[Music]
the world is full of different and
beautiful people that all have their own
way of dealing with death welcome to
watchmojo.com ting down our favorite
facts about funeral rituals from around
the world hundreds of guests are
sometimes invited and they must all be
fed usually meat and rice accompanied by
ear and wrong we realize that our
audience is so international that some
of these facts may not seem all that
exotic to you but they sure do to most
of us here in North America North
America now will make it number five in
Ghana you can be buried in a pineapple
Ghana has a whole industry around custom
built fantasy coffins please include
everything from coffins in the shape of
fish for fishermen to shoes for shoe
cobblers and even coffins in the shape
of coca-cola bottles for Pepsi haters I
guess
in Ghana funerals are meant to be a
celebration of the loved ones life
they’re full of music and dancing and
laughing and crying these coffins are
part of that bittersweet celebration
they remind the mourners of their loved
ones life and they bring joy as much as
they bring tears number four people
dance with their dead relatives in
Madagascar meanwhile on the other side
of Africa every half decade or so
Malagasy people perform a ritual called
sama Diana in which the dead are dug up
given new shrouds and are lifted above
dancing relatives in a Tim burton-esque
crowd-surfing reenactment hit it boys
this ritual has become a cross religious
Madagascar tradition that’s performed
equally by Christians Muslims and
members of the local animist religions
though these festivities may seem
strange to Westerners in Madagascar it’s
just a way to say thank you to your
ancestors dozens sometimes hundreds of
relatives and friends get together with
good food and live music
then they dance with the ancestors who
made their lives possible
[Music]
number three cannibalism helps some
people deal with the grieving process
the wari Tribes of the Brazilian Amazon
practiced cannibalism during their
funerals which really brings down the
catering bills the funerals involve
burning and destroying everything the
deceased once owned along with the
uneaten parts of his or her body the
ritual is designed to eradicate
everything that could remind the
deceased family of their loved one even
the dead person’s name is no longer used
after the funeral that name no longer
has any meaning for me the act of eating
the body is meant to change even the
physical substance of the deceased into
something that won’t cause grief this
practice has stopped during the last 50
years but many worried elders miss the
old days and find the idea of letting
the bodies of their dead relatives rot
in the dirt to be disturbing and
disrespectful
number two Japanese monks perfected the
art of self-mummification at the
opposite end of the war ‘is erased the
dead policy is this my body stays damn
it technique the process took over eight
years to finish and it has only been
done successfully around two dozen times
it involves eating a special diet of
nuts berries roots and bark while
exercising to remove body fat the monk
also drinks a toxic tea made from the
sap of the Chinese lacquer tree for
several years to make the body so
dehydrated and poisonous that maggots
will not eat it then the monk seals
himself in a tiny tomb where he
meditates until he dies each day they
would ring the bell to tell those
outside that they were still alive after
a thousand days the tomb is opened
if the mummification was successful and
it usually was not the monks eyes are
removed
some of these mummy monks are still on
display in Japan but the process has
been outlawed for obvious reasons number
one Benton’s are eaten by birds Tibetan
sky burials are funerals where a
deceased person is fed to vultures the
body spine is broken so that it can be
folded in half easily then a friend of
the deceased ties the body to his back
and carries it to a holy site after it’s
been prayed over monks disassemble the
body and feed it to vultures it may seem
unnerving to outsiders the locals view
it very differently firstly vultures are
thought of as holy birds in Tibet
secondly it reminds the mourners of the
ephemerality of the body and the
interconnectedness of life which are
both important concepts in the Buddhist
tradition reportedly most Tibetans would
prefer to have this kind of funeral
which is good because most of the
country is too mountainous and rocky for
ground burials and wood has historically
been too scarce to waste on cremation so
which of these funerals would you prefer
to have spider
for more pineapple coughing top tens and
self-catered top fives be sure to
subscribe to watchmojo.com and disappear
as a donor
[Music]
the world is full of different and
