Intergalactic Summit

The rather tangential discussion in another thread which discussed Minmatar sky burial intrigued me. I would be interested in knowing more about the rituals and funerary rites of the cluster. Whilst some cultures find death ritual a taboo subject, I find it fascinating as a cultural signifier.

Amongst we Mannar, burial has long been the tradition, right back to the ancient monarchies. For what were the aristocratic families, and in later centuries those that considered themselves the elite, mummification prior to interment is the preferred form. (Nowadays, plasticisation is prevalent, for reasons shortly to be made clear).

Unlike several cultural memes, we do not celebrate at a death. The mourning period is dark and gloomy, in recognition of the loss that has occurred. Dirges are sung, and each member of the family is required to watch vigil one by one through each successive night, from nearest kin to outermost. For great families, this can take quite some time, several months in fact. The mummification ritual is performed quickly after death (usually within a week) so that the body can be laid open in its vault for these vigils. All internal organs are removed and burned, save the heart, which is preserved. The body is shrouded with silks, but otherwise left naked. Fasting is expected during the first month of the vigil, though some extend this longer (which is considered rather ostentatious and in slightly poor taste).

Once the vigils are complete, the vault is closed with no ceremony.

However, every ten years on Ancestors’ Day (usually the exact mid-winter point of the Mannar homeworld’s northern regions, but it can vary among families and locations - it’s not always convenient to observe the Mannar calendar on a world like Octanneve V, for example) all available corpses of the familial line are exhumed. They are dressed in fine silks, and seated at a great table, alternately with family members. A feast is celebrated, when stories and memories are shared as if the deceased were alive and engaged. This can last up to three days, though it is usually just the one. The family fire is used not only to heat the room, but to light several torches or candles (in order to provide a softer, more pleasing light to the dead). Once the feast is done, and history and anecdotes remembered, the dead are returned to the rest for another decade.

We’re very lucky in that all of our kin including Albrecht, the first Kinnison to settle Octanneve V, are available for Ancestors’ Day. It makes quite a gathering!

Not many Mannar observe the old ways anymore, so closely have we integrated to the Gallente Federation. Nonetheless, though I do not believe in any afterlife, I find it comforting to contemplate the vault already built and set aside for my occupancy in the family crypt at Coldhammer. I know that I will be remembered, and part of the family I love for centuries to come, and that is comforting in this changeable world.

The Sebiestor, like myself, originated from the steepes and mountains Mikramurka, Matar. Due to such harsh climates where dead bodies, if left untouched, could mummify naturally, we had to resort to using the services of scavengers, such as the large carrion birds native to the region, known as the corovids, to dispose of our dead for us.

Over time, the practice of leaving our dead to the scavengers became ritualised. This, we call the sky burial. I do not know how we came up with the idea of spirits and the concept of Ohnesh and Andesh, but these concepts become central to our funerary rituals. We will collect our dead, sanitise the body, wrap it, bound it to a stretcher, and then carry it to a spiritual site, usually a mountain. Once we reach the destination, we will put the body on an altar, either a man-made pedestal or a natural-occurring flat boulder. Once the body is in place, our shaman will perform a ritual.

This ritual has the purpose of freeing the spirit still inhabiting the body from its resentments, regrets and other negative emotions and passions which binds it to the Ohnesh, a state where the spirit is separated from its cardinal element, which we call the Andesh.

I do not know exactly how the shaman decides that the spirit lingering in the body finally leaves its state of Ohnesh to be one with the Andesh and leaves the body, but once the shaman decided that this is so, the wrapping is opened and the body is left to the elements and exposed to predators. This marks the end of the first phase of our sky burial.

The second phase starts a few days after the first phase. We return to our burial site to recover the bones of the deceased. We will then pound the bones into powder and mix it with a nutritious medium, traditionally milk of our lifestock. We will then leave the bowl on the altar for the consumption by the scavengers, usually the corovids.

Of course, not every Sebiestor settlement of this era is in the cold wastes of the northern hemispheres of planets. This necessitates the creation of variants of the sky burial. For example, my Clan Enclave lives much closer to the equator and is practically next door to the non-terraformed parts of the planet. Moreover, there are no native species on this planet, and the corovids are not one of the creatures introduced into this artificial ecosystem. So, our variant had us use a plain two hours ride away from our settlement as our burial site, so chosen due to its high density of slaver hound population. Due to the temperament of the slaver hounds, we cannot afford to stay there for too long.

The necessary changes to the rite that we did were as follow: First, the body is cleaned in the morgue of our cenotaph. Also, in the cenotaph, the shaman will perform the ritual of returning the spirit to Andesh. Once that is completed, we will drain the blood, dismantle the body, grind the bones and mix that with the blood, clean the organs and keep them in perishable containers. While this is happening, the Clan chief oversees the remembrance of the deceased into our Book of Remembrance. More distinguished individuals get a place on the wall of our cenotaph in the form of a name, his voluval mark and his tattoo markings that chronicle his tale.

Once the remembrance is completed and the body is prepared, we will then transport the body to the plain and leave the pieces for the slave hounds. There is no second phase, since second phase is combined with the first during the course of dismantling the body.

Speaking of which, the existence of a capsuleer like myself in the Clan has given rise to debate amongst the elders of the Clan. First of all, there is much confusion over whether each subsequent clone of myself is to be treated as being the same individual or offspring of the original. The matter is laid aside for a couple months, then brought up again, then debated, then laid aside for another couple months. One of the reasons for such debate had to do with our funerary rites. As I had mentioned in another thread, we take the recovery of our dead very seriously. As such, the state of my being becomes less of a philosophical conundrum and more a crisis of tradition and spirituality.

