[SunkenCiv]

The "burial in the air" practiced by some tribes (I know someone who claims descent from the Cherokee I think it is, who wants to be "done" this way after his death) is a form of excarnation, such as practiced by the Zoroastrians in India. There hangs a tale... [reprise]

In the January 2002 Fortean Times there's an article on the Griffon vulture problem.

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 Faith
by Debora MacKenzie
5 August 2000
New Scientist magazine

Griffon 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.

[bigheadfred]

Maybe they ought to find out what the people are dying from.

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..."