Some mortuary temples contained smoke houses that preserved bodies in the same manner as hams! [Sketch by John White - c. 1585]
Posted on 03/24/2010 6:05:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists believe that many Native American cultures were obsessed with death and the hereafter. The most obvious evidence is the abundance of burial mounds containing human remains with grave openings. However, certain cultures not only built burial mounds, but also earthen complexes contain burial mounds, geometric patterns and mounds, which did not contain burials. North of the Southern Highlands, these ceremonial complexes contain few or no houses. This means that people traveled to these sites from distant villages in order build, worship, trade and socialize. There is evidence that some cultures even brought the remains of their love ones to be treated with rituals or cremated.
The English colonists at Roanoke Island observed that several local tribes smoked their love ones in special mortuary temples that were constructed like the smoke houses that preserved hams. (See the old wood carving above.) It was their very practical means of creating mummies. Some tribes stored the smoked love ones in mortuary buildings until just before certain rituals. In the days before the ritual, priests known as "buzzard men" would remove the desiccated flesh from the bones. These priests never cut their finger nails so they could claw the remains.
Funeral customs varied by region and by time periods. These are often one of the key characteristics with which archaeologists characterize past societies. Some Native cultures in the West placed the bodies of love ones on scaffolds, where they would be desiccated by the sun. Other cultures in the West and the East merely buried the bodies in the ground before they began to decay.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Some mortuary temples contained smoke houses that preserved bodies in the same manner as hams! [Sketch by John White - c. 1585]
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Seems like Indians everwhere are obsessed with death and the hereafter.
Most arkyologists wouldn't have a dang thing to do if the whole world dinna have the same obsession.
Like this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Mound Things like these all over Ohio.
I like the Indian festival where everyone gets paint and stuff thrown all over them, and the other one where the huge idol gets milk (I hope it’s milk) poured all over it. More fun per square inch than any other place on Earth. Y’know, other than the Moslem terrorism, bubonic plague, and having to bathe in a river of feces.
Thanks!
Here are more:
http://cleveland.about.com/od/justoutsideoftown/tp/ohioindianmounds.htm
http://www.touring-ohio.com/southwest/chillicothe/hopewell-indian-mounds.html
NOW I KNOW!
Sikh and ye shall find!
Dead Parsees are carried on a simple bier to a ceremonial gate into the private jungle park of banyan and casarina trees in the city's posh Malabar Hill district, wich surrounds the five Towers of Silence... However, with an average of three Parsees dying every day, the six-odd vultures at the towers are overfed and unable to cope, although kites and other birds help out.All Consuming FaithGriffon vultures are dying across India, apparently succumbing to a mysterious illness. Wildlife experts are becoming increasingly concerned about the viability of one species in particular. But for India's ancient Parsee religion the vultures' decline poses a more practical problem. Parsees, the religious descendants of the Zoroastrians of ancient Persia, rely on vultures to dispose of their dead, and the bodies are piling up.
by Debora MacKenzie
5 August 2000
New Scientist magazine
Bathe in a river of feces
Vulture 1: "They used to taste like chicken"
Vulture 2: "Yeah, now they taste like sh..."
And as the saying goes "Eat sh.. and die..."
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