Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead by Peter Manseau

A fascinating, intelligent, and sometimes funny tour of the human relics at the root of the worlds major religions

By examining relics—the bits and pieces of long-dead saints at the heart of nearly all religious traditions—Peter Manseau delivers a book about life, and about faith and how it is sustained. The result of wide travel and the authors own deep curiosity, filled with true tales of the living and dubious legends of the dead, Rag and Bone tells of a California seeker who ended up in a Jerusalem convent because of a nuns disembodied hand; a French forensics expert who travels on the metro with the rib of a saint; two young brothers who collect tickets at a Syrian mosque, studying English beside a hair from the Prophet Muhammads beard; and many other stories, myths, and peculiar histories.

With these, and an array of other digits, limbs, and bones, Manseau provides a respectful, witty, informed, inquisitive, thoughtful, and fascinating look into the "primordial strangeness that is at the heart of belief," and the place where the abstractions of faith meet the realities of physical objects, of rags and bones.

Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir Vows and the novel Songs for the Butcher's Daughter. He is also the coauthor (with Jeff Sharlet) of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible. The editor of Search: The Magazine of Science, Religion, and Culture, he lives with his wife and two daughters in Washington, D.C., where he teaches writing and studies religion at Georgetown University.

The impulse to preserve and revere the body parts of the holy deceased has been part of the human experience since the Buddha lost his baby teeth and John the Baptist lost his head.

With postmortem accounts of Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, and a crowd of other holy souls, Peter Manseau's Rag and Bone tells the hidden histories of these bodies that have meant so much to so many. Along the way, we meet a California seeker of a nuns disembodied hand, a French forensics expert who rides the metro with the rib from what may have been a saint, two young Syrian brothers who study English beside a hair from the Prophet's beard, and discover many more true tales of the living and dubious legends of the dead.

By examining these relics—the bits and pieces of long-dead saints found in most religious traditions—Manseau has written a tremendously moving book about life, the varieties of faith, and how both life and faith are sustained. The result of wide travel, the author's own deep curiosity, and visits with those living who take care of those dead, Rag and Bone stitches together a portrait of the world's religions. And it delivers a respectful, witty, and fascinating look into the place where the abstractions of faith meet the realities of physical objects, of rags and bones.

"From Damascus to Jerusalem to Philadelphia (oddly, one of the relic capitals of the world), Manseau recounts his journey to find religious objects that have captivated the faithful for centuries and his encounters with modern pilgrims along the way . . . Manseau's vivid recollections of each trip, combined with personal anecdotes and interesting tidbits (did you know that every Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. has a relic?), provide a fascinating look into an ancient and complex topic."—M. J. Stephey, Time

"Peter Manseau embarks on a global odyssey in search of the 'dismembered toes, splinters of shinbone, stolen bits of hair, burned remnants of an anonymous rib cage, and other odds and ends' belonging to saints and other sacred figures. The result is an entertaining, sometimes affecting inquiry into mans yearning for spiritual transcendence through the worship of holy relics, real or otherwise—from the Shroud of Turin ('considered by some to be Christianitys most holy artifact, mocked by others as little more than a medieval towel smeared with ink') to more obscure bits of clothing and body parts. The book could have been ghoulish, but Manseaus irreverent approach and enthusiasm keep the tone surprisingly light. He examines the curious dissemination of pieces of saints around the globe, meets a cast of fellow enthusiasts—including a French paleopathologist who spends his spare time rummaging through the supposed bone fragments of Joan of Arc—and explores the fringes of religious devotion. Most notable is the pious Portuguese woman who, in a fit of ecstasy, is said to have bitten off the little toe of St. Francis Xavier, whose damaged cadaver lures Manseau to the Roman Catholic enclave of Goa, India: 'To look closely at the foot now—with at least three digits missing—is to wonder if she got away with an even bigger bite.'"—Joshua Hammer, The New York Times Book Review

"Manseau notes that he is moved not 'merely by questions of their authenticity, but also simply by the fact of them, the fleshy actuality of what they are.' He's awe-struck that, however dubious their provenance, these holy artifacts—'often frankly repulsive'—are not just a 'what' but a 'who.' They are, literally, matters of life and death. Rag and Bone begins with a 13th century 'blackened and shriveled' tongue (allegedly that of St. Anthony), displayed on the altar of an Italian basilica, where a thousand devout tourists line up daily to kneel and pray before it. (Objects of worship can be secular too; Manseau mentions a museum in Georgia where fans can view 'Possibly Elvis's Toenail.') The whiskers of Muhammad, the jumping heart of a recently dead Tibetan lama, the apocryphal scorched rib of Joan of Arc and the even more putative prepuce of (apologies in advance) Jesus are among the relics with 'macabre magnetism' explored by the author. He also delves into the history of plundering, which has played 'as much a part of the tradition of relics as veneration has.' Manseau offers plenty of interesting trivia too: Neanderthals first decided to bury the dead about 70,000 years ago. And Jerusalem once boasted the greatest number of relics, but now it falls behind Rome and even, unbelievably, Pittsburgh, second only to the Vatican in its vast collection. Ultimately, all of these remnants tell a similar story. They reveal the enduring power of faith, regardless of ideology, and the obsessive nature of religious belief—which, as this entertaining book amply proves, is all too capable of taking peculiar turns."—Carmela Ciuraru, Los Angeles Times

