Woman’s Corpse Made To Stand At Her Funeral

While this may seem strange to many, it is worthy of note that there are many strange odd burial customs and traditions from around the world.

Take the Torajans people who live in the mountains of Sulawesi in Indonesia for instance, they treat their beloved relatives as if they are sick and not dead. In Toraja, it is customary to feed the deceased every day and to keep the corpses cozily bedded in a separate room of the family house until the family can afford a proper funeral.

After the funeral rites of “Rambu Solo”, the deceased are finally buried in tombs. But still they are regularly visited, cleaned and given new clothes in a ritual known as Ma’nene (‘Care of Ancestors’).

On the island of Kiribati, the deceased is laid out in their house for no less than three days and as long as twelve, depending on their status in the community. Friends and relatives make a pudding from the root of a local plant as an offering.

Several months after internment the body is exhumed and the skull removed, oiled, polished, and offered tobacco and food. After the remainder of the body is re-interred, traditional islanders keep the skull on a shelf in their home and believe the native god Nakaa welcomes the dead person’s spirit in the northern end of the islands.

Another good example is a Viking funeral that sees the Viking funeral with the body laid out on the deck of a dragon ship, floating into the sunset while warriors fire flaming arrows to ignite the pyre.

Vikings being a sea faring people were interred in large graves dug in the shape of a ship and lined with rocks. The person’s belongings and food were placed beside them. Men took their weapons to the next world, while women were laid to rest wearing their finest jewelry and accessories.

If the deceased was a nobleman or great warrior, his woman was passed from man to man in his tribe, who all made love to her (some would say raped) before strangling her and placing her next to the body of her man.