With the recent death of Jack Babcock, Frank Woodruff Buckles is the last living World War One veteran in North America. He is 109 and lives on a farm in West Virginia.

Jack Babcock joined the Canadian Army at age 15 and in 1916 shipped to England to fight in the Great War. Because he was underage Babcock was forced to train with a group of teens that had also lied about their age called the Boys Battalion. The war ended before he saw action but more than 60,000 Canadian soldiers were killed, just under ten percent of the 650,000 that served. Babcock, who passed away last month at the age of 109, was the last one to die.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, there were approximately 9,750,103 military deaths in World War One and more than 65 million personal participated in the war. With Babcock gone, there are just three verified World War One vets still alive; Claude Stanley Choules, who served in the British Royal Navy, Florence Beatrice Green who served as a waitress in the Women’s Royal Air Force and is the last surviving female vet and Frank Woodruff Buckles, who was a driver during the war and now lives on a farm in West Virginia.

Frank Buckles has his own website, which offers educational materials for teachers and students and asks viewers to sign a petition calling for the creation of a World War One Memorial on the Mall in Washington D.C. His story has been featured in Smithsonian magazine as well as on CNN and BBC. Buckles first tried to enlist at the Kansas State Fair in Wichita during the summer of 1917 but was told he was too young. He was 16, and tried again in Oklahoma City. Both the Marines and the Navy turned him down. An Army captain asked for his birth certificate. “I explained that when I was born in Missouri, birth certificates were not a public record,” Buckles told Smithsonian. “It would be in the family Bible…You wouldn’t want me to bring the family Bible down here, would you?”

The recruiter let him join. Buckles became part of the First Fort Riley Casual Detachment and traveled to England in December 1917. While General Pershing was leading the fight against the Germans in France Buckles was escorting dignitaries in England on a motorcycle with a sidecar. On occasion, he drove an ambulance but his real ambition was to get to the front. In 1918 he finally got to France, with an assignment to drive an American dentist to Bordeaux. Shortly thereafter the war ended. “I wasn’t disappointed that the war ended,” Buckles recalled, “[But] I would have liked to accomplish what I had started out for.”

A few months later he saw some action when his unit was ordered to escort 650 prisoners of war back to Germany. They were friendly and cultured, said Buckles; a few former conductors even helped stage a concert. But one night Buckles nearly came to blows with a young prisoner. The scrap was broken up and in January of 1920 Buckles shipped for home. He worked on steamships in Toronto, New York City and Southeast Asia. In December 1941, he was taken prisoner in the Philippines by the Japanese. He spent 39 months in a prison camp, eating nothing but a small cup of beans, rice and worm filled mush each day. His weight dropped to 100 pounds and he developed beriberi, a degenerative disease caused by malnutrition. In February of 1945, on the same day he was supposed to be executed, he was rescued by the 11th Airborne Division of the U.S. Army.

Buckles returned home, got married and bought more than 300 acres of land near Charles Town, West Virginia. He worked the tractor until he was 102 and several years ago was invited to the White House to meet President Bush. A Wikipedia entry devoted to the oldest living World War One veterans talks about Buckles but also mentions some of his comrades. Lazare Ponticelli, the last poilu, or French World War One vet, died in March of 2008, at the age of 110. Two months later, Franz Kunstler, of Austria-Hungary, the Last Central Powers veteran, died at the age of 107.

Then there is the case of Douglas Edward Terrey, who is 106 and claims to have served as a bicycle courier for the British Army Ordnance Corps. His records have not been verified by a government-sanctioned body. Jozef Kowalski, of Poland, fought with the Polish Army in World War One but joined after Armistice Day (but before the Treaty of Versailles). In World War II Kowalski was held in a concentration camp, he is presently Poland’s oldest man. Emiliano Mercado del Toro, of Puerto Rico, died in January of 2007 at the age of 115. He is the oldest authenticated veteran, from any conflict, ever to have lived.

The Chinese have been burning Hell Money and 3-D paper objects to aid the dead in the afterworld for thousands of years. But setting ablaze tiny paper condoms, Viagra pills and barroom dancers is a relatively new trend that has both Buddhist monks and Chinese officials worried.

Next month, millions of Chinese will head to cemeteries to burn Viagra, brandy bottles, toiletries, tweed shoes, stiletto heels, credit cards, cosmetics, exotic potions, common pain relievers, camcorders, rice cookers, flat screen TVs, cell phones and Mercedes coupes. These tiny paper offerings are meticulously crafted to resemble real world items. In setting them aflame it is thought the objects will be carried to the afterworld, where they will become available in full form to the recently deceased.

