Grisha Funerals and Ravkan Rites
This started as a response to @yototothelalafell 's question about Grisha funerals but turned into a thing, so I'm releasing this into the ether. Tagging @lightfornight and @thewillowbends since they were a part of the original conversation.
We get a full Grisha funeral at one point in the book series. I'll keep the whos and whats vague, but there will be a spoiler for the end of Ruin and Rising at the very end so skip the second to last paragraph if you don't want spoilers.
The Grisha burn their dead if they have access to the body, and it's not a mass slaughter situation where every body is dumped together and burned for sanitation purposes. It's heavily implied that most Grisha do not get a proper funeral because they die in war camps, disappear in enemy territory or their bodies are not salvageable. Grisha and non-Grisha alike watch the body burn, and those closest to deceased give eulogies.
The standard prayer differs between Grisha and non-Grisha. Non-Grisha say, "May the Saints receive him on a brighter shore," and the crowd responds with "May the Saints receive him." The Grisha believe in the Small Science, not saints, so they say: "[Dead Grisha's name] returns to the making at the heart of the world. He will always be with us.” And the Grisha in the crowd respond with “As he returns, so will we all.” It's telling that the Grisha response is more fatalistic. They treat it as a given that they will all die fast and hard. The Grisha don't even reserve a special color for mourning clothes, which implies that non-Grisha Ravkans do, and they have no time for rituals after the funeral because they're perpetually grieving some recent death. No one has time to dwell. Still, there seems to be some level of ownership in this admission of death. It's kind of like how "No mourners, no funerals" developed into a hopeful phrase for the slums of Kerch when it had a gruesome origin. Poor people can't afford funerals there, and the average joe says good riddance when a criminal passes. Instead of falling into despair over this, the poor of Ketterdam used it as a remindered that they needed to take their glory in life. A reminder to never let themselves get killed on the job. The Grisha have resigned themselves to death, but here, death is not the absolution of duty, but the next step in protecting their own.
The Grisha's body is burned to ash and then made into a brick, which is then used in the walls protecting the palace. Thousands of dead Grisha make up the walls, and one character describes it as their ghosts looking over the new generations. Depending on how literal stuff like this is, there may be a level of animism involved in Grisha belief systems, especially if you consider the making at the heart of the world to be a divine essence that feeds into everything, creating a natural order others can tap into. At least some part of the dead person's spirit would linger in their remains as part of their connection to the natural world. Some part would also pass into the afterlife because multiple characters refer to one, so that belief must be prevalent among all manner of Ravkans. The books don't explain how the belief in an afterlife mixes in with saint worship (besides the Fjerdan Saint of the Newly Dead in The Lives of Saints) or the Grisha belief in the natural world.
The desire to make a Grisha's death count by turning them into something else also pops up in an individual Grisha's personal grief process. She plants a flower for each comrade she looses and is distraught that she just ran out of room in her garden but knows more deaths will come. There seems to be a consistent thread of Grisha wanting to surround themselves with visual reminders of dead comrades. To feel like their deaths served a purpose and that a peice of them lingers on.
Also, I have to wonder who started the tradition of making a wall out of dead Grisha bricks because that just screams Aleksander Morozova. I can imagine him, tired of all his closest companions dying, making them into a fortress so that their deaths wouldn't be for nothing. A little peice of them will always be there, reminding him that he isn't really alone. He can visit them any time he wants. They just can't answer him.
Don't look at me. I'm not crying. You are!
Other related funerary stuff includes a lot of references to cemeteries and graves, so burial is at least a common funerary practice among non-grisha Ravkans. We have no information on how often it's used compared to cremation or if there's any restrictions, religious or otherwise, that determines which method a non-Grisha has access to.
RUIN AND RISING SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT!
All this stuff makes me wonder about the Darkling and fake!Alina's funeral. The dying Darkling is adamant that Alina have his body burned and not buried because people would desecrate his corpse. If cremation and transformation into a brick is the typical Grisha funerary practice then does the Darkling think his people hate him so much that they would not allow him the usual resting place? He and fake!Alina are burned in the same pyer. He may have been a disgrace in the eyes of the current rule, but Alina's well-loved at this point. The Grisha would want to cement her into their wall. Does that mean they just scooped up both ashes into one and made that brick, allowing the Darkling to be a part of his beloved Little Palace after all? Did they deny her brickification because there was too much Darkling in it? Did they burn Alina down to ash but removed the Darkling when he was just charred bones that way the resulting brick would mostly be Alina with just a hint of Darkling? I never thought I would debate the acceptable amount of person in a brick, but here we are.
Anyway, that's what I've been able to suss from the books. Hope everyone enjoyed my TED Talk on Grisha funerals.