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Horrible Handicrafts

krakenten

Gone But Not Forgotten
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To go with the stories of wandering human feet, there are many instances of human remains(mostly skins) used to make craft items.

William Wallace skinned a strip off the English Lord Treasurer which he made into a baldric for his sword.

Tecumpsah, the Native American war chief was skinned for razor strops-carefully marked with India Ink. They were prized heirlooms.

While the tales of lampshades made from concentration camp victims are in doubt, prisons and madhouses often processed indigent inmates into craft items, which were sold to defray costs(or so the story goes-one story pretty much spotlights the Byberry Asylum near Philly. That place was a hellhole, it had a fire in the 'fifties that killed numerous inmates and spawned a cycle of myths.)

There was also a lively trade in anatomical specimens from such places. India and China cut deeply into the market, until shame caused tight restrictions to be enacted. Spoilsports!

Suppliers used to advertise their wares in 'Shotgun News', a firearms trade paper-with the headline, ''We peel 'em, you deal 'em!" Skulls were sold in cases of 24.

Followers of Palo Mayombe, a form of Voodoo prize human bones and skulls as ritual objects. There have been grave robberies in which the cult is suspected.

I enjoy being a ghoul, but now, back to the topic!
 
We have a thread somewhere on the subject of books made from human skin. :shock:
 
escargot1 said:
We have a thread somewhere on the subject of books made from human skin. :shock:

I'd love to read that! .... can you remember what the thread was called please? :shock: .... I've sort of worked with Tom Sullivan who created the Necronomicon for the first two Evil Dead films and have one of his replicas so have a personal interest in this stuff. Thanks in advance to anyone who can find that link (I'll also have a search myself.)
 
Swifty said:
escargot1 said:
We have a thread somewhere on the subject of books made from human skin. :shock:

I'd love to read that! .... can you remember what the thread was called please? :shock: .... I've sort of worked with Tom Sullivan who created the Necronomicon for the first two Evil Dead films and have one of his replicas so have a personal interest in this stuff. Thanks in advance to anyone who can find that link (I'll also have a search myself.)
And here is a link to that very thread:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/books-bound-in-human-skin.757/
 
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The human skulls sold today are from China, and many are executed criminals. There is usually a hole in the base of the cranium, where the person was shot.

India has opted out of the biz-bad for their image. The Indian skulls, and complete skeletons, are poor people who died and were unclaimed. Hindus have little concern for remains(wise ones, they!)and didn't mind making a few bux off what was to them, a waste product.

Edwin Booth, the great actor and brother of John Wilkes,had his skull defleshed after death, bleached and marked around the foramin magnum, "The rest is silence" It was used in productions of 'Hamlet'.

Books bound in human skin have a special name(which I cannot recall at the moment). Some are medical texts, the hide donated by a grateful patient.

Sometimes, the skin was taken from some criminal, the idea being a shaming after death. Shame? Yes, but whose shame?

I would not have a human skull in my house, there are scads of wonderful acrylic replicas(some of which will vex people in the future, I'm sure). I add to my collection every November from after Halloween sales.

There is a squeamishness about dead bones I cannot fathom. Life is long departed-the elaborate honors given to skeletonized 'war dead'(nobody cares a rat's ass about how miserable a live soldier may be, but after death, no expense is spared. Hypocricy, squared and cubed!) If a cemetery washes out in a flood-which they will do-people throw a fit. But medical care for the poor is reckoned nearly obscene, by some(under the doctrine that abominates the thought of somebody getting something and the someone not being them).

There are animal bones, disarticulated, that are difficult to tell from human remains. The human skull, with time, resolves into a number of bones. This has been of some utility to serial killers, who find that heads are hard to get rid of.

Ah, well, Halloween is coming, it's my busy season.......
 
Oh, yes, as to the toothlessness of skulls, the teeth will fall out naturally when deprived of the gums.

Just in the interest of accuracy, mind you!
 
Since there may be some interest, I'll just leave this here:

https://www.boneroom.com/

Alas, it appears that Skullduggery is no more, as that was my other favorite site.
 
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/...skull-into-a-florida-publix-uses-it-as-puppet

"Shoppers at a Publix in Sebastian, Florida, called 911 Tuesday afternoon after spotting a homeless man carrying around an actual human skull.

"He was using it as a puppet," said witness Nick Pecoraro to WPBF. "It smelled like death."

According to the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, the unidentified homeless man–who was living in the woods across the street from the grocery store– found the human remains in a secluded area away from the homeless "camps" and decided to carry it into the Publix to report the body. "
 
Sometimes, the skin was taken from some criminal, the idea being a shaming after death.

Th skin of William Burke, of Burke and Hare fame, was reputedly used to bind a book.
 
We have a thread somewhere on the subject of books made from human skin. :shock:
Can you please try and find that for me scargy (or can one of the mods please?) ... I've been asked to write an online essay on all things about the book of the dead(s) and have a ton of weird and abstract stuff about both the real ones and the cinematic ones. I'm hoping to paint the full picture of the book of the dead's transition into pop culture :) .. thanks if you can. For example, I feel the reporting of 'The Bitch of Bauschenwald', Ilsa Koch concentration camp commandant's actions when she was captured by the allies and they discovered her human skin bound collection should be included and a none skin bound Egyptian book of the dead that's in the British museum ..
 
Can you please try and find that for me scargy (or can one of the mods please?) ...

I am not Madam Snail, nor do I play her on TV! The link above doesn't go to a thread but "bound in skin" as a search brings up two hits.....
 
Thank you Madam Frideswide, I shall have a look at that.
 
Thanks Rynner, I'll check that out as well.
 
You lot, you don't need me.
 
I might have grasped the wrong end of this thread's stick:

il_570xN.392288101_tfx8.jpg
 
Watched an interview recently with Martin Bormann Jr and his visit to Himmler's attic that contained a fair a mount of human furniture.

Then she opened the door and we flocked in, we didn't understand what the objects in the room were - until she explained ... It was tables and chairs made out of parts of human bodies. There was a chair ... the seat was a human pelvis, the legs human legs - on human feet. Then she picked up a copy of 'Mein Kampf' ... she showed us the cover - made of human skin, she said - and explained that the Dachau prisoners who made it used the ... skin of the back to make it.

fairly well known and a lot of stuff on the net about it.
 
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