The Dallas Morning News
Saturday, January 1, 2011
HOUSTON — Cheerful wooden figures, loosely based on animals, a vegetable and some sea creatures, greet the eye. Each sweet, hand-carved figure, painted in pastels, stands larger than a person. Why so big?
The Rock Falls (Illinois) hearse, built in 1880, required two horses. The coach lamps and interior drapery and felt are all original.
These works of art are current-day caskets from the African country of Ghana, home of the world’s most colorful and imaginative burial boxes. The spacious building displaying them is Houston’s National Museum of Funeral History.
You won’t find anything sensationally gory, morbid or creepy here, but don’t let that dissuade you from visiting. It’s every bit worth seeing.
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