Decomposting Bodies

Not so fast, counters Wiigh-Mäsak, who insists there is nothing particularly natural about burial, be it deep, shallow, chemical free, or otherwise. “In the beginning, a wild animal found you dead in nature and saw you as something edible,” she explains. “They tore you apart and spread you around, and you became soil.” She calls the promatorium her best effort to replace the animals, to prepare the body to become soil again without rotting.

For the younger generation, charged with the task of shepherding in a zero-waste society, compost might represent the ultimate final destination. Wiigh-Mäsak tells me that three women in their early twenties — one from Stockholm and the others visiting from the United States — came to see her last summer. “They hired a car and drove here for six hours, then they sat down to talk with us for two hours, then they drove another six hours back to Stockholm,” she recalls.

“A colleague here said, ‘What on earth could motivate these three girls to drive all that way just to sit down and talk about death?’” Wiigh-Mäsak didn’t miss a beat. “They weren’t talking about death,” she replied. “They were talking about the life that is possible afterwards.”