Mortuary+Rituals

To Bury or Not To Bury

In the Western world, a formal burial can include an embalmed body, treated casket, and a large ornate tombstone. Cremation is one common alternative. Many other practices are practiced around the world. Many practices have religious, cultural and nowadays, environmental motivations in order to conserve land and its resources needed to suite a traditional, Western burial.

Tibetan Sky Burial
In the Chinese provinces, Tibet, inner Mongolia, Bhutan, and Nepal, there is a funeral practice known as the "Tibetan Sky Burial". Contrary to what the term suggests, the Sky Burial is anything but a burial. Rather, it is a ritual during which vultures and other scavenger organisms eat the corpse of the dead, where it is laid out for them by the family or community members of the deceased person. It is also where the deceased are left out to the elements in the mountainous areas of Tibet. These customs are done through the religion of Vajrayana Buddhism, but due to modernization, this custom practice has declined over the years. In the areas where the soil is too hard or rocky to penetrate, however, the practice remains. Pun intended.

Clip from a Tibetan Sky Burial. **Warning:** Contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing. media type="youtube" key="rz2fqjCv2FQ" width="420" height="315" align="center"

Woodland Burial
In the UK, there is a common burial practice which has opposite objectives of traditional ones. It is called a woodland burial. Instead attempting to preserve the body with a casket and embalming fluids, the body is placed in a biodegradable casket and buried so that the individual can return to the earth as fast as possible. A tree or shrub is often planted over the individual to honor their life and symbolize the person giving back. While woodland burials have long been used out of necessity, modern woodland burials are primarily chosen for environmental purposes. 1

Endocannibalism
The ritual of encouraging vultures to consume the corpse of humans is cringeworthy and shocking, but it other rituals are even more extreme. Endocannibalism, the eating of human flesh by other humans 2, is a common funerary ritual in the island of Borneo. They have an entire celebration dedicated to processing the remains of the corpse into a wine of sorts 3.

Alkaline-hydrolysis

 Alkaline-hydrolisis is a process of dissolving a body in potassium hydroxide with heat, pressure, and water. After the process is completed only the bones of the individual remain. This new innovation in body disposal is used in parts of the USA and Europe. A person would choose this method as a more environmentally conscious alternative to cremation. 1

Resources
"Tibetan Sky Burial." YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2016. <@https://youtu.be/rz2fqjCv2FQ?t=1m18s>.

Rumble, Hannah, et al. "Disposal Or Dispersal? Environmentalism And Final Treatment Of The British Dead." Mortality 19.3 (2014): 243-260.

Consumer Health Complete - EBSCOhost. Web. 15 June 2016.

"Cannibalism." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2015): 1. Literary Reference Center. Web.

Frazer, Charles E. Gordon. Cannibal Feast on the Island of Tanna, New Hebrides. Digital image. Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web.

Lund, Ken. John Smith Grave, Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake City, Utah. Digital image. Flickr. Yahoo, n.d. Web. <@https://flic.kr/p/fizPR2>.

Metcalf, Peter. "Wine of the Corpse: Endocannibalism and the Great Feast of the Dead in Borneo." Representations 17 (1987): 96-109. Web. . Woodland Burial Ground. Digital image. Green Burial. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2016.

 Sullivan, Sandy. Resomation. Digital image. Tech Insider. N.p., 24 Aug. 2015. Web. 25 July 2016.

"Sky Burial." //Wikipedia //. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 July 2016. Web. 25 July 2016 Back to Culture page