The idea is to provide the dead with everything they will need in the next life, including, in some instances, things that they may never have had in this one. A recent article in the Nanjing Morning News listed some of the more explicit paper offerings being sold, such as condoms and scantily clad barroom dancers.

Tomb Sweeping Festival, or Qingming, on April 5th, is just one of several holidays in which the ritual is performed. Elaborate paper offerings are also burned at the Hungry Ghost Festival, a Buddhist and Taoist holiday that occurs in the summer and offers an opportunity to burn offerings for people who were buried without a funeral.

The Chinese have burnt paper offerings for more than 2,000 years, and an entire ward of Hong Kong paper shops has capitalized on the custom. But both Buddhist monks and the Chinese authorities are not fond of the new trend toward burning paper replicas of luxurious and licentious goods. A Beijing Morning Post article called the practice undignified and rude and called for a clamp down on the sale of sex-oriented offerings. But business is good and a ban seems unlikely.

The practice began at the start of the Wei Dynasty, in the fourth century AD, when Chinese people started burning paper money at funerals. By the Tang Dynasty (618- 907), crafting the paper offerings was a flourishing business. The tradition seems to have been enhanced by a desire for less expensive funerals, notes Harvard researcher Janet Lee Scott, in her 2007 book, “For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors: the Chinese tradition of Paper Offerings”. Real objects and animals were once offered to the dead, she notes, but during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) inexpensive paper replicas became the norm. Rice paper or a coarse paper made from bamboo was used. Some offerings were flat and two-dimensional while others were wrapped around a bamboo core to create more lifelike 3-D objects.

Paper offerings are also referred to as Joss Paper or Hell Money. Hell money is sold wrapped in cellophane in packs of 30-50. A popular denomination is the 5,000,000,000 dollar bill. On many bills appears an image of the Emperor of the Afterworld, a bearded man in a flat-topped hat strung with beads. The bills’ backside often features the Bank of Hell, an old-fashioned tile-roofed temple. Historic figures that appear on bills include Buddha, John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe. A 500 dollar Hell note from Singapore features a phoenix bird and a smiling boy holding a carp.

It is not just China that has recently seen a backlash against the practice. A newspaper article from Vietnam notes that the type of offerings there has shifted from common household items to high-end luxury goods, such as Honda motor scooters, Sony TVs, DVD players and karaoke sound systems.

Two years ago, during Ullambana, a Buddhist festival in which the Gates of Hell are opened so the dead can visit the living, a wealthy Hanoi sand contractor set ablaze more than 1,000 paper people and horses, of which roughly one-quarter were life-size. The display was said to have cost US$21,600 and took a local artisan more than two months to craft.

An article in the Chinese newspaper, “The Global Times” draws another strike against the tradition, forest fires. According to statistics released by the Fire Control Sector of Forestry, 60 percent of fires in the woodlands of Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu Province, were caused by burning offerings.

White ring neck doves can barely fly more than a mile but white homing pigeons can find their way home from distances of more than 500 miles. The birds are used to relay messages in war, and are also released during weddings and funerals.

“Dear God, make me a bird. So I could fly far. Far far away from here.”

It’s a memorable scene from “Forrest Gump”, young Jenny skips school and Forrest stops by her home to see why. She is standing in the backyard, wearing a sundress and looking morose. The two tear through a cornfield and hide among the stalks, Jenny’s abusive father stumbles after. She asks God to turn her into a bird and the camera pans out, in the distance a flock of white birds flies up from the field.

Something about a white wing in motion plucks the heartstrings. And catering to this preference has developed into a handsome niche industry, funeral doves. According to some estimates, there are more than 1,000 companies that specialize in “white dove releases” in the United States. Operators release birds at graduations, grand openings and bar mitzvahs, but their bread and butter events are weddings and funerals.

The actual birds used are white homing pigeons, which can return home from as far away as 600 miles; ring neck doves, which look almost identical to the untrained eye, are highly domesticated birds that can not fly more than a mile. Dove clearly has more emotional appeal than pigeon, and thus all providers label their services as such. But these are far from your typical nuisance city pigeon, hopping around the sidewalk pecking at crumbs pooping on everything.

“These birds are like the racehorses of the sky,” says Jeff Newsom, who, several years ago, founded the dove release company “Crystal Wings & Amber Dreams”, in loving memory of his daughter Crystal.

