burial traditions
Death rite practices
Burial traditions are the customs and practices surrounding the disposal of the dead and commemoration of their lives.
These vary widely across cultures and religions—from ground burial and cremation to sky burial and mummification.
The phrase encompasses not just the physical handling of remains but associated rituals: wakes, funerals, mourning periods, and grave markers.
Different burial traditions reflect beliefs about death and the afterlife.
- casketsBurial containers for bodies
- open casketFuneral with visible remains
- funeral ritesCustoms for honoring deceased
- last ritesSacrament for the dying
- memorial serviceEvent honoring the deceased
headstones · ancestor veneration · eternal flame · green burials · epitaphs · six feet under · grave goods · ossuaries · wakes · jazz funeral · charnel house · death masks · prayer services · laying to rest · shrouds · sarcophagi · catacombs · dirge
- Gullah GeecheeGullah, St. Helena Island, Hilton Head, Beaufort, sweetgrass
- Jewish mourningshiva, shivah, yahrzeit, sitting shiva, mourning
- cemeteriescemetery, graves, grave, headstones, headstone
burial traditionscremation
Burning the deceased
sky burial · ash scattering · alkaline hydrolysis · human composting · funeral pyre