Chatting with @e_p_wells about gravestones reminded me of topic near and dear to my heart: "Puritan" gravestone boobs.

Many people are familiar with stylistic progression in New England gravestones — from skulls to winged effigies to willows/urns. It's sort of assumed that the skulls reflect a grim "Puritan" outlook softening over time.
There's not a lot of evidence for that, and one big problem:

Only a handful of NEng gravestones date from the pre-1676 period. Early Anglo-New England graves were generally marked with wooden posts (if marked at all). It's a bit tough to argue that something that wasn't particularly common until the very late 17thc is "Puritan."

People *really* want those skulls to be uniquely Puritan but they just aren't. It fits with what we think about when we think "Puritan," but the material evidence is thin.

Contrast that with gravestone boobs. Call them gourds if you must, but they're a common border motif.

New Englanders were intimately familiar with the Christian metaphor of the two testaments of the Bible as breasts. The catechism they studied as children was John Cotton's "Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes . . . Drawn out of the breasts of both TESTAMENTS." John Cotton.

Or take Edward Taylor's (1642-1729) Meditation 150:

"Lord put these nibbles then my mouth into
And suckle me therewith I humbly pray . . ."

Yet, no one ever says, "Look at the breasts on this gravestone — that's Puritanism for you!"

Early modern Christian metaphors don't always conform to modern expectations about "Puritanism." (And NEngland gravestones don't have all that much to do with Puritanism...)