Weird burial practices around the world

1. Tree Burial - The indigenous people of Australia place their dead up in trees. Like with the Zoroastrians, they allow the weather and animals to devour their relatives' dead bodies.

2. Bury Twice - In Melanesia, inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands buried their dead twice. First, they would bury them, then dig up the bones and carve them into spoons and other utensils. They believed this was an act of piety. Eventually, these utensils were placed in caves facing the sea.

3. Eating the dead - The Wari of the Amazon and Korowai of Papua, these tribes do have a very gruesome burial ritual. They eat their dead relatives. They believed that this was the ultimate portrayal of love for the deceased. They would also gain the wisdom and talents of the dead person that was eaten.

4. Dancing With The Dead - The Madagascar believe, in a somewhat new tradition, that the soul does not fully leave the body until it’s decomposed, a process that may take a few years. Thus, once her body was fully decomposed, she would be dug up, re-wrapped in silk shrouds, and relatives would dance around the burial plot. These celebrations called Famadihana (’turning of the bones’) ceremony, a ceremony only happens every seven years or so in any given family. The gleeful family members are excited to see their completely decomposed family member and try to squeeze into the cramped tombs. There is a lot of happiness and laughter and drinking of expensive liquor.

5. Pit Burial - In Pacific Northwest Haida, before white contact, the indigenous people of the American northwest coast, particularly the Haida, simply cast their dead into a large open pit behind the village. Their flesh was left to the animals. The body was crushed with clubs until it fit into a small wooden box about the size of a piece of modern luggage. It was then fitted atop a totem pole in front of the longhouse of the man’s tribe where the various icons of the totem acted as guardians for the spirits’ journey to the next world.

6. Skull Burial - On the tiny island of Kiribati the deceased is laid out in their house for no less than three days and as long as twelve. Friends and relatives make a pudding from the root of a local plant as an offering. Several months after internment the body is exhumed and the skull removed, oiled, polished, and offered tobacco and food. After the remainder of the body is re-interred, traditional islanders keep the skull on a shelf in their home and believe the native god Nakaa welcomes the dead person’s spirit in the northern end of the islands.

7. The Final Frontier - Today, if one has enough money, you can be launched into space aboard a private commercial satellite and a capsule containing your ashes will be in permanent orbit around the earth. Perhaps this is the ultimate burial ceremony, or maybe the beginning of a whole new era in which man continues to find new and innovative ways to invoke spirits and provide a safe passage to whatever awaits us at the end of this life.

Source:

http://matadornetwork.com
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com