5 Unique Burial Rituals Across the World
Every year, more than 67 million people die throughout the world. When they do, their families typically take part in burial rituals designed to help celebrate their lives and legacies. But these burial rituals don’t always have the same look and feel to them because different cultures have adopted different burial practices.
In the U.S., families will often hold funerals or memorial services for their loved ones in the days following their deaths before either burying them in cemeteries or cremating them and then deciding what to do next with their remains. But some other countries choose to handle burying the dead differently. Here are five unique burial rituals from all across the world.
1. Famadihana
Once upon a time, body snatching was a big problem in the U.S. It led to quite a few laws being developed to prevent people from digging up bodies and taking them. Bodies are only exhumed in extreme cases these days, such as when they’re needed to conduct criminal investigations. But in some other countries, like Madagascar, it’s very common for families to dig up the bodies of the dead during a burial tradition called Famadihana.
After a person dies in Madagascar, their family will usually stage a funeral for them and place their body into a tomb. But it won’t remain in that tomb untouched forever. Instead, a family will take a loved one’s body out of their tomb every few years, remove their burial clothes, and put fresh wrappings on them. They’ll also turn on music and perform a special dance near their tomb before putting the body back inside it.
Famadihana translates to “turning of the bones,” and it’s a burial ritual that’s supposed to make the decomposition process go faster. It’s also supposed to help guide a person’s spirit in the direction of the afterlife.
2. Tower of Silence
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion that is actually one of the oldest religions in the world. Those who practice this religion have a very interesting burial ritual that involves calling on vultures to help them dispose of a person’s dead body. They do this because they believe a dead body can defile just about everything it comes into contact with, including the ground.
When a person who participated in Zoroastrianism dies, their family will use a special set of tools to remove their clothing before discarding the tools immediately. They’ll then arrange to have their loved one’s body cleaned with urine from a bull before the body is ultimately moved to a Tower of Silence, which is a raised structure built specifically for this burial ritual. From there, the family will sit back and wait for vultures to swoop in and devour the body so they don’t have to come into contact with it any further and run the risk of being defiled.
3. Sky Burial
Believe it or not, people who practice Zoroastrianism in Iran and other places aren’t the only ones who turn to vultures and other forms of wildlife for help when it’s time to figure out what to do with the bodies of the dead. Buddhists in Tibet also take a similar approach when it comes to burying those who have died, albeit for a slightly different reason.
Among these Buddhists, the belief is that a person’s body becomes an empty vessel once they have passed away. For this reason, they don’t necessarily treat a dead body with the respect and reverence that other cultures do. Instead, they often stage so-called sky burials for them by cutting a person’s body into pieces once they’ve died and leaving these pieces outside for birds and animals to eat. Outside of helping them to get rid of a person’s body, they also believe doing this enables a person’s soul to escape their body while simultaneously providing nourishment to nature and keeping the circle of life alive.
4. Cremation Urns
Cremation has turned into a very popular option for many cultures throughout the world. Even the U.S. has embraced cremation in recent years with more than half of the people who die throughout the country each year being cremated. American families have gotten used to the idea of cremating their loved ones and placing their cremated remains into beautiful custom urns they can then keep forever.
Other countries have also gotten on board with cremation, and many of them have their own rituals they use once they receive a loved one’s cremated remains back. In South Korea, for example, families will sometimes take the remains of their loved ones and have them transformed into gorgeous cremation beads. These beads are available in a variety of colors, including pink, turquoise, and more. Families will then take these beads and use them to decorate the interiors of their houses to allow their loved ones to continue to maintain presences in their lives.
5. Parades
In certain cultures throughout the world, parades are used to pay tribute to those who have died. For instance, there is a tradition in parts of India, like Varanasi, that includes families parading their loved ones around while wearing colors that help celebrate the most important virtues associated with them. They might be dressed in, say, red to symbolize purity or yellow to stand for knowledge.
But in Varanasi, families do more than just hold parades for their deceased family members. At some point, they will also have their bodies sprinkled with water that has been collected from the Ganges River. They will then cremate their bodies as they believe this will help them reach salvation rather than being reincarnated.
As you can see, there are so many ways in which people from all around the world work to bury or cremate their loved ones. The examples listed here only begin to scratch the surface. There is no universally accepted way to deal with the dead. It really all depends on where you’re from and what you believe in as far as death is concerned.