beautiful people that all have their own
way of dealing with death welcome to
watchmojo.com ting down our favorite
facts about funeral rituals from around
the world hundreds of guests are
sometimes invited and they must all be
fed usually meat and rice accompanied by
ear and wrong we realize that our
audience is so international that some
of these facts may not seem all that
exotic to you but they sure do to most
of us here in North America North
America now will make it number five in
Ghana you can be buried in a pineapple
Ghana has a whole industry around custom
built fantasy coffins please include
everything from coffins in the shape of
fish for fishermen to shoes for shoe
cobblers and even coffins in the shape
of coca-cola bottles for Pepsi haters I
guess
in Ghana funerals are meant to be a
celebration of the loved ones life
they’re full of music and dancing and
laughing and crying these coffins are
part of that bittersweet celebration
they remind the mourners of their loved
ones life and they bring joy as much as
they bring tears number four people
dance with their dead relatives in
Madagascar meanwhile on the other side
of Africa every half decade or so
Malagasy people perform a ritual called
sama Diana in which the dead are dug up
given new shrouds and are lifted above
dancing relatives in a Tim burton-esque
crowd-surfing reenactment hit it boys
this ritual has become a cross religious
Madagascar tradition that’s performed
equally by Christians Muslims and
members of the local animist religions
though these festivities may seem
strange to Westerners in Madagascar it’s
just a way to say thank you to your
ancestors dozens sometimes hundreds of
relatives and friends get together with
good food and live music
then they dance with the ancestors who
made their lives possible
[Music]
number three cannibalism helps some
people deal with the grieving process
the wari Tribes of the Brazilian Amazon
practiced cannibalism during their
funerals which really brings down the
catering bills the funerals involve
burning and destroying everything the
deceased once owned along with the
uneaten parts of his or her body the
ritual is designed to eradicate
everything that could remind the
deceased family of their loved one even
the dead person’s name is no longer used
after the funeral that name no longer
has any meaning for me the act of eating
the body is meant to change even the
physical substance of the deceased into
something that won’t cause grief this
practice has stopped during the last 50
years but many worried elders miss the
old days and find the idea of letting
the bodies of their dead relatives rot
in the dirt to be disturbing and
disrespectful
number two Japanese monks perfected the
art of self-mummification at the
opposite end of the war ‘is erased the
dead policy is this my body stays damn
it technique the process took over eight
years to finish and it has only been
done successfully around two dozen times
it involves eating a special diet of
nuts berries roots and bark while
exercising to remove body fat the monk
also drinks a toxic tea made from the
sap of the Chinese lacquer tree for
several years to make the body so
dehydrated and poisonous that maggots
will not eat it then the monk seals
himself in a tiny tomb where he
meditates until he dies each day they
would ring the bell to tell those
outside that they were still alive after
a thousand days the tomb is opened
if the mummification was successful and
it usually was not the monks eyes are
removed
some of these mummy monks are still on
display in Japan but the process has
been outlawed for obvious reasons number
one Benton’s are eaten by birds Tibetan
sky burials are funerals where a
deceased person is fed to vultures the
body spine is broken so that it can be
folded in half easily then a friend of
the deceased ties the body to his back
and carries it to a holy site after it’s
been prayed over monks disassemble the
body and feed it to vultures it may seem
unnerving to outsiders the locals view
it very differently firstly vultures are
thought of as holy birds in Tibet
secondly it reminds the mourners of the
ephemerality of the body and the
interconnectedness of life which are
both important concepts in the Buddhist
tradition reportedly most Tibetans would
prefer to have this kind of funeral
which is good because most of the
country is too mountainous and rocky for
ground burials and wood has historically
been too scarce to waste on cremation so
which of these funerals would you prefer
to have spider
for more pineapple coughing top tens and
self-catered top fives be sure to
subscribe to watchmojo.com and disappear
as a donor
[Music]
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