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A close relative of the deceased would close the eyelids and clean the body with either water, or a wash made by boiling willow root, both of which were considered purifying substances. [1] In communities where bodies were not buried nude, the body was dressed in “dead clothes,” which were prepared in early adulthood and stored until burial ...
The Samadhi pit is prepared in the community samadhi ground called the shamshana, usually situated outside the city or village. Some affluent will bury their dead in their own field. The burial pit for the sleeping position is generally three feet in width and six feet in length and for the sitting position, it is three feet by three feet.
During winter, the Ponca Indians would often substitute a grave with a scaffold because the ground was frozen. [ 13 ] : 155 A Lakota summed up the reasons why a high scaffold outdid a grave, "(1) Animals or persons might walk over the graves; (2) the dead might lie in mud and water after rain or snow; (3) wolves might dig up the bodies and ...
The dead adult's body is carried to the cremation ground near a river or water, by family and friends, and placed on a pyre with feet facing north. [ 7 ] The eldest son, or a male mourner, or a priest – called the lead cremator or lead mourner – then bathes himself before leading the cremation ceremony.
They bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again; in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet.
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a 17th-century world traveller and trader of gems, wrote that women were buried with their dead husbands along the Coast of Coromandel while people danced during the cremation rites. [164] Hindu widow of Dhangar caste being buried alive with her dead husband's body. Source: Códice Casanatense (c. 1540).
Researchers in India have for the first time documented how Asian elephants bury dead calves.
Christians preferred to bury the dead rather than to cremate the remains, as was common in Roman culture. The early church carried on Judaism's respect for the human body as being created in God's image, and followed their practices of speedy interment, in hopes of the future resurrection of all dead.