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North America

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Canada - Inuit

Beyond Canada's European influenced funeral customs and various First Nations tribes that live in Canada, there is the Inuit of the far north, which has its own interpretation of death and unique funerals customs.

The Inuit believes that the spirit, personality and soul of a dead person leave the decaying body and shift to another body and a new life altogether. However, once a person dies among the Inuit, the family builds a cairn over the body, because the dry, cold hard arctic tundra does not permit burial. While traditions vary from region to region, once the cairn is built and cross is erected, it is then surrounded by a wooden fence to protect it from wild animals. In some regions, wooden statues of humans and animals are often carved and placed on the graves to appease the spirits.

USA - Salt Lake City, Utah - Summum

Believe it or not, the ancient Egyptian practice of mummification still exists, and is available to be pre-purchased for oneself in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Summum religious group - founded by Claude Rex Nowell, who in the '70s claimed to have a series of encounters with highly intelligent beings whom he now refers to as the Summa Individuals - offers the service for a hefty fee of about 60,000 USD. This price, however, includes the funeral service, a viewing and a mummiform for the remains to be put in after it's permanently preserved.

This practice, rarely used in Western culture, begins following the traditional viewing and funeral, when the body and its organs return to specially trained morticians for more washing and preparation. The body, partially opened, is then placed inside a vat filled with special fluids, and left there for about two months. The body is removed, washed again, rubbed with lanolin and wrapped in seven layers of cotton gauze. Morticians then paint the body with a polyurethane membrane. Once this process has been completed, the body is then coated with a resin and placed inside a special casket, which is filled with the same resin and welded shut, making it air tight.

USA - The Lakota Sioux - S. Dakota

The Lakota, a plains tribe who once inhabited a large portion of the central northern plains, pays tribute to the soul of the deceased with rituals seeped in tradition. These traditions include the Wacekiyapi, the Spirit Keeping Ceremony and the White Buffalo Ceremony.

The Wacekiyapi is a period of four days in which the family and tribe mourn the death. During this time the family erects a burial scaffold. At the end of the four days, the old women of the family remove the corpse from the tipi and transport it to the scaffold. They hoist the corpse to the scaffold, where they hang the person's belongings.

The Spirit Keeping Ceremony honours the spirit of the deceased, usually a child. Requiring a year of preparation, the ceremony begins when a lock of the deceased's hair is placed in a ghost lodge, a portable tipi specially constructed for the ceremony. The tribe elders place food in a special bowl in the lodge to feed the spirit. At the end of a year, when the family has accumulated enough clothing to honour the spirit, a day is chosen for its release. The elder then paints a likeness of the deceased and attaches it to a pole. After a prayer with the pipe, the pole is dressed in the deceased's garments and a feast begins.

The White Buffalo Ceremony is the most elaborate Sioux traditions. This ceremony is rarely done and only given to those of special honor. It is done in conjunction with the Spirit Keeping Ceremony. White buffalos are very rare and considered a great sign. In the Ceremony of the White Buffalo, the family obtains the skin of a white buffalo and places it inside the ghost tipi. The ceremony begins with the consecration and prayer using the pipe and burnt sage. A small hole at the front of the buffalo head is filled with burnt earth and covered with a red cloth.

USA - New Orleans

A prominent religion practiced predominately on Haiti, Voodoo also has found followers in American in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, where women from the Fon and Yoruba tribes introduced the practice.

Originating in the 18th Century, Voodoo was begun by the African slave know as Macamdamer, and is unlike another other religion practiced in the world. While not the vile cult of movies and TV lore, Voodoo is, in reality, all about the afterlife, although its ceremonies do get quite animated with all the chanting and hysterical dancing.

The principle religious masters are the houngan (priest) and mambo (priestess), who often become possessed by the spirit they have been summoning - such as the chief god, Olorun, Obatala, or the spirit god Loa. Often at these types of ceremonies an animal - usually a goat, sheep, chicken or dog - will be sacrificed with the possessed priest or priestess drinking some of the sacrificial blood.

Many often link the legend of the Zombie with the Voodoo religion. However, there is a rationale explanation. Thanks to the state of paralysis caused by the venom of the pufferfish, which was often eaten by Jamaicans, many people were presumed dead and buried alive. When they regained their motor skills a few days later, they would cry out for exhumation, and these formerly deceased people were brought back to life - as Zombies. It is believed the lack of oxygen to the brain during burial caused the victims to go crazy.

USA - Hawaii

Native Hawaiians believe that the corpse is a source of defilement, and thus friends and neighbours must not enter the house of the deceased for risk of defilement themselves. Moreover, because of their contact with the body, the family of thee ceased is also considered defiled and is therefore not allowed to touch anyone during the state of defilement.

A priest, through a ceremony called "hui kala," can only remove this state. After the ceremony has been completed and the body laid to rest it is common in many traditional Hawaiian cultures for the lover of the deceased to dig up his or her bones, place them in a pillow and sleep with them to symbolize that though death has separated them their love is still very much alive.