The company works with eight funeral homes across mid Michigan and does about 325 total releases a year. Newsom keeps his birds in two separate spots, allowing him to widen his coverage zone. Most events are 50-70 miles from a roosting site, but many of his birds can fly several hundred miles or more.

Birds are transported to the event in decorative baskets. For some weddings, the release is a secret; Newsom has had to sneak down the aisle with a heart-shaped basket of birds. Once set free, the pigeons circle a few times then head for home, but training the birds to always circle is impossible. On windy days, they may fly straight home. Birds are never released in stormy weather, nor are they used from November 30th through the end of March, which is hawk season. “Everyone has hawk problems,” says Newsom. “In wintertime, they are just relentless.”

Homing pigeons are still used to relay messages by militaries across the world and the birds have a rich history. According to the book of Genesis, Noah released a dove to test whether waters had receded; the bird returned with an olive branch in its beak. Ancient Egyptians announced the arrival of important visitors by releasing pigeons and the Mesopotamian king, Sargon of Akkad, had each of his messengers carry a homing pigeon; if a messenger was attacked en route, the bird flew home for help. Genghis Khan relayed messages across the battlefields of Asia with homing pigeons and after the close of the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, homing pigeons flew to the countryside to announce the winners. In the 1936 Olympics, held in Berlin, Germany, 20,000 white homing pigeons were released for the opening ceremonies.

A typical Crystal Wings & Amber Dreams release would include more like two birds. One patron requested 21 doves for a military funeral and the family of a 13 year-old that died wanted 13 birds released. Releases cost $150-300, depending on the number of birds used.

Across the country, dove release businesses seem to be on the increase. One minor set back came when “Dear Abby” wrote a column on wedding doves, denouncing the practice as cruel to animals. The white dove release community was outraged, and sent a slew of emails to set her straight on the facts.

“Trust me, my birds are treated well,” says Newsom. “If I lose a bird, I’m heartbroken for a week.”

Apical Ballooning Syndrome, better known as “broken heart syndrome”, may not be complete hooey. J.A. and Relda Auger, a Louisiana couple that had been married 75 years, died less than 24 hours apart. There are many other examples.

Upon finding his lover lifeless in a crypt, a young man guzzles a vile of poison. The maiden awakens, spots her man dead and buries a dagger in her heart. Ah, Romeo and Juliet, a love so strong it vanquished life. Their youthful tale is fictional, but elderly lovers’ dying one after the other is actually a phenomenon of significant scholarly intrigue.

“We see it all the time,” the medical director at a Washington state hospice recently told a reporter. But the question remains, do these cases result from coincidence, a true medical condition or something more sublime, perhaps even the intervention of a divine hand? A suite of examples indicates it may be a bit of all three.

J.A. ran a trucking company and Relda was his gal, the Louisiana couple had been married 75 years. J.A. died on a Sunday, at age 98. Relda, age 90, died less than 24 hours later. “I’ve known them since I was a kid, and I never heard a cross word between them,” said the local Sheriff. “It seems natural that they would leave this world together. They were that close.”

In Northumbria, in northern England, Stewart Whitfield and his wife Olga had fatal heart attacks within minutes of each other. He was 56, she was 61. “I heard sirens,” a neighbor told reporters. “Soon after, I saw them bringing two bodies out of a house.” An article about the incident lists other British couples that have died eerily close together, including the parents of a famous pop singer and a former Prime Minister and his wife of 67 years.

In Seattle, Virginia and Aurlo Bonney had been married 65 years. After a series of strokes, 92 year-old Aurlo was bed-bound. Virginia was in good physical health but had Alzheimer’s. She died in June of 2008, Aurlo quietly died eight days later. His death certificate indicated atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease but his son claims the cause of death was a condition with a much simpler name, a broken heart.

Dying of a broken heart may not, in fact, be complete hooey. The formal condition is called Apical Ballooning Syndrome (ABS), better known as “broken heart syndrome”, and was first described in Japan during the 1990s. In a patient suffering from ABS, the heart’s main pumping chamber stretches, balloons out, weakens and fails.

The syndrome has been diagnosed mainly in postmenopausal women, reports a 2008 MSNBC article, though the reason for this is unknown. The article links ABS to close-in-time husband and wife deaths via several studies. A 2007 paper published by researchers at the University of Glasgow followed more than 4,000 couples and found that, on average, people who had lost a partner were at least 30 percent more likely to die in the first six months following the death than contemporaries who had not lost partners. And a Jerusalem study notes that a bereaved spouse’s risk of death in the first six months rose by as much as 50 percent.

