10 weirdest ways people from different cultures bury their dead - #9, #6 & #2 will make you shiver to the marrow (With Pics) | Page 6 of 10

Weirdest ways people bury their dead: For most of us, the most outrageous a funeral gets is perhaps the deceased's last wish to have the countdown theme played as the curtains close, or that everyone should wear rainbow colours. But, more often than not, the whole affair a fairly sombre gathering of black-clad mourners and then some drinking and reminiscing. In the West in particular, we're pretty squeamish about the whole process of death, preferring to keep it out of sight, out of mind and definitely out of the house. More..

Checkout Billionaire Femi Otedola’s house, Private jet, Yacht and fleet of expensive cars (With Pics) 12 of the Oldest spinsters in Nollywood reveals why they haven’t married, GENEVIEVE’s reason is quite funny LADIES: Before you get married to your boyfriend, make sure you do these 10 things in front of him! 10 most horrific plane crashes that shook the world – #2 happened right here in Nigeria (With Pics) There are a lot of cultures out there, however, who have very different ideas as to what constitutes a good send-off. Whether that's snapping pictures of the dead, keeping them hanging around the house or even disturbing them every couple of years for a good old family reunion, the dead certainly don't get the same treatment around the world. If you don't fancy the traditional send off for yourself, why not take a couple of notes from some of the most bizarre death rituals throughout the world? 10. Post Mortem Photography Reddit The Victorians had a much more frank relationship with death than we do today. Back then death was a much bigger part of life and those crazy Victorians were okay with that. So they took lots and lots of pictures of dead people. This is what was known as post-mortem photography. It was a way of preserving the memory of their dearly departed beyond a fancy headstone. The photographs were often kept in the family photo albums or even displayed around the house with pride. To be fair, getting you photograph taken back in the Victorian era meant that you had to sit very still for minutes at a time, and it was mush easier to get a dead person to do that. It was also pretty expensive, so those thrifty Victorians saved up all their lives for it, meaning that the only photograph of a lot of Victorians is post-mortem. They would usually pose their dead loved ones as though they were alive, often using specialised stands to prop them up. They sometimes even had their living relatives in the photograph too for a big group portrait. They got so good at it that it's generally pretty difficult to tell whether the people in Victorian portraits are alive or dead. The telltale signs include the lack of blurring, meaning that they were able to sit impossibly still for several minutes, a slightly glassy stare and you can sometimes even see a hint of the stand that's holding them up (such as in the picture on the right above, the little boy stood up is dead. In the picture on the left, it's the woman in the middle). 9. Turning Of The Bones Wikipedia There's no such thing as Rest In Piece in Madagascar. The Malagasy people perform a ritual called “famadihana,” or “the turning of the bones” whereby they disturb the remains of their dearly departed relatives for a jolly little jaunt about town. Once every 5-7 years, the bones of the dead are exhumed and sprayed with perfume and then taken to a party to be danced with by various friends and family to the music of a live band. The music, dancing and feasting carries on well into the night. For many, this is the opportunity for a good old catch up with their dead family members, telling them all of the latest news and asking them for their blessing. This seemingly bizarre ritual comes from the belief that the souls of the dead do not enter some kind of other realm after death, but linger until the body has completely decomposed and can be called up for wisdom and blessings. Women struggling to conceive a child will even take some of the dead person's shroud and hide it under their mattress or even eat it in order to increase their chances of getting pregnant. As the sun comes up, the remains are returned to their tomb and given offerings of wine and money before being sealed back up for another five years or so 8 Strippers For The Dead Funerals tend to be quiet, dignified affairs, with rows of sombre people paying their last respects ... unless you live in some parts of South East Asia. In many places dotted throughout rural China and Taiwan, funerals are status symbols and the amount of people in attendance directly correlates to how much honour the deceased has. Because of this, families sometimes put on some kind of spectacle in order to pull a crowd and bump the honour levels of the dead man, and sometimes these can get pretty weird and pretty huge. Far from the quiet sadness that surrounds a lot of British funerals, these are great carnivalistic celebrations of the life of the person. Some have even been known to hire strippers to dance at the service and give the old boy a proper send off, as well as pulling in the numbers. In recent years, Chinese government officials have tried to crack down on this particular custom due to the media attention that it attracts (suppose that means that we're not helping matters). 7. The Life And Soul Of The Party ABC Miriam Banks loved a good get together, and when she passed away, her daughters knew that she would not have thought that this was not a good enough reason to miss her own party. Instead of being laid into a casket and letting everybody say a few final words over her, Miriam was propped up at a table at her wake with a cigarette in her hand, a bottle of beer and a dram of her favourite whiskey in front of her. This certainly wasn't a sombre affair as the wake also included many of the late Miriam's favourite things, including booming R&B music and spinning disco balls. A similar service was held for New Orleans socialite Mickey Easterling, who sat in state in some of her finest clothes and an extravagant headdress with a cigarette in a long holder in one hand and a feather boa around her shoulders. Fabulous in life, fabulous in death, why not? 6. Cannibalism Wikipedia Despite the fact that the idea of tucking into your deceased granny would make most of our stomachs turn, endocannibalism (ritual consuming of one's own dead) is practiced in one form or another in many places throughout the world. Whilst there are a few definitely confirmed cases, anthropologists tend to err on the side of caution with their estimates for how many cultures practice cannibalism, as it's thought that a lot of reports of the tradition comes from colonial misunderstanding of local cultures (read: white people rolling up and getting everything wrong). The Aghori of Varanasi in India are famous for their cannibalistic rituals. This sect of Hinduism strives to surround themselves with death, worshipping Shiva the Destroyer, and this includes removing one's fear of it. They consume the flesh of the dead in the pursuit of immortality and enlightenment. The Amazonian Yanomami tribe believe that the eating of a corpse will allow the soul to pass on to paradise. They will initially leave the body out for the bugs to consume, then once only the bones remain, they will grind them up and cook them into a fermented banana soup that is consumed by the tribespeople. Dining on humans isn't without its dangers, though. There is a degenerative neurological disease called Kuru that is passed on through cannibalism and it struck the Fore people of Papua New Guinea particularly badly. At its height, it was up to 9 times more common in women and children than in men, as the men would eat the choice cuts of meat, leaving the offal (including the brain) to the women and children. So the lesson here is that if you're going to snack on your dead loved ones, stick with the steaks. 