His eloquent and theatrical defence and subsequent acquittal captured the imagination of the nation and paved the way for the legalisation of cremation through the Cremation Act of 1902.Ī grateful, though nervous Woking crematorium finally fired up its burners, installed but never lit due to the ambiguity of the law, and the age of burning our dead began. A heartbroken Dr Price took the boyʼs body to a hilltop, on a Sunday and in full view of the nearby chapel, and attempted to cremate him in paraffin.Ī furious crowd dragged the body from the flames, calling it a “vicious act of blasphemy” and rioted, nearly killing the doctor in the process. It was the death of the aforementioned son when he was barely one year old that was to seal the doctorʼs place in history. Often seen stalking the hillsides naked in his youth, by the time his son - defiantly named Iesu Grist (Jesus Christ) - was born to him in his eighties, he had taken to wearing a scarlet waistcoat and fox-skin headpiece and parading through town carrying a blazing torch and druidical crescent moon. He had already formed a reputation as a flamboyant eccentric, endorsing free love and vegetarinisim and refusing to treat those who smoked. Crestone proper has about 100 residents, but some 1,000 others live in the adjacent development of Baca Grande, who also qualify for the service, as do the residents of the nearby town of Moffat, population 112.In 1883 when Welshman Dr William Price (above) healer, druid and naturist, fathered a child with his housekeeper, nearly sixty years his junior, nobody was surprised. The service is offered only to the small number of people who live in the area. Volunteers counsel grieving family, help arrange the deceased to repose at home before a cremation, and prepare the hearth with kindling the day before the ceremony. The project asks $425 per cremation, though families can give more. The group addressed every worry, said project director Gaines. Some residents initially opposed the idea, worried about pollution, smells and heavy traffic. State and local agencies have given permits to the group to conduct the cremations. Each pending cremation sets in motion phone calls to the Saguache County Sheriff's Office, the fire department and the coroner. The Crestone End of Life Project conducted its first open-air cremation in January 2008 and has performed 18 since. It also can be a protest against traditional funerals, which some view as a denial of death, Weddle said. It can be seen as honoring a natural cycle, reducing the body to ash and the elements of which it is composed. The pyre harkens to references in the Christian and Hebrew Bibles equating rising smoke with the ascent of the soul, said David Weddle, a religion professor at Colorado College. But the practice is largely taboo in the U.S. A Buddhist temple in Red Feather Lakes, Colo., conducts a few funeral pyres, but only for its members.Īncient Vikings lit funeral pyres to honor their dead, and it is accepted practice among Buddhist and Hindu religions. Funeral and cremation industry officials say they are unaware of any other place in the nation that conducts open-air cremations for people regardless of religion. The outdoor funeral pyre in this southern Colorado mountain town is unique. "It's hard to breathe, it's hard to see and it's hard to think about anything but you." "Mommy, you mean the world to me and it's hard to live without you," called out Ellis' weeping daughter, Brenda, 18.
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