But could the cause not be something less clinical? At the funeral of a Louisiana man in his eighties who died less than two months after his wife, one reporter questioned whether god might not have wanted to reunite the couple as soon as possible.

“I watched in awe with others who expressed similar feelings,” she said. “People at the church declared the source of love was God.”

In ancient Egypt, only the holiest of priests performed the act of embalming, often shrouded in the mask of Anubis, the jackal headed god of embalming. A British TV show is currently looking for a human to embalm.

A British TV show is currently searching for a terminally ill patient to embalm.

“It may sound rather macabre but we have mummified a large number of pigs to check that the process worked and it does,” a producer told a volunteer interviewing for the show, who was actually a reporter in disguise. “Afterward one thought was—though this is not obligatory—to put the body in an exhibition in a proper museum so people can properly understand the mummification process. That is something we would be flexible about.”

An unnamed English scientist has unlocked the secrets of mummification, producers say, and the on-air demonstration will be a trial run of this researcher’s theory. The Brit has reason to keep his methods secret. A world-renown anatomist with the Swiss Mummy Project—he previously proved that King Tut did not actually die of a blow to the head and that a 5,000 year old glacial mummy from the Alps named Otzi indeed died of blood loss from an arrow wound—is working on the mummy riddle too.

The Swiss’s work mimics a famous mummy study from the mid-1990s conducted by a Maryland M.D. and an Egyptologist from Long Island. The pair claimed to have successfully mummified an entire human body using only the tools available to the ancient Egyptians. While their exact solutions were a closely guarded secret it is widely believed the main ingredient was about 600 pounds of a naturally occurring salt called natron. Most second graders know what a mummy is and that the Egyptians made them, but exactly how they did it, surprisingly, still nobody knows for sure.

The earliest Egyptians covered the dead with animal skins or linen and buried them in egg-shaped pots in pits dug at the edge of agricultural fields. The dry desert sand helped preserve skeletons and keep skin on the bone. Later Egyptians attempted to recreate this dehydration process, and mummification was born.

Only the holiest of priests performed the act, often shrouded in the mask of Anubis, the jackal headed god of embalming. They did their work in a purification palace with a suite of tools that included incision knives, tweezers, hooks and an embalming table made of soft wood with legs carved like lion heads.

Organs were placed in stone containers with lids shaped like human heads. These were called canopic jars and they were intended to hold kidneys, liver, stomach, and lungs. Hearts were also kept but brains were usually discarded, as they were deemed unimportant in the afterlife. Beeswax was used to seal eyes and orifices and body cavities were flushed and filled with oils and of course, natron; salt which came from the shores of a string of oasis’ in Lower Egypt as well as from an ancient lake bed, the Wadi Natrun.

The 5th Century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus spent much time with the Egyptians and wrote in detail about mummification:

“The most perfect process is as follows: as much as possible of the brain is removed via the nostrils with an iron hook, and what cannot be reached with the hook is washed out with drugs; next, the flank is opened with a flint knife and the whole contents of the abdomen removed; the cavity is then thoroughly cleaned and washed out, firstly with palm wine and again with an infusion of ground spices. After that, it is filled with pure myrrh, cassia, and every other aromatic substance, excepting frankincense, and sewn up again, after which the body is placed in natron, covered entirely over, for seventy days – never longer. When this period is over, the body is washed and then wrapped from head to foot in linen cut into strips and smeared on the underside with gum, which is commonly used by the Egyptians instead of glue. In this condition the body is given back to the family, who have a wooden case made, shaped like a human figure, into which it is put.”

The above method was labor intensive and reserved for the wealthy. A middle of the road method involved removing the viscera via an anal enema and treating the body with natron and oils. The cheapest treatment simply flushed the intestines and dried the body with natron. Interestingly, only this option kept the brain intact.

Nikki Sian-Leigh Aksamit lost her unborn child after a car crash and struggled how to tell her kids what had happened. Her book, "Mommy, what is dead" explains death to pre-schoolers. (Image courtesy of Nikki Sian-Leigh Aksamit)

One day, a car raced through a yellow light and slammed into Nikki Sian-Leigh Aksamit’s vehicle. She was a mother of two and six weeks pregnant. The trauma of the accident eventually killed her unborn child. Her two boys wanted to know what had happened to the baby and Nikki struggled for a way to tell them. Finding no children’s book fit for the task, she wrote her own, “Mommy, what is dead?” Digital Dying recently spoke with Nikki on how to talk to children about death.

