30+ Burial Customs

Digging more into my setting - World of Neyathis, I was thinking more about the various cultures which would populate it - I have only barely touched upon most of them so far. One of the questions which I think has many applications for roleplaying as well as how the culture thinks is how they dispose of their dead? Think the Egyptians and the value of describing this area is immediately shown.

Here is a list of 30 possible Burial customs both great and small, and I would invite you to add your own.

There is no need to simply choose one custom - you can mix and match and combine many of the following to produce unique customs for your race or culture.

1. Embalming
Careful preservation of the dead has been practiced by many real-world cultures, and perhaps the most famous are the Egyptian mummies. Generally this involves chemical treatment of the corpse. Some of these dead have been known to arise as Bandage Beasts, to the dismay of tomb robbers.

2. Clay coating
The corpse is coated by a thick layer of clay. It is not typically fired, as the corpse would cause the clay to break, so it is left soft. The clay figure may then be painted to resemble the deceased in life. Some cultures may choose to skeletonize the corpse first and then built the deceased back up with clay. In this case, the final product is much closer to the deceased in size and so may be outfitted with the deceased clothing.

Other uses for Clay can be found here.

3. Freezing
Those cultures closer to arctic regions or with availability of cold-inducing magics may preserve their dead by freezing.

The Melashar people, a mountain-dwelling race living close to great glaciers, have built massive ice-domes where they incorporate their dead into the icy walls, each posed peacefully with their hands crossed on the chest. Occasionally priests will converse by magic with these frozen dead.

4. Asphalt Coating
Similar to clay-coating, this substance can be an even better preservative. In Locastus, City of Mirrors, they use asphalt to coat their dead as part of the process of creating Deaders.

5. Pickling
Alcohol, honey and other substances can be used to preserve the dead in large vessels - perhaps glass or pottery. In later times, perhaps the alcohol might be used by graverobbers for other purposes. See Buck-Ogre Rumfor one application. Some sources indicate that Alexander the Great's corpse was preserved in honey for its journey home. This would make a sweet treat for a ghoul!

Similarly, grave robbers in Egypt were said to have found a cask of honey in a tomb, apparently still edible. After helping themselves to the rich treat, they then found hair in the jar, still attached to someone...

6. Drying
Perhaps the simplest means of preservation, this is common in desert regions. This can happen naturally, possibly creating The Parched. Large quantities of salt or other chemical desiccants can also be used to dehydrate the corpse, also allowing for long term preservation.

8. Cremation
A common method of disposal of the dead, the body is burned. Some cultures will also dispose of grave goods in the fire. An excellent example of this is the viking longboat funeral. With access to magic, the cremation could be accomplished via spells of power. Disintegration might be a culture's method of keeping the nobility, at least, from experiencing the indignity of rotting. This is also an ideal method of preventing corpses from rising as corporeal undead, but can sometimes allow for other forms of undead to arise, such as the Urn Beast.

Other cultures with access to volcanic areas may cast their dead to be consumed by lava.

Often, the ashes, or a sample thereof, are retained and placed in various containers.

9. Fed to the Power
The deceased is provided as food to some powerful flesh-eating entity.
The Maletanalu tribe of the Hanaset provide the bodies of their dead (or other undesirables, for that matter) to their crocodile totem Malitazum one-eyed. Similarly, pigs such as the Yird-Swine may be used to keep the quantities of dead on hand to a limited level.

Sometimes, lesser beasts may be retained and cultivated just for this purpose. Some cultures use pits filled with Swarm Snakes or other similar creatures for corpse disposal.

10. Dissolved in Acid
More common as a means of disposing of murder victims, societies which live near large sources of acid, such as the Acid Lakes of Neuapar, make make use of these to dispose of their dead.

Among the Neuaparians, there is a legend that their deity will take mortal form in a body which is immune to the corrosive waters of the lakes of the Thuviack Volcano. As a result, they take great pains that all of their dead are disposed of in this manner. Losing even a single corpse to them is drastically important. They will make superhuman efforts to retrieve their lost dead. Few Neuaparians will travel far, lest their corpse be lost should they die.

11. Consignment to the Sea
The deceased is disposed of by either being thrown into the sea, or perhaps placed on a boat (possibly with grave goods) and sent downriver towards the sea. This means of disposal is very common on seagoing vessels, as it is quite difficult and dangerous to try and preserve dead on long voyages for other means of burial.

12. Left to the Beasts
The deceased is taken away to some remote location and left to scavengers to dispose of. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial Tibetan Sky Burial is an example of this, though the process is much more elaborate then simply leaving the corpse. Some tribes of Wild Elves are known for tree-burials where the dead are tied to branches high up in a tree and left to the beasts and elements.

