2. Sky Burial
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)
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