Masked spirits of the duk duk, from Tolai people, Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
A selection from the butterfly and moth collection of Titian R. Peale, a noted 19th century entomologist.
In the alpine region, many traditions that predate Christianity are still alive and revered by the local folks. One of them is the “Klausentreiben” during the night of the sixth of December. Young males dress up like animalistic spirits, like the bear, the deer and the wolf, and roam the streets while making loud noise. That was supposed to banish the evil spirits from the underworld that were believed to gain strength during the long winternights, threatening the well-being of the village folks and their livestock.
Lycoperdon perlatum, also known as the common puffball, gem-studded puffball, and the devil’s snuff-box, is a species of puffball fungus.
The Museum of London has a new exhibition, entitled “Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men” devoted in part, to the developing medical science of surgery, and in part to the criminals who disinterred the bodies that served such an important function in early medical science. In the early 19th century, hospitals were supplied with the corpses of executed criminals. Thus the resurrection men appeared, to dig up bodies from graves and sell them to Hospitals.
