Molt And Slough: Natural Law, Natural Symbols, and American Humor on Charleston's Colonial Grave Stones



Posted: Friday, July 18, 2008

by
Charleston Perlo

Molt and Slough

In Europe all faiths shared the technical skill of carving from every angle the folds and drapes in the gowns, robes, dresses, and cloaks of the statuary; the garments of many carvings are so natural in proportion their drape, folds, and pleats look like cloth.

The favorite technical motif of early American carvers again breaks tradition. Charleston's favorite? Wings that evolved into feathers! Feathers? Yes, feathers!

Layered, elaborated in many forms (arches, curves, tapers), evocating mythic and real creatures and crafts (e.g. parson collars and keyboards!) wings were contoured into feathers, blending the environmental naturalism of the American landscape with the spiritual naturalism of death. Missed by Charleston's grave art experts is the secret passage of shared traits that by analogy connect feathers to faith: feathers have strength and are lightweight; they represent the freedom and strength of the soul absolved of its grievances and guilt. Feathers molt once a year: the old damaged contours shed and drop away as sin confessed sloughs away from the saved.

If stretched to ancient Egypt, the single weight of a feather determined whether a soul was condemned or saved. The questions posed to the death were weighed by the weight of a feather!

In the New World around them, in the skulls of animals found in the forests and in the dead they buried in graves, they were vigilant witnesses. In the changing seasons--in the molting of feathers--they observed and found meaning, and in natural law, a confirming logic. And in stone, they chiseled, in plain tongue, and warned, in plain sight, of the stumbling blocks (acting out of accord with Divine Law) that denied passageway to the comforts of high mercies.

The spirituals passionately confirmed the warnings of the stone and lead the way from danger. Conversely, they tell: right actions led to high mercies, for death was fatal, but not necessarily final. Perhaps passers-by (black and white) knew the verse from Ezekiel (37:5), "Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live." Or this verse from Acts (20:10), "Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him."

The best expression of the life, style, and ideas of Charleston is found in its churchyard and cemeteries, both present and absent. The grave holds only one body (some, two!) but its marker brings together a thick tangle of beliefs, styles, technologies, and life histories--and forms an American connection that binds life, death, and the eternal. Charleston has no natural stone. Yet Charleston became the arbitrator of the foremost expressions of American public art, and has today the most diverse and extensive surviving collections of colonial grave markers. Plied by carvers "from off," mainly Massachusetts, Charleston became the judge and guardian for forging and elaborating the spiritual sensibilities that formed the American identity. Began in New England, Charleston's wealth and status, its acceptance, purchase, and support helped turned a regional expression into an American ideal.

III Laughing to Keep from Dying

The bizarre images meant to get your attention were also meant to be funny. As startling as the images can be another excepted surprise is their humor. Laughing was a way to keep from dying. The humor has pratfalls and subtle wit, demonstrates ingeniousness and outrageousness, and runs from sophisticated to slapstick.

For example, the skulls are masquerade masks meant to alarm the living. The skulls, so ghastly and frightening, mock death by disguising its peace, a subtle sophistication hidden by the skull's glaring fix. The skull's gruesome, exaggerated hyperbole mimics and defy death's sting as it stares unchangingly and inescapably out into the living world. Like an ever shining beacon, death joined life and never let go. But here is the overstated joke: The dead are dead. Dead and buried. Sent for sugar. Gone but not forgotten. But these skulls, with their hollow eyes of stone never leave! In their unstinting vigilance, without rest, they mock the living and the dead!

There are books of epitaph humor. Here three (two undated) epitaphs from stone maskers show close ties between humor and death:

"A bird, a man, a loaded gun,

No bird, dead man, Thy will be done."

For a dentist:

"View this with gravity

He is filling his last cavity

Or:

Here lies a poor but honest expert angler,

until Death, envious of his art

threw out his line and hooked and landed him (1790)

The underside of grief is a memory that continues beyond life, and humor is often the tender vehicle for the long distance.

Enter a colonial churchyard and enter a comedy zone. At St. Philip's Church, (America's second oldest Anglican Church) in the West Cemetery, a skeleton lies in full lateral repose, head comfortably resting on an hourglass, hands folded, knees elevated--but upon close notice, with feet too big! This is gruesome slapstick; so is a skull with a thatch of hair that even stone leaves unruly. A parson's collar symbolized as a bib of feathers is contrived; the image of a colonial preacher dressed morning coat and cravat, carved in a classic, Grecian bust, flanked by two cheerful, rosy cherubs, one with his elbow resting on a human skull is outrageous--and hilarious.

As does death, humor abounds in unexpected ways. John Bull, who carved in Charleston and Newport, marks the grave of a two year child, with a human figure cut in half by a scythe, and an hourglass halved and toppled by its blade tip! Macabre horror!

John Walker, one of the few active Charleston carvers, for example, accentuates his feathers on John Collins at Circular Church (repeated on the marker for Richard Wilkinson at St. Philip's), making his neck look an inverted Native American headdress. But for baby sisters, Esther and Elizabeth Gordon, born nine years apart (buried the Circular Church yard) he carves an elaborate hourglass, enclosed in spindles that resemble a cradle's rocking arms, adds miniature crossbones and a tiny skull. Chiseled on a stippled background in Latin caps is the phrase, MEMENTO MORI (REMEMBER YOU MUST DIE), the children scream out. But the joke is the little dickens are helpless victims of their own advice.

And in the tombs of death, fruits and vegetables are abundant.

Throughout the historic churchyards, the snapped off tops of many fluted columns, though intentional, have slapstick appeal. These markers remind the community another topped out too soon!

Walter Rhett Walter Rhett attended Ohio State and writes from Charleston, SC. He writes about national and global affairs with an eye on Southern history and culture and enjoys listening to his readers.

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