13. Scattering
The corpse is divided into parts and are disposed of separately. This is often a treatment used to dispose of dead enemies of great powers. In Mythology The Egyptian god Osiris was so treated by Set.

14. Burial
One of the more common methods, possibly employed after various forms of preservation, the corpse is interred into the ground. Sometimes a container is used - from a simple shroud to ornate boxes of metal and wood and is placed into the ground. Afterwards the location may or may not be marked with some type of indicator. The nature of the marker, and location of burial are also factors that can vary widely by culture.

15. Plant Gravemarker
Grave sites are marked by the planting of specific plants or trees.

The Honash people use trees to mark the graves of their fallen, with specific species associated with different major clans. Those of low birth generally use Shrubs. No other marker is used - the location of specific graves is very difficult to determine except perhaps by age of the tree. There are great forests which have arisen on the sites of great battles.

16. Funeral Sacrifice
Upon death of a high-status person, others may be slain to accompany the deceased into the afterlife - often as slaves or spouses. A related custom is where the widow of the deceased would kill themselves in their husbands funeral pyre. Some cultures may only sacrifice livestock, mounts and other creatures.

17. Burial Pit
The Nestorii use great pits which are dug to great depth to dispose of their dead. The pits are sufficiently deep to prevent the smell of decay from being overpowering nearby. The Netorii do not use groundwater for drinking but resort to rain-water collection. The deep pit is symbolic of the journey to the underworld.

18. Display
Normally restricted to preserved corpses, the deceased is put on display after death for a period of time. Possibly only a portion of the body is so treated, such as the head or a hand. Some cultures provide special structures for such display, while others may keep their deceased loved ones within the home for a designated time frame.

19. Crystallization
Corpse is reduced by magic to its basic minerals and forms a large crystal. (Inspired by an old Star Trek episode). These are often collected in purpose-built structures similar to ossuaries to contain the crystals.

20. Cannibalization
As with the name, the dead are eaten. Depending on the cause of death there may be some circumstances where this is not carried out, especially with different levels of medical knowledge and availability of healing (mundane or magical). The Asrok carry out this practice as do The Rephatians. There can also be varying degrees - from a small symbolic portion to the entire corpse being consumed.

21. Transformation
Through use of magic, the deceased body is transformed into some object which represents what and who they were. A common choice is a statue of the person or small portable trinkets, but it is limited only by the power of the magic and the imaginations of the survivors.

22. Animation
Some cultures with access to dark magic will reanimate their dead. These rituals vary in their full effect - some will bind the dead person's spirit to the corpse while others simply animate the empty husk. The deceased may be used for combat, labor, or other purposes.

23. Abandonment
The dead are provided no special consideration apart from that needed for proper sanitation. They are simply treated as inedible garbage and disposed of by whatever means is expedient, even pitched into a nearby midden. Some times this was done to punish the dead for their transgressions in life. This practice was apparently employed by the Romans at times.

23. Necropolis
Entire cities mirroring the cities of the living are constructed to house the dead. These can simply be massive collections of tombs or even mirror images of the living city where the dead lived in life.

24. Exhumation
The culture may remove the dead from whatever location they are currently placed in. The reasons could be for practical purposes - such as making room for new dead, or ritualistic. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead day of the dead in Bolivia is a real-world example of this.

25. Skeletonisation
As step towards other treatments (display, burial, etc), the corpse may be stripped of all of its flesh. This may be simple butchering, left to insects/carnivorous fish,etc or simply left to rot.

26. ossuaries
Special structures are built to accommodate the bones of the dead, often where graveyards are reused or availability of burial plots are very limited. In lands where necromancy is common, these places are often highly fortified and guarded by knightly orders.

27. Grave Goods
Depending on culture and social station, one may be buried with as little as nothing, or even whole ships, chariots and other equipment.

The Empire of Nethian would convert imperial castles into giant tombs for their fallen emperors, nearly matching a Necropolis in scale. As a result, they have large numbers of oddly placed imperial castles and have started to scavenge building materials from older, more unpopular imperial tombs.

28. Wakes
Parties are thrown to celebrate either the life or death of the deceased (depending upon how they were viewed).

The Mythyin people are normally a dry society, their religion tolerates alcohol only during wakes and birthing celebrations. It is not unheard of for murders to occur solely to prompt a wake....

29. Easy-exit Graves
Some societies and individuals are obsessively afraid of being buried alive, others may seek for their dead to arise as undead. In any case, these groups take pains to allow for easy exit of the grave.

30. Trapping the Dead
The corpse is physically bound before burial - often with chains, metal harnesses, or even cement (where available - the Romans had cement quite early in history). Other cultures might nail the corpse into the coffin, or stake it down.