The Vultures That Devour the Dead: Tibet’s Sky Burial
Imagine watching your loved one’s body being methodically dismembered and fed to massive vultures on a remote Tibetan mountaintop. Practice of sky burial is closely related to philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetans believe that if the vultures come and eat the body, it means that the dead has no sin and that his or her soul has gone peacefully to the Paradise. This isn’t a scene from a horror movie – it’s a sacred ritual called sky burial, practiced for over 2,000 years in Tibet and still happening today. It takes a skilled sky burial operator about 2-3 hours to “dissect, smash and feed the bodies to the vultures”. What makes this practice even more shocking is that the body breakers, known as rogyapas, perform their work with laughter and casual conversation. They drag the dead body to the mountaintop and dissect it with blade. The whole process, as opposed to most people’s expectation, is done not with solemn expression or deep sorrow on their face. Instead, body breakers chopped the body with laughter and smell as if they are doing other ordinary farm work, because Tibetan Buddhists believe that keeping a light-hearted atmosphere can help guide the dead to transcend from darkness to the next life. While there are two other ways that Tibetans can lay their dead to rest, cremation and water burial, the sky burial is incredibly popular and practiced by about 80 percent of the population.
Dancing with the Dead in Madagascar’s Famadihana
Famidihana, or ‘the turning of the bones’, is a sacred ritual practiced by some ethnic groups in Madagascar. The Malagasy people believe their ancestors serve as intermediaries between the living and God and therefore have the power to intervene in events on earth. Every five to seven years, families gather to literally dance with their decomposing ancestors in a celebration that would horrify most outsiders but represents the ultimate expression of love for the Malagasy people. In this sacred ritual, which occurs every five to seven years, a number of deceased relatives are removed from an ancestral crypt. Living family members carefully peel the burial garments off the corpses and wrap them in fresh silk shrouds. The festivities begin and guests drink, converse, and dance with their forebears. Human remains, both bones and dust, were transferred from this tomb to a large, above-ground concrete tomb during a famadihana on Aug.17. The practice is now in decline, partly because of opposition from some Christian organisations, and partly because of the enormous expense of the celebrations. What’s truly astonishing is that some women try to steal pieces of the burial shrouds during the ceremony because they believe sleeping with fragments under their pillow will help them become pregnant.
Korea’s Gemstone Transformation of Cremated Remains
South Korea has revolutionized death with a startling innovation: transforming cremated ashes into beautiful, colorful beads that families can keep at home. And that’s why the number of people who chose cremation over burial rose from 20.5% to 82.7% over the course of just one generation. The government of South Korea has even campaigned for cremation. Bae uses ultrahigh temperature to melt cremated ashes until they are crystallized and can be turned into beads in a 90-minute process. The ashes of one person can produce four to five cups of beads, Bae says, although the ashes of young people have a higher bone density that can yield up to eight cups of beads. About 500 people have turned their loved ones’ ashes into Buddhist-style beads at Bonhyang, a company based in Icheon, just south of Seoul. “Our beads are clean; they don’t become moldy and don’t go off and smell bad,” he says. These “death beads” come in stunning colors – blue-green, pink, purple, and black – and cost around $870 to produce. What’s remarkable is how Korean families display these remains: not hidden in urns, but proudly showcased in glass containers throughout their homes.
Philippines’ Hanging Coffins on Impossible Cliffs
Instead of being placed into the ground, the coffins are hung either inside the caves or on the face of the cliffs, near the hanging coffins of their ancestors. The Sagada people have been practicing such burials for over 2,000 years, and some of the coffins are well over a century old. The Igorot people of Sagada perform one of the world’s most death-defying burial rituals, literally hanging coffins from sheer cliff faces hundreds of feet above the ground. When the procession reaches the burial site, young men climb up the side of the cliff and place the corpse inside a hollowed out lumber coffin. The bones are cracked to fit the corpse into the small space, which is then sealed with vines. The fluids from the corpse are thought to bring success and to pass on the skills of the deceased to those who come into contact with them during the funeral procession. To receive this special treatment, the person must be a full-blooded Igorot, be a grandparent, have been married, and have died from natural causes. These aerial cemeteries exist because the Igorot believe that placing bodies higher brings them closer to ancestral spirits. Historically, another reason for the elevated burials was protection from headhunters. In the past, rival groups would seek to collect heads as trophies, so placing the dead up high on cliffs offered a safeguard against such threats.
