Taxidermy and Necromancy Or, No You Can't Bring That Thing In My House

This week's post comes to you courtesy of a typical dinner conversation between my husband and me.  I had been having a rough day and was telling him about how I pulled myself out of the slump of the day.  Thoroughly depressed, I found myself on the internet, which, for those of you who've never dealt with depression, is a terrible place to be.  You tend to lose even more faith in humanity.  But I persevered.  I managed to find my fluffy bunnies.  I watched some nyan cat, looked at pictures of animals with stuffed versions of themselves (and by stuffed I mean plush), and looked at a couple of my favorite comedic blogs.  Among the latter was the site of the oh so wonderful and possibly a doppelganger of myself, the blogess.  Yes, this is actually relevant.

You see, one of the things I do not have in common with the blogess is her love of taxidermied animals.  This became a discussion point over our tacos, shrimp, and beans. That's right, there we are, enjoying a lovely dinner, and talking about taxidermy.  Probably better than actually doing it during dinner.  I expect the blood would be awkward.

Blood.  It's awkward.

Now let's get one thing straight here.  I do care about animals, and am not keen on the idea of killing them for our entertainment and decorative purposes.  If I had to kill everything I ate, I would probably be a vegetarian (mostly because of the mess, but, having accidentally killed a couple of things,  I can also say that killing innocent creatures is pretty damned unpleasant).  However, humans were designed to be able to eat, among other things, meat.  That's what the incisors are for.  They're for tearing meat, which only come comes from animals.  So, yeah, as long as I don't have to deal with it before it's cooked, I'm okay with meat.  I'm also okay with other animal products, like leather, bone, or fur.  I feel like if we're going to kill an animal, we should use as many parts of it as we can, so that it's death is purposeful (yes, I know that we keep separate cows for beef and leather, but let me pretend, okay?  It's how I sleep at night).  I'd also like to point out that animals in nature kill each other all the time.  It's called the food chain, and we're at the top.  So, it's really kinda part of life, and using all the parts of the animal is just practical.  Also, some of the parts really can't be imitated well.  Leather is a very strong material, and less likely than a synthetic to melt into a puddle of goo on your skin if you catch it on fire. Sure, you could use kevlar, but it's going to cost a lot more.  And, as much as I hate to admit it, there is no stiffening agent as strong as rabbit skin glue.

Long story short, while I'm not keen on killing animals to eat and use for parts, I'm okay with the necessity of it. 

This brings us to taxidermy.  Now, I am aware that not all animals that are stuffed in this manner are killed for it.  Plenty die of natural causes.  But something about preserving and stuffing a dead animal's remains just creeps me the hell out.

I could've picked the turtle snake for this.  But I didn't.

I mean, when you have the parts--be it meat, hides, or bones, the animal is pretty thoroughly dead.  It's definitely passed on.  There's literally nothing left for it, unless it wants to haunt my leather coat.  and let's face it, cows don't really have enough going on to a) be troubled enough to become ghosts or b) be entertaining ghosts at all.

"MOOoooOOOoo!"  Ghost cow.  Terrifying.

And while not all leather is made from cows, most other animals used are equally boring.  Sheep, deer, pigs, and goats are equally boring.  An alligator ghost might be kinda creepy, but what's it going to do?  Bite you with it's nonexistent teeth?  Either way, by the time it's been processed, the parts are completely dead.  It's obvious.  There is no attempt here to keep the animal alive, in memory or appearance.

With taxidermy, on the other hand, the goal is to make that dead thing look as alive as possible.  You want people to see your stuffed tiger and crap their pants.  You want to show off the antlers of that deer you killed.  Never mind that you could have made a coat rack or attractive pens or something out of it.  No, you need to have them still on the head for perspective.

You could have done something like this.  But did you?  No.

Whatever the animal, the entire goal of taxidermy is to make it look as lifelike as possible.  I should not need to tell you how creepy this is.

My google search was for "cute taxidermy".  There is nothing cute about this.  These cats are DEAD!

I mean, seriously, you wouldn't stuff a human and put them on display for decades, would you?

"Wow, Billy's grandma, you look great!"

"Actually that's my great great great great great great great grandmother.  Granddad had her stuffed.  She's been in the family for years."

(No offense meant to whoever's grandmother this is.  I'd've used my own, but sometimes family reads this and they'd probably get pissed.)

It's like in trying to capture that lifelike look, taxidermists are secretly trying to capture animal's souls, like some sort of bizarre ritual necromancy.  "Well, Ted, I figger if we can make it look alive enough, that there deer might get up and walk, and then we can shoot 'er agin!"  Or maybe it's more along the lines of, "Gordammit, Bill, you killed it too soon!"  "Sorry, Bubba, I just don't know what went wrong!"  "Well, let's stuff this bugger and bring it back to life.  Maybe Lord Cthulu won't notice."  

Or maybe someone just wants that extra special undead army.  I don't know.  All I can say is, not in my house.

Nope, not even if it's that cute.  What if it strangles me in my sleep?

 

As a final note, let me leave you with a link.  I had to scroll through a lot of disturbing images for my research on this one.  I feel it's only right that I share some of the better ones.  Although, I have to say, I am horrified that the crab squirrel came up in the search for "cute taxidermy".  There is nothing cute about that abomination. (It's at the bottom of the link, for your enjoyment.  Or nightmare fuel.  Whatever.)