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February 23, 2006
"Yes, I know what it looks like, but ..."
Griffin is very interested in ancient Egypt right now. I told him that we could make a chicken mummy. He's very excited. He asked where we would be getting the chicken from. I explained that we would get the chicken from the store, where we typically buy chickens.
"But," he wailed, "It will already be dead!"
"Uh ... yes. Of course it will already be dead. You don't want to kill a chicken, do you?"
"Yes, I do!"
Oooo-kay. Let's lay my son's potential psychological issues aside for the moment (he's only 5, don't panic), and picture the scene:
It's a lovely afternoon. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. The chicken clucks merrily around our back yard. But the chicken's hour has come, and we advance upon it.
The chicken senses that we're up to no good. It runs.
Now, you can probably guess that we have no experience with chickens. We don't know how to catch them. We certainly don't know how to kill one. We have a vague idea of catching it and breaking it's little neck. Children scatter in all directions, diving after our unfortunate feathered friend. The happy children scream. The screaming, running children frightens the chicken, who makes ever-louder frightened chicken noises.
Our back yard is small, and surrounded by houses.
Let's say that eventually, someone does actually catch the poor chicken. The chicken pecks the children. The children scream louder. We don't manage to break the chicken's neck, and feel terribly guilty that the chicken is experiencing this much stress and terror. But the chicken is also probably pretty well wounded by this time, so let's say that in desperation I take a knife and put it out of its poor chicken misery.
Chickens have blood. Well, the ancient Egyptians had to drain the body, so this is all in the line of realism, right? Yeah, right. The children scream even louder, thoroughly traumatized. I'm feeling pretty ill myself.
But now we have a dead chicken, so we begin the rest of the procedure, removing organs, putting them in little jars. Some of the children have made Egyptian robes to wear during the making of the mummy. They convince Mommy to don one as well. We also have scented oil, and spices arrayed around the table.
What's that? The doorbell? Hmmm, we're not expecting anyone, let me see ...
"Excuse me, Ma'am, but we've had a complaint of children screaming here. Is everything all right?"
"Huh? Oh, yes, Officer, everything's fine! We were just -"
"Is that BLOOD on your ... uh ... would you mind if I came in and had a look around?"
Can you see it? Can you hear the rest of the conversation?
"No, Officer, it's just a history project ... ancient Egypt ... well, yes, I guess it does look a little ritualistic, but the jars and spices are just ... well, yes, we are homeschoolers, but .... well, actually, we are Pagans, but ..."
(Please don't get the idea that I'd ever seriously consider killing an animal in order to do a school project. In fact, at this point, I don't think I can pick up a chicken from the grocery store to mummify either. We may have to stick with fruit mummies. In fact, I may not eat meat for the next week, unless it's Kosher ...)
Posted by lynx at February 23, 2006 8:05 PM
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Comments
Your scenerio sounds as though it offers so many more lessons that just plain ol history. I say go for it! Just like it was done in ancient Egypt. You know, when they mummified their chickens and all.
Posted by: Deanna at February 23, 2006 8:47 PM
Chicken
Posted by: Dad at February 23, 2006 9:36 PM
They mummified CATS. I'm afraid to tell Griffin that.
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty ...
Posted by: MamaLynx ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.caerdroia.org/116/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 23, 2006 11:22 PM
I loved when the girls and I mummified their Barbie dolls.....I would fear doing a chicken with your impending move, I can see you unpacking when you arrive and having someone being "helpful" and unwrapping it, saying "where do you want me to put, wtf is THIS??????"
Posted by: elisabeth at February 24, 2006 8:53 AM
Just cried laughing. Thanks.
Posted by: Carlotta at February 24, 2006 9:03 AM
LOL! This is hilarious. I'm glad you are not doing it for real though.
There is a great Egypt themed MMORPG at www.atitd.com
(sorry if this looks like spam, just sharing something I like and I thought you might as well)
Posted by: Leo at February 24, 2006 9:33 AM
Ever heard the phrase, "Like a chicken with its head cut off?" Well, I've seen it first-hand, and I can tell you it isn't pretty.
We used to raise chickens when I was growing up, mainly for eggs. But one time my mother decided to make one of them for dinner...
It gave me a whole new perspective on chickens in general. Notice that I don't eat much chicken these days...
On a side note: For some reason this site won't let me post a comment if I'm signed in via TypeKey. It says that name and email are required.
Posted by: Aubrey Turner at February 24, 2006 10:08 AM
We are using Story of the World also. Last year when we came to this chapter I really really wished I was a cool mom who could do this. I briefly considered it. The thing for me was that you don't just do it and leave it. You have to keep returning to the chicken and rinsing the slimies and re-salting. I don't think I have the stomach to do that on a less than fresh chicken. blech
Good luck
Posted by: kelbel at February 24, 2006 11:27 AM
True story. Local kid in HS Biology class decided to create a chicken skeleton from a whole chicken (for a Senior project). Couldn't chop the head off because that would wreck the neck bones, which were needed for the final skeleton. Decided to put it to death by chloroform. After the bird appeared to be dead, it was immersed in boiling water to simplify removing the feathers. Bird was not dead, just knocked out. Woke up violently and flapped around the kitchen, spewing filthy boiling water all over the kitchen. It tokk weeks to clean up. I don't recall how he ever managed to kill the clucker, but the skeleton looked great when it was done.
Posted by: Dirk at February 24, 2006 5:02 PM
Too funny! Although actually, we did mummify a chicken, three of them to be exact. It was remarkably easy with no slime involved. We solved the headless bit by adding a golf ball to each mummy. Sculpy is a great medium for making pharoh masks. If you have a Egyptian heiroglyph stamp set you can also stamp sculpy to make "magic amulets". After our Egyptian burial ceremony- invented by the three boys- we had quite a few laughs about what all the spirits of the real pharoahs thought about these headless chickens running around the afterworld claiming to be pharoahs.
For me the real clincher, was realising that if I had enough guts, when we studied the middle ages we could unwrap the dang thing and boil it, to experience what preserving meat with salt was like. Too gross for me.
But I would recommend the mummy project.It was definitely memorable.
Posted by: clindemuth at February 25, 2006 12:28 AM
Oh, Steph. I laughed so hard I cried! Zorak and I have those, "Ok, picture this..." discussions regularly. They're a lot more hilarious to read in someone else's invisible world, though. They always make me twitchy when it's US. But you make it sound so - plausibly funny!
Enjoy the adventure!
Dy
Posted by: Dy at February 27, 2006 3:19 PM
I'm sorry, I don't know you, I ran across this on google.
I homeschool boys, too. We did the fruit mummification project last fall. It went great. I to quickly wrote off the mummified chicken project as a "let's not". Anyway fast forward to this spring... 2 of the 8yo's beloved pet fish died. He of course was saddened. But recalling the unit on Egypt, decided to mummify said fish.
We did it, salt, oils, wrappings, jewels and all. Then after they were complete, we made a miniature barge for them and launched them on their eternal voyage down the Mississippi River. :)
No joke - it was fun. the boys of course told everyone they could embarrasing me to no end.
Posted by: Amy at June 9, 2006 12:00 AM