5. Ritual Amputation The Dani tribe of western New Guinea have some pretty extreme mourning rituals that go beyond wearing a bit of black. For the Dani people, one of the most highly decorated tribes in the region, it is customary for the older women to amputate the top half of their fingers when a close relative or spouse dies. Before the amputation, a tourniquet of string is tied tightly around the finger to make it go numb and minimise any bleeding for a (relatively) clean and painless amputation. The finger is usually removed by a family member using a special cutting tool and the wound is then cauterised. The amputated finger is burnt and the ashes are stored in a special place. It is unclear as to where this extreme form of mourning came from, but it is thought that the physical pain and suffering is supposed to be symbolic of the size of the person's grief. The practice has actually been officially banned for some years and is increasingly seen as an outdated, not to mention gender-targeted, tradition. For this reason, it will most often be the old women that can be seen with their mutilated fingertips. 4. Total Denial Elang Herdian/AP In Tana Toraja in eastern Indonesia, funerals are not the some, black-clad affairs that we are used to, they are raucous parties that can last for weeks and families will have to save up for years and years to be able to afford to put it on. Because of the often surprise nature of death, the period between a death and the lavish, expensive funeral becomes something of a limbo for the dead person. After death, but before burial, the deceased will be referred to as a person "who is sick" or someone who is "asleep" and the family will not yet acknowledge them as dead. They will even get their own room in the house and the family will continue to feed, clothe, wash and care for their poor dead granny (more symbolically than if they were truly alive of course, it's pretty difficult to actually feed a corpse). They will remain a big part of the family's life until they can finally afford to send them off in style with a big blow-out of a funeral. The dead don't get any peace once they are finally laid to rest though, as the people of Tana Toraja also have a practice similar to the Turnning of the Bones, during which the mummified remains are exhumed, washed, dressed and even walked around the village from time to time. 3. Filipino Traditions Top10Archive/Youtube Filipino death rituals are many and varied and would strike most of us as pretty odd. In the Apayao region, it is customary to bury your dead under you kitchen floor. In the rural areas of Cavite, a dying person selects their favourite tree shortly before their departure and a small hut is built next to it. After their death, the tree is hollowed out and they are entombed within it in the upright position. A grisly ritual in Benguet dictates that the dead person is sat out on the front porch with a blindfold over their eyes for eight days after death. They are tied with ropes to ensure that their sitting position looks as natural as possible, as though they've simply nodded off. The day before burial, the dead person's life story is chanted to them by village elders and then they are directed to heaven by hitting bamboo sticks together. The nearby Tinguian people will do something similar, but they will also dress their dead in their best clothes and place a lit cigarette in their mouth so that they can enjoy one last smoke before they go to the spirit world (presumably heaven is a no smoking zone). 2. Sky Burial Flickr/Ken Marshall No, a sky burial is not the same as a space burial, no one is getting jettisoned into space. A sky burial is a ritual practiced by the Mongolian and Tibetan monks. Rather than burying or cremating their dead, the bodies are laid out in the open for birds and animals to eat until nothing is left. The bodies are usually dismembered before they are left for the birds, sometimes the bones are even smashed into a bonemeal for smaller bird. The people who do this are often very blasé abut the whole thing and don't seem remotely bothered by the fact that they've just stoved in a corpse's head. They can often be seen to be talking and laughing with each other as though they're not butchering a human corpse. This is because Tibetan Buddhists strongly believe that the body is just a vessel, and a crude one at that, so that have absolutely no qualms about smashing it up once the soul has been freed from it. The whole ritual is symbolic of the central Buddhist belief in rebirth as the remains are returned to the earth. (Note: The picture we have used is one of the least gory we could find, only Google "sky burial" if you have a strong stomach) 1. Self Mummification Wikipedia In a practice known as Sokushinbutsu, or self-mummification, some Buddhist monks would actually begin the mummification process whilst they're still alive. Well, if you want a job doing right, do it yourself. The process can take up to five and a half years and is definitely not the most pleasant way to go. First things first, you've got to get all of that easily-putrified fat off your body. So five years before the intended death date, the monk will put himself on a diet of just nuts and seeds for the next thousand days. After that, they progress to just eating tiny amounts of pine bark and roots. Sounds delicious. Then the process of dehydration begins. The monk will drink an incredibly poisonous tea made from the sap of the urushi tree. This has the double threat of coating their insides with sap to protect them from decomposition, and giving them explosive diarrhea to ensure that every last drop of moisture is squeezed from their body. Then all that is left to do is lock yourself in a stone tomb, sit in the lotus position and die. Easy as that, folks. CLICK HERE to join our BBM Channel for juicy updates & free giveaways.

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