Rites curious for the dead

In dismissing the dead, not all forms follow the pattern of grim funerals Christians from the Middle Ages, include candles, incense, psalms, masses and dark clothes.

Other signs of mourning in the world, ranging from dressing up shaving of white hair, or leave it grow.

In the eighteenth century jazz funerals in New Orleans, which have their roots in the funerals of communities of Benin and Nigeria, the procession began singing a slow song or a spiritual funereal black, and back of the cemetery banda music played a festive ragtime, with which attendees had just dancing in honor of the deceased.

Formerly even human sacrifices were made: when someone died, Sumerians, Greeks and Chinese people buried or burned alive. The Etruscan tomb itself used as dining in their funeral banquet.

In Madagascar, takes place every several years, "famadihana." This is a celebration in which exhumed the corpse of a family member, you change the canvas and was walking by the people explaining the latest news.

In the book "Dancing on the grave," talking about people who were hurt thigh with a knife as a sign of mourning, not shed one tear in the burials are either forbidden to mention disappeared. The newspaper remembrance of the dead remains with the festivities as "sraddha india," or the day of the Christian dead on November 2.