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Secure a sustainable final resting place plot while supporting the development of new parks where nature is needed most. Life After Lifes mo

#life after life #world environment day #conservation #green burial #sustainability #symbiosis #biodiversity #transcend #one last good deed #natural burial #parks for life #we build parks #think long term #climate action #climate crisis #tree burial #living memorial

Cortington Coffin (from a single oak tree with carved headrest, 4300 yrs old), Great North Museum, Hancock, Newcastle upon Tyne, January 2020.

#indonesian burial practices #tree burial #creepy

Cheyenne Tree Burial - Mooney - 1892

#native american #tree burial #outdoors #cheyenne #1890s #1892

Seeing your response to the subject of cremation, do you think a green burial (where your ashes are planted with a tree) would be a good route from a Kemetic standpoint? Perhaps the tree serves as the representation/carrying on of the individual’s self and memory?

Hello,

I think a tree burial would be a lovely idea. I really like that they are eco-friendly and create forests from loss.

Sadly, I am not able to tell you which choice would be best for you. If you feel like a tree burial or any other type or burial is appropriate for you and is correct within the framework of your believes - then that is the right one.

#kemetic #tree burial #eco funeral #tw death #tw burial #tw afterlife #tw funeral

10 Funerary Practices from Around the World

Fantasy Coffins – Ghana

We expect coffins at a funeral – it’s nothing out of the ordinary. So what’s so special about Ghana’s coffins? Among the Ga-Adangbe People of the Greater Accra Region, Ghana, the dead are laid to rest inside works of art. The Ga-Adangbe believe that their ancestors have great influence over their daily lives and sending them off in style – even if one coffin can cost an entire year’s salary – is supposed to win their favor. Each fantasy coffin or abebuu adekai (proverbial coffin) is custom-made, hand-carved and painted in bright colors to represent the life and personality of the deceased. So a fisherman can be buried in a model of their boat or their favorite fish and a tribal chief can be buried inside a leopard-shaped coffin.

The practice is said to have begun in the 1940s when Seth Kane Kwei – who was famous for making carved chairs – made a palanquin for the chief. When the chief died, he convinced the family to bury him inside the palanquin instead of letting it go to waste. In the 1950s, he carved an airplane-shaped coffin for his grandmother who had always dreamed of flying but never got the chance. Since then, coffin-making has become an art and museums across the world have commissioned fantasy coffins for exhibits.

Jar Burial – Southeast Asia

Like coffins, jars really aren’t unusual. Most cremated remains are stored in jars and urns. What makes jar burials unusual is that they don’t contain ashes but bones – even whole bodies. Jar burials can be found across Southeast Asia and even in Korea and Japan. However, the most well-known burial jars were found in the caves of Indonesia and the Philippines. One of the most famous of these jars is the Manunggul Jar discovered in Palawan, Philippines and is considered a work by a master potter. This jar is depicts two human figures riding in a boat, representing the soul of the dead and the ferryman to the underworld.

These massive jars have been used for centuries to store the bones of the deceased. The body is first buried in the ground and allowed to decompose. After a period of time, the remains are dug up and cleaned then transferred to the ornate jars for secondary burial. While most of these jars are ancient, the practice has lasted until modern times among the Berawan and Kelabit ethnic groups of Indonesia who used imported Chinese stoneware jars for both primary and secondary burials.

Tree and Scaffold Burials – North America

The different Native American peoples practiced a wide variety of burial customs. Aerial sepultures – above ground “burials” on high platforms unreachable by scavengers – is primarily found among the Plains Indians and the groups in the Pacific Northwest. The bodies were left to decay over time and loud wailing and mourning is usually done around the platform as an expression of grief.

A variety of platforms were used between different groups. Where trees were plentiful, they were used and the body can be laid out on its back or wrapped in a cloth and hung from the branches. In other areas where trees are few or their shape is not suitable, scaffolds may be built or open coffins are raised on stilts. Regardless of the type of the platform used, food offerings are also usually hung beside the bodies and personal belongings might be placed with the body especially in the case of powerful persons within the community.

Cave Burials – Hawai’i

In Hawai’i, there are many different ways of burying the dead. One of the most common practices was to inter the deceased inside caves. In fact, burial caves can be found on all Hawaiian islands. Bodies were traditionally curled into fetal position and left sitting inside lava tubes, rockshelters and deep within caverns with food, cloth and other grave goods. But newer bodies found near the mouths of caves – anthropologists theorize this was after Hawai’i adopted Christianity – were laid out on their backs, showing the changing attitudes of the Hawaiian people towards death.

