Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2011 13:55:35 GMT
Hanging Coffins of Bo
It sounds other-worldly, right? “The hanging coffins“- like a macabre chandelier on a moon of Saturn. But go no further than Southwest China where a few hundred ancient coffins dangle precariously on the side of a cliff. The coffins were placed there by the Bo people- an extinct ethnicity of China who apparently preferred their dead as auspiciously displayed as possible. Not content to simply place their deceased in the ground like sane people, the Bo hammered wooden stakes onto the sides of mountains and lowered the single-piece coffins down on ropes. No one’s sure why on Earth anyone would want to visit mom from a thousand feet below, but our guess is that the Bo had a running pool as to who’s father-in-law got to first smash onto a rock floor at 60 miles per hour.
Sati
Grief can take some unusual turns. Some people hit the bottle, some require years of therapy, and some jump into a funeral pyre in an attempt to become a deity. Sati, an ancient (albeit rare) Hindu practice, consists of a recent widow burning herself alive in immolation during her husband’s funeral. Pactitioners of Sati believe that after the woman commits the ultimate act of marital loyalty, she becomes a goddess and shrines are put up in her honor. The practice is outlawed in modern India but it very occasionally still happens. In 1987 an 18-year-old girl cremated herself alongside her 24-year-old husband. It also happened twice in 2006 and once in 2008, and disturbingly enough, there are conflicting reports on how voluntary this whole kill yourself by fire because you’re a widow thing is
Sky Burial
What can be more appealing than feeding birds? Old people do it all the time, and it seems to bring them peace and happiness. And what can be a greater disposal than giving up your body to the lovely and majestic vulture? They really are nature’s beautiful trash disposals. And leave it to the people of Tibet to recognize the vulture’s utility. The traditional sky burial consists of cutting a person’s body in “strategic” places (euphemism for “likely to attract wildlife”) and placing the loved one on top of a mountain or temple. Then just wait for the magic to happen! The magic being that the vultures will then pick apart the flesh until what’s left is a pile of bones, which are either mashed into a bird feed pulp or tossed onto the pile of older bones.
Ritual Cannibalism
Cannibalism isn’t quarantined to one single ethnicity. The practice goes back to the dawn of man, and there’s evidence that our slower hillbilly cousins the neanderthals participated in ritual cannibalism. Regardless of the subset, the reasons for cannibalism outside of starving are pretty much the same- it comes from the belief that eating a part of the dead- be it the heart, liver or brain- will result in the mourner gaining the deceased’s wisdom and/or courage. Some cultures only cannibalized enemies, some only loved ones, some both. There are conflicting reports on whether it’s still practiced today, with the Wari of the Amazon and Korowai of Papua being the more famous examples. No one’s sure if they truly continue to eat their dead or if they’re just really good at attracting the more fearless backpacking tourists.
Sokushunbutsu
Buddhism in the extreme! In an obvious game of one-upmanship, a couple of dozen Japanese Buddhist priests have won the self-denial award by successfully mummifying themselves. The process takes years, but begins with the monk taking part in a diet and exercise regimen to burn away all body fat. Then they slowly poison themselves to induce vomiting and diarrhea to empty the body of bodily fluids. Then, the monk crawls into a box and remains in the lotus position until death, when the box is sealed. When the container of horror is reopened, you get a perfectly mummified Buddhist priest- in theory. Many, many people have tried to mummify themselves unsuccessfully. The practice is now outlawed in modern Japan, and thankfully no Buddhist sect advocates Sokushunbutsu.
Famadihana
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Family get-togethers are awesome, right? Especially when a relative you haven’t seen in a while shows up. That may not be the case when the relative has been dead for a few year. Famadihana is new-ish tradition in Madagascar, where it’s believed the soul does not fully leave the body until it’s decomposed- a process that may take a few years. The purpose of the ceremony is to re-wrap the body in fresh shrouds. That part being over with, the family then dances around the burial tomb with newly wrapped grandma like it’s her birthday. The practice has declined in recent years, partly because of the rising cost of silk burial cloths and partly because of the encroachment of evangelical Christianity, which frowns on the practice of dancing a jig with the bones of your long-dead relative.
Space Burial
or those of us who really hate the world and everything it represents, there’s always a space burial. The practice is still in its infancy, with only one company providing services and as few as 250 people taking part of their cremains being shot into orbit by a firey rocket. The burial doesn’t actually fling your stiff carcass into the cold, lifeless vacuum of deep space, but a small lipstick tube-sized capsule filled with a minor portion of your cremated body can be loaded onto a rocket as a secondary payload and sent far enough into the atmosphere where you’ll encircle Earth for a couple of hundred years before you spiral back to the planet and scare the crap out of the inhabitants of the Atlantic Ocean in a couple hundred years. The more famous participants of space burial include Gene Roddenberry and Timothy Leary.
www.weirdworm.com/7-strange-funeral-customs/2/
Suzy
It sounds other-worldly, right? “The hanging coffins“- like a macabre chandelier on a moon of Saturn. But go no further than Southwest China where a few hundred ancient coffins dangle precariously on the side of a cliff. The coffins were placed there by the Bo people- an extinct ethnicity of China who apparently preferred their dead as auspiciously displayed as possible. Not content to simply place their deceased in the ground like sane people, the Bo hammered wooden stakes onto the sides of mountains and lowered the single-piece coffins down on ropes. No one’s sure why on Earth anyone would want to visit mom from a thousand feet below, but our guess is that the Bo had a running pool as to who’s father-in-law got to first smash onto a rock floor at 60 miles per hour.
