‘A man is an animal that buries its dead’- said anthropologist Luis Vincent Tomas, founder of French Society for research of death. Indeed, since the beginning of its time, man took the time to dig a grave in order to preserve a body, to provide it with an ‘eternal house’. All those rites, according to anthologists, were created for one reason, and that is fear.
Man since old age thought that he needs to satisfy and calm down the spirits of his ancestors, and that is how various funeral rites came to be. Until recently, they also in the western civilization had a meaningful place, and in many other parts of the world they are still present even today. At those ceremonies people did not sting, and they consisted out of sequence, in many places already forgotten details, such as ritual bathing of the deceased, wake, burning, scattering of ashes and similar.
10SPACE BURIAL
Ashes of the deceased are sent into space. Most orbit the Earth, but for 12.500 dollar the dead be blasted into deep space.
09NIGABEN
Hindu-Bali cremation ceremony has a carnival-like atmosphere. Coffins are placed in sarcophagi resembling temples or buffalos and set alight.
08TREE BURIAL
The placing of coffins or corpses in trees. The Sioux of North America would dress the bodies in their best clothing.
07SKY BURIAL
Tibetan rite that sky burial is where bodies are cut into pieces and placed upon high ground. The remains are then devoured by vultures – no trace is left.
06HANGING COFFINS OF BO
Coffins suspended down the side of cliffs by the lost Bo civilization. Found in southern China, some of the coffins are 1.000 years old.
05SATI
Hindu practice where widows set themselves on fire and die on their husband´s funeral pyre. Outlawed in India, the ritual is now vary rare.
04CRYONICS
Corpses frozen in the hope that future science will be able to revive them. Whole body preservation can cost 200.000 dollar.
03SOKUSHINBUTSU
Self-mummification formerly practiced by Japanese Buddhist monks. Monks would starve for a decade before being buried alive with a breathing tube.
02ENDOCANNIBALISM
Practice where relatives venerate the deceased by eating their dead flesh. Now largely illegal, some cases are still reported in Papua New Guinea.
01FAMADIHANA
It is Madagascan tradition where dead bodies are dug up and wrapped in sheets. Family members then dance with the deceased around the tomb.
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