One gravesite can be reserved for one person but most are familial burial grounds. Most people buried in caves are commoners (maka'ainana), but some caves, such as the Forbes’ Cave, were reserved for royalty (ali’i) that were distinguished by their luxurious grave goods. To prevent theft, a wall of false rock is sometimes used to disguise the cave entrance and guarded by a kahu (family retainer). Sadly, gravesites have been looted ever since cave burials fell out of practice.

Towers of Silence – The Middle East and India

According to Zoroastrianism, when a person dies, the body is invaded by the corpse demon (nasu daeva), making it unclean (nasu). Burial – both in the ground and at sea – and cremation are not practiced because the bodies of the dead are believed to pollute the earth, water and fire and make them unfit for use by the living. To prevent contamination, Zoroastrians put their dead in high places far away from their cities.

The tower of silence (dakhma) is a flat, circular and roofless building made to contain the dead. It is built in concentric circles meant to separate bodies based on sex and age – men are placed in the outermost ring, women in the middle ring, and children in the innermost ring. Carrion birds such as vultures and buzzards have learned to hang around these places and make quick work of the body. When only the bones are left, they are moved either to the ossuary well at the center of the dakhma or to a columbary nearby. The exposure to the sun and wind disintegrates the bones into powder which is then washed out into the sea by the rain.

Sky Burials – Tibet

Sky burial or bya gtor (literally “alms for the birds”) involves feeding the bodies of the dead to the vultures which are considered the corporeal forms of angels (dakhini) in Tibetan belief. While it has its similarities with the Zoroastrian funeral practice this Tibetan tradition has a very different reason for being. Instead of believing that dead bodies are unclean, Tibetan Buddhists believe that corpses are empty vessels once the soul has left to be reincarnated so there is no reason to keep them around.

The ceremony begins by washing the corpse and chanting. The body is then hauled up into the mountains and juniper incense is lit to attract vultures. Professional body breakers called rogyapa chop up the body and smash the bones to make the work easier for the vultures. The ground up bones mixed with tsampa (roasted barley flour) are served first before the internal organs and finally the flesh. It might sound macabre, but bya gtor is the Tibetans’ way of returning the body to the circle of life and is considered an immense show of generosity and compassion – by feeding dead flesh to the vultures, they spare the life of another animal that could have been the birds’ meal.

Fire Mummies – Philippines

Thanks to media, when we think of mummies, we think of Egypt and dead pharaohs wrapped in gauze. But it’s not the bandages that make the mummy. Mummies are actually any preserved body and can be made in a variety of ways. Smoking the bodies is one of the rarer ways to make mummies, but this is exactly what is done with the fire mummies of the Philippines. These mummies made by the Ibaloi ethnic group can be found in the caves of Benguet, lying curled up in a fetal position inside open coffins. Scientists can’t decide whether the practice began in 1200 CE or if it’s much older, but they do agree that it stopped when the Spaniards colonized the archipelago.

As morbid as it sounds, the mummification process begins shortly before death and the soon-to-be mummy participates. The dying drink a very salty concoction meant to speed up dehydration. After death, the body is washed and put in a sitting position above a fire to be smoked until all water content in the body has evaporated while tobacco smoke is blown into the corpse’s mouth to dry out the internal organs. This process can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months. When it’s done, the body is laid to rest in a coffin and placed inside one of the caves where they can still be found today.

Wet Mummies – China

We’ve already established that the most famous mummies are from Egypt. But the oldest and best-preserved mummy is in China. The Lady of Dai has been dead for over 2,100 years, but she looked like she had just been dead for a few hours – a few days at the most – when her tomb was opened. Even her eyelashes haven’t fallen out yet. She was so well-preserved that scientists were able to run an autopsy on her body and find out that she died of a coronary heart attack. A wealthy noble from the Han dynasty, stepping into her tomb is like stepping back through time.

In Ancient China, a lot of care was taken to preserve the bodies of the dead and provide them with the luxuries they would need in the afterlife. Unlike the Egyptians or the Ibaloi, the Chinese didn’t dehydrate bodies to preserve them. They did the reverse and soaked them in embalming solutions. Each mortician had their own secret formula and scientists today haven’t even figured out what they put into them. The bodies are then sealed away tightly away and the lack of oxygen prevents bacteria from surviving long enough to begin decomposing the body. The Lady of Dai’s tomb was sealed so well – and the floor was sprinkled with charcoal and white clay to neutralize bacteria – that even the feast she was buried with had not decayed and the paint on her pottery had not even started to fade. Another wet mummy – from the Ming dynasty this time – was found entombed in a stone coffin underground during road construction.

