Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-08-22
PRESERVED CORPSES.
CATACOMBS WHERE DEAD BODIES
ARE KEPT ON EXHIBITION.

A Description Of the Horrible Place.
Galleries of Grinning Monks in Serted
Ranks Standing or Leaning Against
Each Other-A Man Locked in the Place..
CORPSE worship" takes a very strange
form in the cemetery of the Cappucini at
Palermo. It has been found that the earth
of this cemetery-powdered tuff rock of
some sort-has the power to hasten the
process of decomposition, so that in a
year or less nothing remains of bodies
buried there but skin and bone, some
Of the articular attachments, and often
the hair. At this stage they are some
what like mummies. To be buried in
the Cappucini is accounted a privilege, az
is also the subsequent exhumation and
station in the galleries" The num-
by the "piety'' of their families; and so
long as a yearly sum is paid for the honor
they are placed among the ghastliest COM
pany by which I ever found myself sur
rounded.
A monk from the adjoining convent
leads the way, and the visitor descends a
broad flight of stairs into we'll lit corridors
cut out of the solid rock. Goethe saw
these galleries long ago, and said the live
tuf had been hewn out with fine architect
ural effect. The dead in those days reposed
In inches, as they did in the ancient Greek
tombs found in Sicily or the Roman CO.
lumbarii. Perhaps in modern times there
was no moro room for thus pigeon hol-
ing" the dead. Perhaps it was felt to be
better that they should hold their levee
standing right and left of the passage-for
SO they are posed today. your sleeve
brushes their costumes almost inevitably
as you move along.) To these grim CORR
doris come the sorrowing survivors, moved
by the strangest form of the cult of the
corpse! And what do they see?
TIERS OF DEAD MONKS.
"These." said my guide, "are the monks
all these-in both these corridors" aud
we crossed the Capuchins' quarter into
that of the general public. "These," he
said again, "are the men," Great heaveni
what menD MOSTLY people choose to have
our monks habit for the bodies after they
are exhumed." In serried ranks all down
the galleries, standing or leaning against
each other, are these parodies of humanity.
They lie tier above tier, too, as if in the
berths of 1.-The Phantom Ship" They
stand in groups aloft On brackets, or sin
gly hung against the upper parts of the
wall. Some keep their collins, but a glaz-
ed or wired side or lid shows you another
version of the same grim spectacle. Few
of the men are clothed in anything but the
monks uniform. But by and by you feel
that f1nery adds another element of grim
irony to the show. "This is the quarter of
the priests" said my monk. "That is a
Greek priest with all the gold on his vest
ments, and the strange cap-a Catholic
Greek. And the red ones belonged to the
cathedral. Yes. the purple cassock is a
canon" He smiled and added, ''The
priests here don't look better than the rest
of u.s." He was pleased.
wondered that pleasure could visit the
human mind in such surroundings. The
biretti of the priests are sometimes tilted
tipsily over the noseless faces, sometimes
~jauntily over the eyeless orbits. Some
bodies have been regularly embalmed. My
monk said: "See, his lips are red. The
color is bright in his cheeks. All, I cannot
tell you if those are glass eyes" These
poor shades are ticketed, like the blind
beggars who parade the streets of London,
and their names and death dates figure on
their %placards. You are invited to admire
Signor Giuseppi Cuccio's fine head of hair;
the half of a beard still adhering to this
other defunct Palermitan; an eyebrow
here, a fragment of a mustache there as
you move along.
A Frenchman said those corpses looked
to him as if they were writhing in fierce
pain;' would presently jabber at him or
shrek; that they huddled together for fear
or helplessness! They struck me different
ly. The %unsparing display of teeth, the
wide open mouths made for a weak, wild
hilarity. They were far from being all
alike. One hollow checked figure, with
gray flowing locks, was exactly like an alb
ject church door beggar still above ground
and whining in Palermo.
chastity FEMALE D
Undoubtedly the ugliest of the sights is
the ladies' gallery. Corpse worship here
has prompted freaks Of burlesque MILL
merry, such as the trimming of the vacant
skulls with deep frills of lace. One poor
shade lay in purple silk. A young lady's
mummy was adorned with a silver crown,
fantastic shoes, open work stockings and
white kid gloves! A princess-among tho
most recent of the intermediary in her
coffin, which bore many artificial garlands
and yards of much noticed funeral rib
bon, and I know not what other offerings
besides. On All Souls day the dead in the
Cappucini may be said to hold a grewsome
sort of reception, but the richer class,
whose "dear departed" stand there, 'fre-
quent" the cemetery at all seasons.
Imagine coming to pay your devoirs to
the ladies with whom you used to dance:
to your hostesses of former years. to the
members of your family, to the wife of
your bosom; and being received by these
phantoms OF grizzly bone! These bedizened
skeletonsl These rag and bone things,
aping humanity! 1t is too horrible! Yet
there are Palermitans who find a melan-
choly pleasure, some a certain consolation,
a few a terrible fascination, in the relics of
their dead preserved in this cemetery! But
not all the inhabitants approve of this
mode Of sepulture. The edict has gone
forth that there are to be no more inter-
ments at the Cappucini. 1--WE, ourselves,
must go now" said my monk guide rue
fully, "up there, to the Campo Santo!'
On certain fete days these "catacombs"
are open to all corners. A man once strayed
in here and fell asleep. At night the por-
ter locked up without noticing the sleeper.
Awakening sober, with the early light, the
horror of his surroundings seized upon the
man. He ran about wildly among the
dead. He shrieked, but no one, even those
in the convent, could hear him. The earli-
est passers by found him clinging convul-