How did you tell your kids that your unborn child had died?

Rook, my four year-old, knew right away. “Mom, what’s wrong?” he asked. I said, “The baby died.” He said, “What do you mean it died. Why did it have to die?” I said, “The accident caused mommy to lose the baby.” He was just so full of questions. I was at a loss for words. My husband and I answered him the best we could, but I don’t think he got it. Two weeks later, I wrote out questions and what I wanted the pictures to be with a magic marker and construction paper. It probably took a good month and half to finish the book. Then I read it to him. It was just my scribbles, a way to purge myself, but he got it right away.

There were no good children’s books on death?

If you look at children’s books on death or grieving, they are stories. They are all very beautiful magical stories, but they are stories. There is nothing to explain why a body has to die, or something that explains why a baby might have died. If I thought there was something better out there, I would have used that, but I really couldn’t find anything. Everything was cute, fuzzy, bunny fluffy stories.

Can kids really understand death at such a young age?

People find it very hard to be truthful to kids because we think we’re going to hurt them. You don’t want to tell a child a body goes into the ground and gets eaten by bugs. But I tell my kids those things. That’s what they need. It’s because we hide behind death that kids are confused. My kids, at four and six, now understand what death is. They understand that when the dog dies it is in the ground, but they believe in reincarnation, and that her soul has gone on to a new dog. My son has decided that when he dies he wants to be a guinea pig.

How did you first learn about death?

My mom was the starving cat picker upper so I was always surrounded by death while growing up. Mom was really good at explaining why it happened. She also gave us room to do our own thing. She was a single mother and she let me do what I wanted to do and I am so grateful, because it made me so much more world-wise than some of my peers.

Do you see a problem in the way in which American society in general views death?

One of the things I want to convey to the kids is there should always be a fundamental respect for human life. But, there’s not. My son gives me heck because I am a big crime show watcher. He says, “Mom, why do you watch shows about dead people?” I like to watch shows about what would make people’s minds go to that place where they could end a life. It boggles my mind that a person could think that ending a human life could be a response to anything.

I mean, holy crime rate, you can’t turn on the news without a ton of death. My son is four and he is so super-perceptive. So, we don’t have any choice but to tell our kids. Death is important and people dying is important. My son and I just had a conversation about guns and the fact that they can kill people. Death is forever, it’s not like in the cartoons and it’s not like the Xbox 360, you turn off the game and start it over. It’s like a toy, there are certain toys mommy can fix and certain toys she can’t fix. There is only so much crazy glue mommy has.

Nikki’s book, “Mommy, what is dead?” can be purchased on her website. She is working on a series of “What is” books, which will include “Mommy, what is cancer?” and “Mommy, what is autism?”

Joe Rollino, who once lifted 475 pounds with his teeth, was recently struck dead by a minivan at the age of 104. There are 60,000 plus centenarians in the United States but there are only 75 validated supercentenarians on the planet.

Mighty Joe Rollino was struck by a minvan while crossing the street in Brooklyn, earlier this month. At a nearby hospital, the man considered by some as “for his size, the strongest man that ever lived”—he lifted 475 pounds with his teeth and once pressed 600 plus pounds with a single finger—was pronounced dead. He was 104.

Rollino was a centenarian, a rank reserved for those who live above 100. There may be 60,000 or more of them in the United States. A far more elite status is that of supercentenarian, those people age 110 and up. The concept is so new it is not in most dictionaries, and according to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), which catalogues and verifies claims, there are only 20 verified supercentenarians in the U.S., and just 75 on the entire planet.

The GRG is a mix off homespun and highfalutin. Their simple website appeals for contributions “of even one dollar per month to further research” but also states the lofty goal of “slowing” and “ultimately reversing human aging within the next 20 years.” The GRG consists of physicians, scientists, engineers and a globetrotting clique known as supercentenarian claims investigators.

In 2006, a GRG claims investigator visited Maria Esther Capovilla in the industrial seaside city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Born in 1889, Capovilla was 116, and at the time, the oldest living person on earth. Sadly, six months after the GRG visit she died of pneumonia. Other GRG investigations have included the case of Mary and Rosabell Zielke, the world’s first confirmed mother-daughter supercentenarians, or that of Ruth Anderson, of Minnesota, who at 110 is the oldest singleton twin—her twin brother, Abel, died back in 1900, at the age of one.