"If you're wondering why even a divine being would have more than the usual compliment of body parts, it's because over the centuries relics have been found, made, sold, traded and gifted with great enthusiasm, both in honor of their connections to holiness and their ability to draw visitors and money to the institutions that house them. And like all high-demand items, relics tend to inspire counterfeit knock-offs. But Peter Manseau argues in his book Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead that what's really important about relics is not strict authenticity but how people feel about the sacred remains. While researching the book, Manseau asked a Muslim who was visiting Mohammed's beard, 'Do you come here to feel closer to the Prophet?' The man answered, 'No, I come here to remind myself how far I have to go.' Sentiments like this deepen what could have been nothing more than a macabre tourist guide, and while Manseau obviously delights in sharing the bizarre and often humorous aspects of his subject, in the end this is a book that compassionately explores the good, bad and ugly aspects of faith."—David Ian Miller, San Francisco Chronicle

"You might be confident that the risen Christ is the Messiah, but would you be more so if you could venerate a piece of his remains: his foreskin, for example? Peter Manseau's Rag and Bone, a travelogue in which the author details his search for body parts of the holy deceased, tackles the curious relationship between faith and the physical evidence relics offer. 'A relic concentrates the beliefs surrounding it until they can be seen . . . like shining sunlight through a magnifying glass,' Manseau writes of his pilgrimages to view bits of the departed, including Muhammad's whisker in Kashmir, one of the Buddha's teeth in Sri Lanka and Jesus' prepuce in Jerusalem. Of course, there's a lot of room for the word 'alleged' when scrutinizing remains over two millennia old, but aside from a chapter devoted to a researcher trying to determine whether a scorched human rib found in a French museum belonged to Joan of Arc, Manseau is less interested in the legitimacy of relics than in how people use them to support belief. Christianity, Islam and Buddhism thrive by convincing the uninitiated that dogma preached by long-dead figureheads is universal truth. As the author points out, what better 'portable form of sanctity' is there for evangelicals than St. Francis Xavier's toe, Lama Yeshe's leg or St. Anthony's tongue? Born to a former nun and a priest who married but refused to renounce the Church, Manseau brings the same expansive perspective on belief to Rag and Bone that fueled his 2005 memoir, Vows—the understanding that every leap of faith can benefit from a little push."—Justin Moyer, The Washinton Post

"From Damascus to Jerusalem to Philadelphia (oddly, one of the relic capitals of the world), Manseau recounts his journey to find religious objects that have captivated the faithful for centuries and his encounters with modern pilgrims along the way . . . Manseau's vivid recollections of each trip, combined with personal anecdotes and interesting tidbits (did you know that every Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. has a relic?), provide a fascinating look into an ancient and complex topic."—M. J. Stephey, Time

"Talk about a long, strange trip. Manseau journeys around the world seeking Muhammad's whiskers, Buddha's tooth (there's a Temple of the Holy Tooth in Sri Lanka) and even Jesus' foreskin—or at least the people who believe these saintly relics exist. Of course, there really is 'La Chapelle dell Reliquie' is Padua, Italy, the home to Saint Anthony's tongue. There's proper respect for believers and a nod and a wink for the others (the traveling Heart Shrine Relic van, for example, reminds him of the Scooby-Doo gang's Mystery Machine)."—Billy Heller, New York Post

"Because he is serious but not heavy, Peter Manseau—journalist, novelist, memoirist, teacher, student—makes an amusing traveling companion in Rag and Bone, his tour of the bits and pieces of saints and saviors that we have been moved to worship . . . Manseau's pleasure is to roam the globe, dropping in at the basilica in Goa that houses the shriveled remains of St. Francis Xavier, or the shrine to the Buddha's tooth in Sri Lanka. But his point is that such relics, whether spurious or with provenance, are one of the ways in which humankind connects to something beyond itself . . . Part history, part hagiography, part travel book and part memoir, Rag and Bone is an elegantly crafted tribute to the ways in which life and death connect."—David L. Beck, St. Petersburg Times

