyday Life” by anthropology professor Jane C. Desmond, published by The University of Chicago Press.
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