Interest in the topic is blooming and there are a host of impressive institutions conducting research. The Supercentenarian Research Foundation is comprised by physicians from the U.S. and Europe and aims to increase lifespan for all. Boston University School of Medicine’s “New England Centenarian Study” began by looking at the genes of Bostonian centenarians and the Longevity Genes Project at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine focuses on the genes of Ashkenazi Jews. The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research’s International Database on Longevity is a centenarian tracking group, similar to GRG.

Longevityexperts.com offers a long list of tips for attaining supercentenarianhood, anything from buying an air filter, to walking three to five times a week and eating wild salmon and extra virgin olive oil. One of their tips seems more like a glimpse into a supercentenarian-friendly future: “Someday tiny nano-bots (nano sized robots) will float through the blood stream delivering all the nutrients that each part of the body needs, in just the correct quantities, based on each persons genetic make-up. These nano-bots will also be able to deliver medication to exact locations in precise doses.”

The Okinawa Centenarian Study has a particularly rich sample to work with; Japan accounts for one-third of the supercentenarians on the GRG’s master list. Among the group is Kama Chinen, a woman from Okinawa who having lived for 114 years and 258 days, is presently the world’s oldest person. Numerous books have capitalized on the aged success of the Okinawan people, such as “The Okinawa Way: How to Improve Your Health and Longevity Dramatically” and “The Okinawa Diet Plan: Get Leaner, Live Longer and Never Feel Hungry”.

What is the secret? Much of it may indeed be diet, deep sea fish like mackerel, sardines and salmon, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids; vegetables like peppers, broccoli, purple sweet potato and goya, a green, bumpy vegetable related to the watermelon, and a practice of reduced caloric intake called hara hachi bu, which entails eating until you are 80 percent full and then stopping. These relatively isolated tropical islands also benefit from fresh water and clean air. A tiny island near Okinawa called Tokushima produced Shigechiyo Izumi, who died at the age of 120 in 1986, perhaps the oldest man ever to live.

Izumi’s claim was never validated by the GRG, which was not founded until the early 1990s, and is, in general, disputed. The case raises an important question for tracking groups like GRG: How many supercentenarian lives end without being accounted for?

A New York Times article from 1897 gives the example of a man from Guadalajara, Mexico named Jesus Campeche, who, according to the article, died at the ripe age of 154:

“He was living with his great great grandson and had copies of the church register at Valladolid Spain, showing the date of his birth and baptism. According to these papers, he was born December 12, 1742. He related incidents which occurred in the last century, showing that he had told the truth or had stored his mind well with the happenings of that time. A priest in the church which he attended, who is now 84 years old, says he remembers Campeche as being an old man when he was a little boy.”

Bubonic plague victims exhibit the classic "buboes" that gave the disease its name. Many who died from plague were buried in mass graves that are disturbingly similar to those being dug right now outside Port-au-Prince for victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Dead bodies from Haiti’s earthquake are being piled into dump trucks and unloaded in mass graves outside Port-au-Prince. This burial method dates back to the Middle Ages but according to the field manual, Management of dead bodies after disasters, produced by the International Committee of the Red Cross, burying bodies in mass graves can be traumatizing for survivors and lead to legal troubles later on, as family members seek to retrieve loved ones. The manual also notes an important misconception, one still being posited by some newscasters in Haiti: “The bodies of people who have died in a disaster do not cause epidemics…In most cases, those who have survived are more likely to be spreading diseases.”

It was fear of disease that led to some of the largest mass graves in history, those dug across Europe during the Bubonic Plague. A particularly virulent outbreak, called the Black Death, killed one-quarter to one-half of the European population in the mid-14th century. Flea-infested rats are believed to have spread the plague from the Gobi Desert to the Crimea, Constantinople and eventually all of Europe. Bouts of plague continued to erupt in the centuries to follow, with one of the last ones occurring in London, in 1665. In The Decameron, a bloody chronicle of the plague in 14th century Florence, Giovanni Boccaccio describes a scene similar to those presently being witnessed throughout Port-au-Prince.

“Dead bodies filled every corner. Most of them were treated in the same manner by the survivors, who were more concerned to get rid of their rotting bodies than moved by charity towards the dead. With the aid of porters, if they could get them, they carried the bodies out of the houses and laid them at the door; where every morning quantities of the dead might be seen. They then were laid on biers or, as these were often lacking, on tables.

