10 strange death and funeral rituals from around the world

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Life consists of uncertainties, and death is one of the few things that definitely happen in every person's life. Depending on religious or personal beliefs, after death, a person's body is either buried or cremated. And people all over the world practice many unusual rituals to perpetuate the memory of the dead. In this review, there are ten of the strangest, and sometimes downright frightening, practices associated with funerals.

1. Sati

Sati is a Hindu practice in which a newly widowed woman is burned with her late husband at a funeral pyre. This is done mostly voluntarily, but sometimes a woman was violently burned. There are other forms of sati such as being buried alive and drowning. This macabre ritual was especially popular in South India and among the upper castes of society. Sati is considered the highest manifestation of total devotion to a dead husband. This practice was outlawed in 1827, but it still occurs in parts of India today.

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2. Funeral totem poles

Totem Poles are tall cedar pillars decorated with carved figures that are used in Native American culture in the Pacific Northwest. Burial totem poles, especially those built by the Haida people, have a special cavity in the upper part, which is used to store a burial box containing the remains of a leader or some important person. These remains are placed in a box about a year after the death of a person. When the box was placed in the cavity at the top of the post, it was then hidden behind a board with traditional painting or carvings. The shape and design of this board gave the post the appearance of a large cross.

3. The funeral of the Vikings

Viking burial rituals clearly reflected their pagan beliefs. The Vikings believed that after death they would fall into one of the nine afterlife realities. Because of this, they struggled to send the deceased to a "successful" afterlife. They usually did this either by cremation or by burial. The funerals of kings or jarls were much stranger. According to the story of one such funeral ritual, the body of the chief was buried in a temporary grave for ten days while new clothes were prepared for the deceased.

READ ALSO: 10 Viking inventions that tell a lot about their life and history >>

During this time, one of the slaves had to "voluntarily" agree to join the leader in the afterlife. At first she was guarded day and night and was given a lot of alcohol. As soon as the re-burial ceremony began, the slave had to sleep with every man in the village, after which she was strangled with a rope and stabbed to death by the village matriarch. After that, the bodies of the leader and the woman were placed on a wooden ship, which was set on fire and floated down the river.

4. The ritual of cutting off the fingers of the Dani people

The tribute people in Papua New Guinea believe that the physical display of emotional pain is essential to the grieving process. A woman cut off the tip of her finger if she lost a family member or child.

READ ALSO: 18 picturesque pictures of the Dani tribe from the island of New Guinea >>

In addition to using pain to express sadness and suffering, this ritual amputation of the phalanx of the finger was done to appease and ward off spirits (the Dani tribe believes that the essence of the deceased can cause long-term emotional distress in relatives). This ritual is now banned, but evidence of the practice can still be seen in some older women in the community who mutilate their fingertips.

5. Famadikhana

Famadihan-drazana or simply famadihana is a ceremony of honoring the dead. It is a traditional festival in the southern highlands of Madagascar and is held every seven years in winter (July to September) in Madagascar. Tears and crying during famadihan are prohibited, and the ceremony is considered festive, in contrast to the funeral. After the beginning of the ritual, the corpses are exhumed from the graves and wrapped in new shrouds.

Before the remains are buried again, they are raised in their hands above their heads and several times carried around the grave so that the deceased "can familiarize himself with his place of eternal rest." During famadihan, all deceased family members are often reburied in the same grave. The celebration includes loud music, dancing, multi-food parties and feasting. The last famadihana was held in 2011, which means that the next one will begin very soon.

6. Sallakhana

Salekhana, also known as Santhara, is the last vow prescribed by the Jain code of ethics. It is practiced by the Jain ascetics at the end of their life, when they begin to gradually reduce their intake of food and liquids, and so on to death from hunger. This practice is highly respected in the Jain community.

The vow can only be taken voluntarily at the approach of death. Salekhana can last up to 12 years, which gives a person enough time to reflect on life, purify karma and prevent the emergence of new "sins". Despite public opposition, India's Supreme Court imposed a ban on Sallekhana in 2015.

7. Zoroastrian towers of silence

The Tower of Silence or Dakhma is a burial structure used by followers of the Zoroastrian faith. On the tops of such towers, the bodies of the dead are left to decompose in the sun, and they are also eaten by vulture vultures. According to the Zoroastrian faith, the four elements (fire, water, earth and air) are sacred and they should not be defiled by cremation and burying dead bodies in the ground.

To avoid contamination of these elements, the Zoroastrians carry them to the Towers of Silence - special platforms with three concentric circles inside them. The bodies of men are laid in the outer circle, women in the middle circle, and children in the center. Then the vultures fly in and eat the dead flesh. The remaining bones are dried white in the sun and then dumped into the ossuary in the center of the tower. Similar towers can be found both in Iran and India.

8. Skulls from the graves

Kiribati is an island nation living in the Pacific Ocean. In our time, people of this nationality practice mainly Christian burials, but this was not always the case. Until the 19th century, they practiced the "funerary skulls" ritual, which involved preserving the skull of the deceased at home by his family so that the deity would receive the spirit of the deceased in the afterlife. After someone died, their body was left at home for 3 to 12 days so that people could show their respect.

In order not to be disturbed by the smell of decomposition, leaves were burned next to the corpse, and flowers were placed in the mouth, nose and ears of the corpse. The body could also be rubbed with coconut and other scented oils. A few months after the body was buried, family members dug up the grave, removed the skull, polished it, and displayed it at home. The widow or child of the deceased slept and ate next to the skull and carried it with them wherever they went. They could also make necklaces from lost teeth. Several years later, the skull was buried again.

9. Hanging coffins

The people of the Igorot tribe living in the mountainous province of the northern Philippines buried their dead in hanging coffins, which had been nailed to the walls of mountain cliffs for over two millennia. Igorots believe that if you place the bodies of the dead as high as possible, this will bring them closer to their ancestors. The corpses were buried in the fetal position, since it was believed that a person should leave the world just as he came into it. Nowadays, younger generations are adopting a more modern and Christian way of life, so this ancient ritual is slowly dying.

10. Sokushinbutsu

Many religions around the world believe that an imperishable corpse is a testament to the ability to connect with forces outside the physical world. The monks of the Japanese Shingon school in Yamagata province went a little further in this belief. It is believed that the practice of samumification or sokushinbutsu guarantees them access to Heaven, where they can live for millions of years and protect people on Earth. The process of self-mummification required maximum dedication to the idea and the highest self-discipline. The sokushinbutsu process began with the monk going on a diet consisting only of tree roots, bark, nuts, berries, pine needles, and even stones. This diet helped to get rid of any fat and muscle and bacteria from the body. This could last from 1000 to 3000 days.

The monk also drank the juice of the Chinese lacquer tree all this time, which made the body toxic to corpse-eating insects after death. The monk continued to meditate, eating only a small amount of salted water. When death approached, he lay down in a very small pine coffin, which was buried in the ground.

The corpse was then exhumed 1000 days later. If the body remained intact, it meant that the deceased had become a sokushinbutsu. Then the body was dressed in a robe and placed in the temple for worship. The whole process could take over three years. It is believed that 24 monks successfully mummified themselves between 1081 and 1903, but this ritual was banned in 1877.