Even here in the US, people do some rather interesting things with the dead, including taking funeral selfies next to the casket, attending the funeral of a complete stranger, or even burying them on their motorcycle or in the front yard of their home.
1. Drive Through Funeral Parlor, Los Angeles, California
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In Los Angeles, residents looking for quick and convenient ways to say goodbye can just
visit the city’s drive through, bulletproof funeral parlor. This service is mainly provided for gang-related deaths.2. Fantasy Coffins
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In Ghana, the death of a loved one is a time to mourn for them as well as a time to celebrate their life. Instead of being buried in a traditional coffin, carpenters fashion out caskets symbolizing the deceased person’s life, including their character traits or status in society. Some are quite creative and made into fish, coke bottles, animals, or beer cans.
3. LifeGem
Interested in turning your deceased grandmother into a synthetic diamond? To create the shiny crystal, this company called LifeGem takes a person’s cremated remains, turns them into graphite, then places it into a diamond press. For $3500 to $20,000, you can wear your loved one on your finger.
4. Famadihana or “Turning of the Bones”
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Once every five or seven years, the Malagasy people of Madagascar have a centuries-old celebration for the dead by exhuming the bodies and dressing them in new clothes or cloth. Then, the Malagasy dance with the corpses around the tomb to live music.
5. Santhara
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Santhara is a voluntary death brought on by fasting. Practiced by the Jains community in India, Santhara begins after a person decides their life has served its purpose and they are ready for spiritual purification. This practice is often seen as a form of suicide or euthanasia.
6. Mysterious Hanging Coffins
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Hanging coffins are coffins which have been placed on cliffs. They can be found in various locations, including China, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
In China, hanging coffins are an ancient funeral custom of some minority groups, especially the Bo people of southern China.
Hanging coffins can be found in Sagada, Mountain Province, Luzon Island, Philippines.
In Indonesia, hanging coffins and funeral effigies of the Sa'dan Toraja people of upland Sulawesi are found in Londa Nanggala cave
7. Ma'nene Walking Dead at Tana Toraja in Eastern Indonesia
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Funerals in Tana Toraja, in eastern Indonesia, are epic affairs that involve an entire village and can last anywhere from a couple days to weeks. Sacrificial water buffalo are slaughtered to carry the soul of the deceased into the afterlife.
But that moment could take years. In the meantime, they are considered one “who is asleep” and are placed in special rooms within the home and symbolically fed, cared for and taken out–remaining a part of their relative’s lives.
8. Endocannibalism
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A few tribes in Australia and South America have been known to feast on the flesh of the dead.
According to anthropologist Napolean Changon, the Yanomamo community in South America still eat the ground bones and ashes of the deceased after cremation has taken place.
9. Finger Amputation
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In West Papua, when a loved one passed on, the Dani people used to cut off their own fingers. This ritual is now banned, but was allegedly practiced to drive away spirits as well as to use physical pain as a form of expression.
The amputated flesh was then dried and burned to ashes or stored in a sacred place.
10. “Sky Burials”
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Many Buddhists in Mongolia and Tibet practice ritual dissection, or “Sky Burials.” This tradition often involves chopping up the deceased into pieces and feeding them to animals, mainly vultures. In Buddhism, a dead body is seen as an empty vessel and is not commemorated.
11. Funeral Strippers "Dancing for the Dead"
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In many Eastern countries, paying respects to the dead with earthly gifts -- like food and money -- is not an uncommon practice. But in Taiwan, some have taken ancestor worship to sexier heights, as strippers pole dance and peel off their clothes for the benefit of the deceased.
According to an AFP report released Tuesday, pole dances and stripteases are commonly performed at religious festivals in some areas in Taiwan in order to "appease the wandering spirits."
In some cases, women dressed in tiny miniskirts and revealing brassieres shimmy and shake on stage in front an audience of men, women and children.
12. “Tower of Silence” : The Zoroastrian Sky Burial Tradition
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The Zoroastrians in Mumbai, India, would leave their dead at a “dakhma,” also known as “Tower of Silence.” The scripture and tradition spoke of decaying corpses polluting the earth, so when someone died, their exposed bodies were taken to “Tower of Silence” to be eaten by vultures.
13. Varanasi, India
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On the banks of the Ganges River, Hindus bathe in polluted waters to absolve them of their sins. The Ganges is also a place encompassed in death. Believing that the river will release them from the cycle of rebirth, wealthy Hindus are ceremoniously cremated here and their ashes are released into the water. For those less fortunate, their dead bodies are placed into the water and left to rot.
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