Because death is a fact of life that we all must encounter, many people put considerable thought into their funerals. How people perform a burial depends on the country, person, and culture, and you might find some of their traditions fascinating. Right now, someone's probably turning their loved one into an ocean reef or inviting dancers to their funeral.
If mummification and the Paris catacombs fascinate you, then you might want to check out these lesser-known funeral customs from cultures and countries around the globe. Would you want someone to hang your body off a cliff when you die?
Chinese Royalty Buried In Armor
Royal members of the Han dynasty in China buried their loved ones in jade suits. Square jade pieces would be joined by metallic wire or thread. The suit was incredibly expensive and took several years to complete, so only the royal family and aristocrats bought them.
According to the Book of Later Han, the type of wire depended on the person's status: emperors received gold thread, princes and princesses got silver, and grandchildren of the emperor were given copper thread.
South Koreans Transform Their Dead Into Burial Beads
Recently, South Koreans have replaced traditional burial with a cremation technique that transforms a loved one's ashes into beads. These death beads range from blue-green to pink to black, and they stay near the family in a decorative glass container.
Bae Jae-yul, C.E.O. and founder of the company Death Bed in Bonhyang, said that he creates five hundred of death beads a year for 1,000,000 won (about $900). "You don't feel that these beads are creepy or scary," Jae-yul told the Los Angeles Times. "In fact, there's a holiness and warmth to them."
Coffins Hang Off Cliffs In The Philippines
Members of the Filipino Igorot Tribe lay their dead to rest in hanging coffins nailed to the sides of cliffs. They believe that moving the bodies higher brings them closer to ancestral spirits. Tribe member Soledad Belingom also told Rough Guides that many elderly fear rotting into the ground after death, and preferred for their corpse to be safely elevated.
Throughout history, tomb raiders from the eastern Bontoc province have stolen the belongings and heads of corpses from the tribe. The hanging coffins ensured that the bodies would not be touched.
Keeping The Skull In The Republic of Kiribati
In the Republic of Kiribati, mourners do not keep their dead underground for long. After death, the corpse remains at home for at least three days. The body is then buried for several months, after which the family members exhume the skull. They clean it, anoint it, and keep it.
The family stores the skull on a shelf as a reminder of their deceased loved one. Occasionally, they place offerings of food and tobacco near the skull, symbolically presenting gifts to their ancestors.
Eaten By Birds: Tibetan Sky Burial
Many Buddhists believe that the body should be cremated or offered to animals after death. Since Tibetans historically had little wood for burning corpses, they developed a different system to give the body back to the earth. They leave out the cadaver for vultures to devour, and when only bones remained, they ground the skeleton to feed to crows.
Sky Burial has spread through the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Mongolia, and Sichuan. However, the custom has become less and less common due to vulture decimation and religious marginalization.
Also Eaten By Birds: Tower of Silence
The Zoroastrians built Towers of Silence throughout Iran and India, where a corpse would remain until carrion birds devoured it. As an Abrahamic faith, Zoroastrianism supplied a different reason for this ritual. They believed that dead bodies were unclean, and could be possessed by a corpse demon.
Although the practice dates back to the ninth century, the term "Tower of Silence" wasn't coined until the early nineteenth century by a British translator. Older versions of the ritual include the body being eaten by dogs, and then enveloped in wax and buried.
Spending The Afterlife In The Ocean
A Florida-based company offers eternal reefs, where they mix the corpse's ashes into concrete and shape it into a "reef ball" to join marine life. Weighing anywhere from 800 to 4,000 pounds, these balls won't move even in the roughest current.
Eternal reefs allow the deceased person to harmlessly lay with nature, and provide a permanent headstone that families can visit. Companies can also accommodate groups of reefs, so that family members and pets can remain together.
Funerary Cannibalism
Up until the 1960s, tribes such as the Wari people from the Amazon Basin in South American roasted and consumed their relatives after death. They believe that by keeping the souls of the deceased within living bodies, they prevent the soul from losing its way.
Endocannibalism is different from survival and battle cannibalism in that it usually involves the consumption of relatives as a way to honor the dead. Although we have little information on these rites, it is thought that tribes in Brazil and Venezuela also engaged in funerary cannibalism by mixing their deceased relative's ashes into a soup and drinking the mixture.
Ghana's Creative Fantasy Coffins
Coffin makers in Ghana have reinvented the funeral industry by creating fun, gorgeous, personalized coffins for the newly deceased. These "fantasy" coffins take the form of ships, animals, cars, shells, and much, much more.
People in Ghana believe that life transcends death and that the deceased will continue their profession in the afterlife. The coffins reflect the spirit of the passed soul, what they did during their life, and how they will be remembered.
European Mummies, Or Bog Bodies
While most people are familiar with Egyptian mummification, many don't know about an older mummifying technique that dates back to 8000 B.C.E. In current-day European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, people would mummify cadavers in a peat bog.
These bog bodies would retain their organs through the water's high acidity, low temperature, and lack of oxygen. Historians have uncovered bog bodies that were buried as recently as World War II. The mummification process causes the skin to appear brown and leathery.