Is Elmund version 9.0 to be considered the same as Elmund version 8.0? If he isn't the same, then the body of Elmund version 8.0 ought to be recovered and be administered the sky (plain?) burial. If he is the same, what do we do with the body of Elmund version 8.0? Do we still administer the burial rites on it?

Then there's also the matter of genealogy, but that's a different kind of problem that has nothing to do with funerals.

It almost sounds a bit far fetched to me however I suppose that it all must be if that was how Karin Midular was laid to rest. That was quite and interesting read Mr Egivand and Mr Kinnison.

In hindsight I don't ever think I've seen a Corovid.

Most Caldari elect for cremation, even secular wayiists, it's just always been our way and it makes for neat and tidy storage and disposal. The cremation is done by the local government with the body being interred in a separate facility from any public or private memorial. Most settlements maintain central storage areas for the dead - it's considered bad form to keep the ashes for a deceased family member within the family home.

The Caldari do not believe the former body of the loved one is a suitable talisman to use for celebrating or venerating their spirit. It's considered bad form to direct the attention of the spirit to it's former shell, in fact, and to do so is to run the risk of angering and offending the spirits of one's ancestors. For that reason Caldari Ancestor Spirits tend to be remembered at altars kept in the home or in the workplace. Important and significant spirits may attract monuments to their memories or separate shrines - such as those kept for Mathias Sobaseki, Yakiya Tovil-Toba or Otro Gariushi - families will often add a decorative plaque to a family shrine or even a small votive figurine made usually from natural materials such as stone or Kresh wood.

Caldari remembrance is a mixture of public and private with public displays of private grief being frowned upon as excessive and ostentatious. Public displays of shared grief are, however, seen as socially cohesive events and most Caldari will attend several public memorials celebrating the deaths of important Caldari figures - companies tend to memorialise the death of the founder in a Founder's Day memorial on the anniversary of the death of the Company founder, also used to remember the deaths in service or after retirement of all company employees. Most of these services will mention the life of the Founder, one or more important Corporate figures and recite a list of employees and former employees in good standing who died since the last Founder's Day.

Late Ex-Prime Minister Karin Midular was returned to her native homeland of Mikramurka and had the sky burial performed on her on our most holy site, the burial overseen by the venerable Vuld Haupt. Not one of us can ask for a better burial.

You aren't one of us anymore.

We Brutor practice a different tradition when one our kin has passed on to the realm of spirits. The Tribes ancestral homeland lies in the Mioar Straights, the many islands that make up the great archipelagos have limited space so we cannot bury our dead, and the climate is both hot and humid, a condition that does not lend itself well to sky buriels.

Instead, we practice a ritualized cremation. The following is the Tradition of Clan Aloga.

We believe that the spirit of a person is trapped within flesh, and when one dies, the spirit is released into the realm of spirits, where it will make its journey to join it's ancestors. In that journey, the spirit will enounter evil spirits that will attempt to block its path and attempt to currupt it, much like how the evil spirits attempted to currput the Fist Minmatar Elders. The Spirit of the deceased will have to battle the evil spirit and emerge victories in order to complete it's journey.

The funerary rights last 5 days, which begin at sundown of the first. The body of the deceased is first cleaned and cleansed by a shaman, who performs the rites to prepare the spirit for its ordeal to come. Once the body has been cleansed, a process that takes the whole first night, it is then wrapped in treated cloth l, so as to prevent it's decompisition, while it is housed in the clan hall. For three days, it stays there. During those three days, family and friends will come and pay respects to the deceased, settling old grudges, offering advice for its journey, or simply saying their good byes. On the 5th day, at dawn, the body is baken once more by the shaman. The hands of the deceased are cut of and cremated first and the ash is seperated. Then the hair is also removed and burned, and the ash is seperated. Once the hands and hair have been removed, the final rite over the body begins, and this takes the remaining day.

Mean while at sundown of the 5th night a great feast takes place. Where all are invited. The purpose of the feast is two fold: the first allows for the living to celebrate the life of the deceased, and second is to provide for energy to the spirit in its journey. During this feast, a male relative of the deceased, ussually a brother or a son, will engage in ritual combat against another warrior. This combat symbolizes both the battle that the spirit will face, and the battle that Brute, the first Brutor Elder faced against the evil spirits long ago. The ash taken from the cremated hands is mixed with the traditional war paint of the relative, so that the spirit might recieve his strength to aide him. It is important to note that this combat is not choreographed or staged in any way.

The feast ends at dawn of the 6th day, when at sun up the body, having been painted with the ashes of the hair mixed in so that the ancestors might recognize the spirit, is placed in a small boat, or canoe and is launched into the ocean. It is then set ablaze, the flames releasing the spirit from the body and on to the realm of spirits.

Reprocessed into protein delicacies.

It's like a sky burial but with more flavour enhancement.

That or body-mined for Class A biomass for the clone market.

I'm 100% certified Caldari biomass right now. I accept no other substitutes to mold my svelte curves.

No human being, a mere mortal, could even hope to dream to achieve my own personal keenly honed edginess, babe.

I'm like some mythical blade of old cutting the mortal coils of existential crisis and overwhelming nihilism.

I'm so full of maudlin angst about it sometimes I just can't help myself but to write terrible poetry that doesn't rhyme or have a proper meter.

Actually I am proud and scornful.

What misery can I have when scrubs like you exist for my amusement?