There are many unique practices within the long history of excarnation.
Traditionally, Indian bodies were often left out to be scavenged by vultures and other carrion birds. In parts of Europe, bodies were dismembered and the parts boiled in water or vinegar to remove the flesh. Louis XIV of France underwent this ritual, to avoid his body decaying on the journey back to France from the Eighth Crusade. Within some Polynesian tribes the practice was to tie the bodies to the high boughs of trees, allowing new branches to grow through and around them. Other tribes would leave bodies in a sitting position facing out to sea.
For thousands of generations Xander Michaels’ ancestors had used fire. For three days the body, swaddled in linen like a newborn, would lie atop a flat rock in a high place above their villages. At first light on the fourth day, the body would be set ablaze so that the whole village could see the pyre and celebrate their passing into the next world. When the flames died, the wind took the ashes to renew the soil so that the body’s energy would not be lost.
The couple leaned against the car, watching. The linen burned with a bright yellow flame. Soon the skin began to blister, and it almost seemed alive as the body’s water store boiled and evaporated and the subcutaneous fat melted and burned. There was a sickeningly sweet tang in the air. The last vestiges of a life, reduced to an assault on the senses.
Time to go. When she started the car, the radio soothed into life.
“Meanwhile authorities continue to be concerned for the whereabouts of FBI Special Agent Lucy Draughn as their search for her moves into a fourth day. Draughn, who was heading up the task force chasing serial killer Xander Michaels and his wife Tanya, believed that Michaels was taking refuge in the Tongass National Forest, where he may have some familial ties. An FBI spokesperson said that they were ‘extremely concerned’ for the welfare of Agent Draughn and urged anyone with information about her to come forward to the authorities.”
“Who’s next?” he asked.
It's a Queer Old Blog... 