Iran’s Tower of Silence: Bodies Fed to Sacred Vultures
In Iran’s Zoroastrian communities, death requires an extraordinary purification process that would shock modern sensibilities. One Zoroastrian tradition requires vultures to keep its ancient burial ritual alive. In that tradition a dead body is believed to defile everything it touches—including the ground and fire—and raising a corpse to the sky for vultures to devour was historically the only option. Bull’s urine is used to clean the body before tools, which are later destroyed, are used to cut off clothing. The corpse is then placed atop a Tower of Silence, out of the way of the living who could be tainted by it. The Zoroastrians constructed circular stone towers called “Towers of Silence” where bodies are left exposed to scavenging birds. “Keeping aside the macabre imagery, this system of exposure known as dokhmenashini is swift and ecologically sound,” notes Bachi Karkaria in the Guardian. “It’s also softened by mythology: the soul’s cosmic transition is aided by the vulture’s mystic eye, and the feeding of one’s dead body to the birds is considered the devout Zoroastrian’s final act of charity.” This practice reflects the Zoroastrian belief that earth, fire, and water are sacred elements that should not be contaminated by corpses.
China’s Professional Mourners: When Grief Becomes Business
In China, some families hire professional mourners because they’re too busy to properly grieve their own dead. For example, the rich families in China often hire professional mourners since they are too busy in other arrangements. Usually they are young women and they are paid well for their mourning, not only by the family, but also by people who are too busy to attend the funeral. An absence of tears indicates the deceased was not loved, and disgraces the family. Clients typically pay around $450 for the service, involving around seven professional mourners. These women are trained to wail, sob, and display extreme grief at funerals, creating an atmosphere of mourning that the actual family might not have time to generate themselves. This practice stems from the Chinese belief that insufficient mourning brings shame upon the family and suggests the deceased wasn’t properly loved. The professional mourners must be skilled performers, capable of producing tears on demand and maintaining their emotional display for hours during elaborate funeral ceremonies.
Sweden’s Legal Burial Requirement: Death as Government Business
In spite of its strong secular identity, Sweden has a law that “requires everyone to be buried.” In fact, Parish churches must provide burial grounds for non-Christians. For example, Muslims are buried “in special areas within the cemeteries of the Swedish Church,” according to Bob Brooke on All Scandinavia. “The Swedish Church has agreed to give everyone the type of funeral and special burial ground they require,” he reveals. “This is especially carried out in Stockholm according to the law where every religious group that has asked for a special burial compound within a Swedish Church cemetery has received it.” What makes this bizarre is that in a largely secular country, the government legally mandates that everyone must be buried, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. The Swedish Church, despite the country’s declining religious participation, still maintains control over all burials and must accommodate every faith community’s specific requirements. This creates the unusual situation where atheists and followers of non-Christian religions must still work through Christian church infrastructure for their final arrangements.
Nigeria’s East-Facing Eternal Rest
In Nigeria, death is seen as a very important part of life. When someone dies, their body is washed and wrapped in a white cloth. The body is then buried in the ground, with the head facing towards the east. A special ceremony is held after the burial, during which family and friends celebrate the life of the deceased. The Nigerian burial ritual is designed to help the soul of the deceased to transition to its next life. By washing and wrapping the body, loved ones are able to create a safe space for the soul to rest. While most people see death as a sad event, Nigerians see it as an opportunity to celebrate life. This unique approach to burial helps loved ones to cope with their grief and to remember the good times they shared with the deceased. The eastward orientation isn’t arbitrary – it aligns with traditional beliefs about the direction of spiritual rebirth and the rising sun symbolizing new life. What’s remarkable about Nigerian burial practices is their emphasis on celebration rather than mourning, viewing death as a natural transition rather than an ending.
Ancient Sumerian Drinking Straws for the Dead
More than 5,000 years ago, Sumerian elites sealed jars of beer and fermented dates in tombs, draping them with reed mats and inserting tubes of gold and lapis lazuli for ritual sipping. These opulent straws, some capped with intricately filigreed filters, allowed priests to share in the funereal brew without disturbing precious sediment—an act of communion with