Sati
Grief can take some unusual turns. Some people hit the bottle, some require years of therapy, and some jump into a funeral pyre in an attempt to become a deity. Sati, an ancient (albeit rare) Hindu practice, consists of a recent widow burning herself alive in immolation during her husband’s funeral. Pactitioners of Sati believe that after the woman commits the ultimate act of marital loyalty, she becomes a goddess and shrines are put up in her honor. The practice is outlawed in modern India but it very occasionally still happens. In 1987 an 18-year-old girl cremated herself alongside her 24-year-old husband. It also happened twice in 2006 and once in 2008, and disturbingly enough, there are conflicting reports on how voluntary this whole kill yourself by fire because you’re a widow thing is
Sky Burial
What can be more appealing than feeding birds? Old people do it all the time, and it seems to bring them peace and happiness. And what can be a greater disposal than giving up your body to the lovely and majestic vulture? They really are nature’s beautiful trash disposals. And leave it to the people of Tibet to recognize the vulture’s utility. The traditional sky burial consists of cutting a person’s body in “strategic” places (euphemism for “likely to attract wildlife”) and placing the loved one on top of a mountain or temple. Then just wait for the magic to happen! The magic being that the vultures will then pick apart the flesh until what’s left is a pile of bones, which are either mashed into a bird feed pulp or tossed onto the pile of older bones.
Ritual Cannibalism
Cannibalism isn’t quarantined to one single ethnicity. The practice goes back to the dawn of man, and there’s evidence that our slower hillbilly cousins the neanderthals participated in ritual cannibalism. Regardless of the subset, the reasons for cannibalism outside of starving are pretty much the same- it comes from the belief that eating a part of the dead- be it the heart, liver or brain- will result in the mourner gaining the deceased’s wisdom and/or courage. Some cultures only cannibalized enemies, some only loved ones, some both. There are conflicting reports on whether it’s still practiced today, with the Wari of the Amazon and Korowai of Papua being the more famous examples. No one’s sure if they truly continue to eat their dead or if they’re just really good at attracting the more fearless backpacking tourists.
Sokushunbutsu
Buddhism in the extreme! In an obvious game of one-upmanship, a couple of dozen Japanese Buddhist priests have won the self-denial award by successfully mummifying themselves. The process takes years, but begins with the monk taking part in a diet and exercise regimen to burn away all body fat. Then they slowly poison themselves to induce vomiting and diarrhea to empty the body of bodily fluids. Then, the monk crawls into a box and remains in the lotus position until death, when the box is sealed. When the container of horror is reopened, you get a perfectly mummified Buddhist priest- in theory. Many, many people have tried to mummify themselves unsuccessfully. The practice is now outlawed in modern Japan, and thankfully no Buddhist sect advocates Sokushunbutsu.
Famadihana
Family get-togethers are awesome, right? Especially when a relative you haven’t seen in a while shows up. That may not be the case when the relative has been dead for a few year. Famadihana is new-ish tradition in Madagascar, where it’s believed the soul does not fully leave the body until it’s decomposed- a process that may take a few years. The purpose of the ceremony is to re-wrap the body in fresh shrouds. That part being over with, the family then dances around the burial tomb with newly wrapped grandma like it’s her birthday. The practice has declined in recent years, partly because of the rising cost of silk burial cloths and partly because of the encroachment of evangelical Christianity, which frowns on the practice of dancing a jig with the bones of your long-dead relative.
Space Burial
or those of us who really hate the world and everything it represents, there’s always a space burial. The practice is still in its infancy, with only one company providing services and as few as 250 people taking part of their cremains being shot into orbit by a firey rocket. The burial doesn’t actually fling your stiff carcass into the cold, lifeless vacuum of deep space, but a small lipstick tube-sized capsule filled with a minor portion of your cremated body can be loaded onto a rocket as a secondary payload and sent far enough into the atmosphere where you’ll encircle Earth for a couple of hundred years before you spiral back to the planet and scare the crap out of the inhabitants of the Atlantic Ocean in a couple hundred years. The more famous participants of space burial include Gene Roddenberry and Timothy Leary.
www.weirdworm.com/7-strange-funeral-customs/2/
Suzy