Such was the multitude of corpses brought to the churches every day and almost every hour that there was not enough consecrated ground to give them burial, especially since they wanted to bury each person in the family grave, according to the old custom. Although the cemeteries were full they were forced to dig huge trenches, where they buried the bodies by hundreds. Here they stowed them away like bales in the hold of a ship and covered them with a little earth, until the whole trench was full.”

A mass grave recently discovered on a small island in the Venetian Lagoon held over 1,500 plague victims. During the late 15th century, the island, Lazzaretto Vecchio, served as a lazaret, a place where the sick were quarantined to help stem the spread of plague. Researchers believe this practice may have helped Venice recover more quickly from the devastating plague outbreaks of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Perhaps what is most difficult about watching bulldozers gather corpses along the streets of Port-au-Prince is that one knows the bodies will be dumped without ceremony, and without lament. The family and friends who would typically sing and cry are often unaware their loved ones are even dead. They may be dead themselves. It is a scene disturbingly similar to one that occurred in London during the Great Plague of 1665, described by Daniel Defoe in A Journal of the Plague Year.

“This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much as the rest…The cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapt up in linen sheets, some in rags, some little other than naked, or so loose that what covering they had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest; but the matter was not much to them, or the indecency much to any one else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it, for here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together; there was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there should, for coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that fell in such a calamity as this.”

Frankie Yale was murdered by Al Cappone's gunmen. His Brooklyn funeral was the most ostentatious in mob history, featuring a $15,000 silver casket and 110 Cadillac limousines. One woman bolted from the crowd and spit on the gleaming coffin; Yale’s thugs had murdered her husband while in bed some years earlier.

With a heavy police presence and a bevy of gawking onlookers, a golden coffin was carried through the streets of Montreal’s Little Italy neighborhood earlier this week. Inside was the body of 42 year-old Nick Rizzuto, gunned down in broad daylight while standing beside a black Mercedes. His father Vito, considered Canada’s most powerful mafia boss, is presently in a Colorado prison on racketeering charges related to three mob murders.

For Montreal, it was a noteworthy funerary event, but as crime family funerals go, the funeral procession was uneventful and the end for Nick was swift and unexpected. Mob deaths can be much worse. Salvatore Maranzano, a Sicilian-born New York mobster known as the “boss of bosses” was shot and stabbed to death in September 1931 in his Park Avenue office by four thugs posing to be detectives, a murder arranged by Salvatore “Lucky” Luciano. Carmine “Cigar” Galante, acting boss of the Bonanno crime family in the late 1970s was showered with bullets in an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn with a cigar in his mouth, having just polished off a plate of spaghetti. And then there is the unlucky end of Frankie Yale.

The Italian-American was first arrested on suspicion of homicide while still a teenager and eventually became boss of the notorious White Hand gang, which murdered its way to the top of the Brooklyn crime syndicate. Yale survived a hail of bullets ordered upon him by Bill “Wild Bill” Lovett but when Al Cappone caught him hijacking his Chicago-bound booze trucks he ordered a hit Yale couldn’t evade. While racing down New Utrecht Avenue in his brand new Lincoln coupe four gunmen in a Buick tore Yale and his vehicle apart with Tommy Guns.

His funeral was the most ostentatious in mob history. Mourners filled more than one hundred Cadillac limousines; nearly two-dozen additional cars were required just to carry all the flowers. Thousands lined the streets of Brooklyn for the procession, which featured a $15,000 silver casket. One woman bolted from the crowd and spit on the gleaming coffin; Yale’s thugs had murdered her husband while in bed some years earlier. Adding to the hoopla, two different women showed up claiming to be Yale’s wife.

Over-the-top crime funerals aren’t exclusive to mafia families. The 2008 funeral of Mark “Papa” Guardado, the 46 year-old president of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels who was shot dead after a barroom brawl drew more than 2,000 Angels. They came from as far away as Australia and Germany. “We don’t get along with the press,” said one biker to a reporter. “And if you stick a camera in someone’s face, you’re asking for trouble.”

Mourners led what local police claimed was the largest motorcycle procession in the history of the Bay Area, from Daly City to the Cypress Lawn Cemetery, in Colma, making a detour through San Francisco to cruise down Dolores Street, not far from where Guardado was killed. Some bikers were involved a minor collision en route.