"Manseau begins his entertaining book with memories of his trip to a chapel in Italy to view, in the company of a crowd of tourists from across Europe, the tongue of St. Anthony. Later he goes to India to see St. Francis Xavier's toes, to France to discuss a rib that might have belonged to Joan of Arc, to Jerusalem to view the bones of a Russian nun who was martyred in 1918 when Bolshevik police threw her into a well, to Kashmir to consider a hair from the Prophet Muhammad's chin (that's right, a single whisker), and to Sri Lanka in a surreal and funny attempt to see Buddha's tooth. But this isn't a religious book. It's a book about religion. Inspiration is not Manseau's goal as he addresses the history and conflict behind relics, and the 'macabre magnetism' that inspires us to venerate scraps of the holy dead. He's a droll and engaging tour guide in the strange territory he covers. Whether it's quaint or barbaric, he writes, we treat 'what remains of those we admire as conduits to something greater than ourselves.'"—The Arizona Republic

"Lets start with this: when I was carrying this book around with me, while reading it for the purposes of this review, someone who knows me well noticed the cover—with the title, and the picture of a praying skeleton—and started laughing. 'Boy,' he said, 'is that ever up your alley.' And it is. Thats the truth about Rag and Bone: it is a very specific, narrowly focused sort of book, and if this is your sort of thing—poking among the religious curiosities of the world, with an eye for the mystical, the mythic and the mundane—then this book will really be your sort of thing. Because it cant be faulted in approach or in execution; Peter Manseau is too canny a reporter, and writer, for that. Subject matter is what this one boils down to, friends, and you will either love it or recoil from it. If you love it, you will love it a lot . . . Manseaus tone, through all of these wanderings, is even-tempered and genial. He does not wear the scornful smile of the skeptic, but he does not write from a place of gullibility, either. Instead, he is respectful and good-humored—a just-about-unbeatable combination, when dealing with a topic such as this."—Charity Vogel, The Buffalo News

"What would possess people from all walks of life to marvel at and venerate leathery tongues, detached toes, bone fragments, skin fragments, and a dead persons ashes or hair? Well, for a start, religion. Peter Manseau, a student of religion at Georgetown University, gives us a tour of both the holy body parts and the people who treasure them in his new book, Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the Worlds Holy Dead. Manseau has traveled around the world in search of sacred relics, from the alleged tongue of Saint Anthony to the alleged hair of the prophet Muhammed, and the sometimes sketchy history behind them. The book, part personal storytelling and part historical narrative, is a delight to read. The simple prose reads like a well constructed documentary film with Manseau as your guide . . . This is a quick but fascinating read that is sure to interest you if you wonder at all about the world of sacred body parts. And who doesnt? Highly recommended."—James Tracy, An Atheist

"You have to love a book with sentences like this: 'Things got rough for the foreskins of Jesus as the Middle Ages matured.' Author Manseau (Vows) lavishly scatters gems like this as he travels the world in search of the bones, teeth, hair and other scraps from the religiously renowned. The result is a lively lope among fragments from famous faith figures — Buddha's tooth, Muhammad's whiskers and the aforementioned foreskin, or foreskins, as many people and places have claimed ownership of this fragment. Manseau never gives over entirely to the snarkiness that sometimes marred some of his previous work, especially Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible. Instead, he provides a rich history of each of the, ahem, items he considers and examines their effects on contemporary believers. Occasionally, Manseau's pilgrimages feel a little cursory; he writes that some of his visits to the relic sites were shorter than he would have liked. Yet he listens well. When he meets a Pakistani man praying before the supposed whiskers of Muhammad in an Aleppo mosque, Manseau asks if the man has come to be close to the Prophet. 'Close? I cannot be close,' the pilgrim replies. 'I come to remind me how far it is I must go.'" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

You might be confident that the risen Christ is the Messiah, but would you be more so if you could venerate a piece of his remains: his foreskin, for example? Peter Manseau's "Rag and Bone," a travelogue in which the author details his search for body parts of the holy deceased, tackles the curious relationship between faith and the physical evidence relics offer. "A relic concentrates the beliefs... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review)

Manseau takes an unusual path in what is part travel diary and part study of the religious practice of veneration of relics, also referred to as honoring the body parts of saints, prophets, and other revered religious figures. From the remains of St. Francis Xavier's toe (visited by the author in Goa, India) to dangerous forays into potentially dangerous locations (Syria, Kasmir, Sri Lanka), the author brings a lively and witty, yet respectful, approach to his tales of both the living and the dead and the varieties of faith in the world. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Manseau offers a fascinating, intelligent, and sometimes funny tour of the human relics at the root of the world's major religions.