Bizarre Death Rituals around the World

The world is a huge place with so many cultures that embrace a wide array of diverse customs and beliefs. Some may seem similar to those of yours, yet other can be quite shocking. When it comes to death, grief is a common factor, but the way some cultures express their anguish is extraordinarily inexplicable. Here’s a bunch of cultures with death rituals that can actually send a stunning shiver down your spine upon learning. However, most of them used to take place in the ancient times.

• ENDOCANNIBALISM IN BRAZIL: The grotesque images accompanied with the term are quite indigestible, but the fact that somewhere in the world, people used to feed on the flesh of one another is just even more horrifying. The difference between endocannibalism and cannibalism is that the former only occurs when someone is dead; otherwise, no one would be having a taste of a human’s flesh. They probably practiced this ritual as a mean to avoid having to come in terms with the concept of death.

• MEMORIAL REEFS IN THE OCEAN: This is deemed to be the least gruesome way of dying ever. It’s the circle of life where some creatures die and allow others to live. The notion started in the US by a company called Eternal Reefs where the remains of the deceased are compressed into a reef ball and attached to a reef in the ocean. It’s said to provide a habitat for the marine life.

• FAMADIHANA IN MADAGASCAR: The Malagasy people of Madagascar mourned the death of their loved ones in an extremely bizarre yet interesting way. In the ancient times, tribes used to exhume the bodies of the dead every seven years. They’d wrap them in a cloth and dance around. Yes, it smelled terribly, but they sprayed the corpses with wine to reduce the stinky odor.

• SKY BURIAL: It sounds interesting, but it is rather ghastly. Many cultures used to cut the bodies of the deceased into pieces and throw them for the vultures to feed on, believing it was an act of compassion. The remains of the eaten bodies probably dissolved over the years and the ashes got carried away by the wind.