Skull Burial – Kiribati

For the I-Kiribati, the dead don’t leave and that is meant very literally. The family waits until the body is partially decomposed before cutting off the head and burying the rest. The head is cleaned and the flesh is removed so the skull can be taken home and put on a high shelf – it is never left on the floor to avoid accidentally flashing the ancestor. Other bones can also be kept to make tools and the body can be dug up later to take some more.

The skull is still considered a part of the family that must be given respect. Relatives still regularly talk to it and ask it for favors, usually of the supernatural kind. Daily food offerings are made and the deceased’s favorite relative is required to eat it by the end of the day. Tobacco is also a popular offering and a living relative would blow the smoke into the skull’s jaws. Great care is taken to make sure that the skull is never offended and remains happy.

Funerary Cannibalism – Papua New Guinea

Cannibalism tends to leave a bad taste in our mouths. When we hear about it, we think of horrible crimes committed by the likes of Armin Meiwes and Sagawa Issei. But here’s the thing: Cannibalism comes in different flavors. The kind practiced by several Papuan tribes is called funerary endocannibalism – eating dead relatives as a show of grief and respect. The most famous of these tribes is the South Fore because of a mad cow-like prion disease called kuru (also called the “shaking disease”) which spreads through the ingestion of an infected brain. Because of this, the practice has since been banned in Papua New Guinea.

Among the South Fore, it was believed that a person had five souls, three of which stayed in the world of the living – the parts containing good qualities, occult power and bad luck. Eating the body was supposed to ensure that the good qualities and magic possessed by the dead will be inherited by descendants and the bad luck would be contained. It was considered normal to give one’s relatives instructions about how their body was going to be divided after death. There are even traditions regarding who is allowed to have which part. After a period of mourning, the body is washed, taken to a shady grove and prepared by the women of the family. A lot of care is taken so that nothing touches the ground or becomes wasted – even the bones are ground and mixed with plantains to be eaten. Usually, it is the kinswomen that consume most of the body. Men are only allowed small portions. Once the body is devoured, the family engages in various purification rituals.

#funeral #funerary practices #burial #fantasy coffin #jar burial #tree burial #scaffold burial #cave burial #tower of silence #sky burial #fire mummy #wet mummy #skull burial #funerary endocannibalism #cannibalism #death #culture #customs

Shark Burials in Polynesian Cultures

For centuries, Polynesian peoples practiced a unique form of water burial practice under a similar philosophy of returning one’s to nature. In their culture, the bodies of the deceased were set out in coral reefs off their shores to be consumed by sharks. This practice, known as shark burial (or ocean burial), was seen as a way of achieving a higher status in the afterlife and joining the family gods who were believed to take the form of sharks. While the practice is no longer widely observed in Polynesia today, it remains an important part of Polynesian cultural history and serves as a reminder of the importance of giving back to the earth.

The shark burial practice was primarily associated with the Hawaiian islands, where it was known as 'kapu kai,' or 'forbidden ocean'. The practice involved laying the deceased to rest in the ocean, typically in coral reefs or other areas where sharks were known to congregate. The belief was that by offering their bodies to the sharks, the deceased would be able to join the 'aumakua', or 'family gods', who were believed to take the form of sharks. The body of the deceased was often wrapped in mats or cloth and weighted down with stones to ensure that it would sink to the bottom of the ocean, where the sharks could find it. In some cultures, the deceased were buried in a fetal position, as a way of returning to the earth in the same way that they came into it.

The practice of shark burial served as a way for the Polynesian people to give back to the earth - a way of returning to the natural world that sustained them and of recognizing one’s place within the larger ecosystem. With the loss of sharks and their habitat due to human externalities and the influence of industrial western influence - Polynesians have largely had to abandon the practice.

As we face complex environmental challenges and the threat of climate change today, history can remind us of an often-lost relationship that we used to have with the earth’s biodiversity. Cultural practices are a powerful tool for normalizing conservation, sustainable living practices, and protection of the environment. That’s why Life After Life is working to make conservation easier – blending the remediation of scarred spaces with existing norms across cultures.