The Etruscan City Of The Dead Offers Houses For The Deceased
If the Paris Catacombs fascinate you, you may want to look into the Cerveteri Necropolis, the largest burial site in the Mediterranean. The ancient Etruscans built tombs that resembled houses, with a bed and bedside chair for mourners to attend their dead. The necropolis includes streets and urban planning dating back to the seventh century B.C.
You can find these buildings in Cerveteri, in the northern Lazio province of Rome. The Etruscan City Of The Dead is the only surviving architecture of the Etruscans and provides archaeologists with a visual of how their homes appeared.
The Last Sacrifice-- Antyesti
Hindus in India perform the funeral rite Antyesti, which translates to "last sacrifice." On the day the person dies, their body is wrapped in cloth, tied, and cremated on a pyre near a river. Sometimes, the mourners will consecrate the ashes in a river or sea afterward.
The ritual varies based on the deceased person's gender, marital status, caste, and age. For example, a woman whose husband is still alive gets wrapped in red cloth instead of white. Usually, a mourner or priest will place a yellow, red, or white Tilak mark on the corpse's forehead.
Passports For The Dead
In several regions of the ancient world-- Egypt, Middle East, North Africa, and Greece, to name a few--mourners would inscribe the dead "passports" to remain with their body. These tablets, usually carved into metal or stone, contained instructions on how to navigate the Underworld on one side, and a picture of the deceased on the other.
Members of the cults of Orpheus or Dionysus usually carved the preserved tablets we have today, and these rarities remained reserved for those who could afford them. Regardless, they provide historians with a perspective on how the afterlife was perceived in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.
British Royalty's Lawless Night Funerals
From the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century, British royal funerals took place at night. This tradition began through a revolt by Scottish aristocrats, who disapproved of the way daytime funerals cost so much and adhered to so many regulations.
Since nighttime funerals were not subject to rules and laws, the family could structure the funeral however they wanted. Many also thought that digging a grave by torchlight turned the focus toward their feeling of loss. These funerals also did not require the corpse to be embalmed, a practice which many noblemen disagreed with at the time.
Air Sacrifice In Mongolia
In Mongolian culture, many believe that a loved one's funeral should send them back to their "source." To do this, relatives call a lama, or holy man, to direct the air sacrifice. They place blue stones around the body to deflect malicious spirits and burn incense to welcome beneficial spirits.
When the time comes, the corpse is moved through a window or hole in the wall to avoid the evil spirits that enter through doorways. The lama places the body in a circle of stones, where dogs or vultures eat it. The circle left represents the person's remaining spirit.
Haida Mortuary Poles
The Haida people have inhabited the Haida Gwaii archipelago of Canada for thousands of years. Although they weren't the only tribe to create totem mortuary poles, they gained a lot of recognition for it. They placed the bodies of chiefs or other high-ranking tribesmen into an inverted tree trunk that stood up to 60 feet tall, and carved decorations into the pole.
The Haida believe that deceased souls stick around after death, and they consider it a great honor to have the souls of former chiefs hanging around their mortuary poles. The corpse decomposes for a year until it enters the mortuary pole.
Re-Burying The Corpse In Madagascar
In Madagascar, the Malagasy people practice famadihana, or "the turning of the bones." Every seven years, they exhume family members' corpses to take care of them. During this time, they clean the body and crypts, rewrap the corpse in fresh cloth, and write the deceased's name on the fabric so they will always be remembered.
As the loved ones take the corpse back to the family tomb, they play music and dance, carrying the body over their heads. This custom stems from the belief that dead souls will finally join their ancestors after complete decomposition with these ceremonies.
Don't Speak: Australia's Aboriginal Mortuary Rites
Indigenous Australian Aboriginals have passed on their funeral traditions through generations. When a community member dies, no one speaks their name or draws them. They believe that doing so will disturb the spirit's rest. Instead, they give the dead a substitute name, such as Kunmanara or Kumanjayi.
For the funeral, Aboriginals leave the corpse on an elevated platform for several months. Once only bones remained, they would paint the skeleton with red ochre. The family then keeps the bones as a token of remembrance.
Ritualistic Finger Amputation
In Papua, New Guinea, some members of the Dani tribe have cut off the top of their finger upon attending a funeral. This ritual was mostly performed by women to gratify spirits and to express the pain of mourning physically. Nowadays, the New Guinea government has banned the practice, although older people still live with stubby fingers today.
The method involves constricting blood flow by tying a string around the finger, providing a near painless removal. The wound is then cauterized, and the leftover finger is dried to either cremate or store.
Funeral Dancers In China And Taiwan
For years, China's Ministry of Culture has attempted to crack down on funeral dancers. The practice originated from Taiwan and gained public attention around 1980. As to why burials include hired dancers, many people (especially in higher classes) believe that the more people attend the funeral, the more honor it will bring to the deceased.
Funeral dancers still appear in rural areas of China and Taiwan. In Taiwan, the practice skirts on the edge of legal and illegal, while in China, the government has banned it. Despite the ban, the custom still pops up from time to time.