Gangster funerary mayhem occurs outside the United States too. A pastor in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago posted the following comment on the website of the nation’s local newspaper:

“Over the past 15 years these eyes of mine have been privy to what can best be described as a very disturbing trend…When a notorious gangster is slain in this country, he is usually forgotten as members of the public rejoice that the only good gangster is a dead one. But what we forget is that these gangsters have fellow gangster friends and family members who attend their funerals en masse, resulting in what can only be described as total mayhem, mass hysteria, and wild uncontrollable behaviour in the hallowed grounds of the cemetery.

At the burial site the scene is one of loud bravado and cartel music blaring from speakers mounted in pimped-out rides, incessant flowing and consumption of alcohol, marijuana smoking, loud cursing and swearing of revenge on the police and rival gangsters who deprived them of the company of their slain ‘homie.’ It is extremely unfair to other grieving mourners who must stand by helplessly and watch as these elements literally take over the cemetery with their nonsense. Mourners from other funerals are also put at risk since these gangsters never go anywhere without ‘packing heat’ (wearing guns) around their waists. These gangster funerals are a haven for criminals (wanted and unwanted), usual suspects, and men for whom there are outstanding warrants.”

Catherine de' Medici at a funeral in the 1560s. The Romans first wore black at funerals and for some reason the Western World has followed ever since. Some cultures wear purple or yellow.

“Wear Black in sunlight and you will roast as the Heat VIBRATIONS absorb easily. Hence Black is the most absurd colour for funerals & Hospitals: It attracts all sorts of Dark moods and energies and influences just when you need extra protection…In certain contrasts Black garments act as a Vacuum cleaner for Bad vibrations…MANY WOMEN WEAR BLACK HEAD TO TOE, THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS.”

These words come from Samuel Sagan, who pasted the lines in an email he dropped Funeralwise earlier this week. Sagan, author of books such as Bleeding Sun, Entity Possession and the Atlantean Secrets tetralogy, comes at it from an odd angle but raises a good question: why wear black at funerals?

Like much we do without knowing why, it began with the Romans. As all booze-guzzling college students know, their garb of choice was the toga, but some Roman togas were much more ornate than Jim Belushi’s plain white bed sheet in Animal House. The toga picta was crimson, embroidered with gold and worn by victorious generals and emperors. The toga candida was rubbed with chalk to give it a glossy look and worn by candidates running for public office and the toga pulla was made of brown, dark grey or black wool and worn at funerals. The black stuck.

Some medieval queens broke the mold and wore white while mourning but the rigid social rules of Victorian England, when wearing as much black for as long as possible became a maniacal fad, helped define black as the mourning color of choice for the Western World.

Victorian women cloaked themselves in simple heavy dresses called widows weeds. Embroidery and lace were not allowed. Attached to the dress was a black veil made of stiff, dull gauze. Black bonnets were worn atop. Around their wrists women wore jewelry made of coal, known as jet, which was of course, black. In a locket or brooch strung from a necklace of black stones was often a lock of hair clipped from the deceased. Everything about the funeral itself was tinged in black; stationary, envelopes, notepaper, visiting cards, serving utensils, infants, handkerchiefs. Bibles were bound with black Moroccan leather and servants wore black armbands.

Following a funeral, a sibling was to be mourned for six months, a child for as long as the parents deemed proper and a husband for two and a half years. During the first year a mourning widow wore only her widows weeds and was not supposed to go out with friends, which meant no balls or sallies. During the second year widows could remove their veils and wear more comfortable fabrics, like velvet and silk. Trimming, lace, fringe and ribbon were also now allowed. The final six months were called half mourning. Colors such as white, purple, violet, pansy, mauve and heliotrope could be worn. Bows, belts, buttons and streamers were okay too. But some widows chose never to exit the first stage of mourning, including Queen Victoria herself, who following Prince Albert’s death in 1861 wore her widows weeds for four decades, until her own death.

World War I ended the stultifying tradition of widows weeds and 30 month-long mourning sessions—there was simply too many dead—but much to the lament of Samuel Sagan, black remained the most popular clothing color for funerals.

“The continued wearing of black throughout the period of mourning only makes matters worse and also prolongs the state of depression,” says Sagan in Awakening the Third Eye, a manual of sorts on how to attain clairvoyance. He continues with a warning: “The negative vibrations of black continue to retard the progress of ancestors and aid the activity of ghosts. The subtle bodies of the deceased ancestors, who cannot move forward in their journey in the subtle realm, stay in their family’s homes. They can cause problems for the surviving members of their family.”