Lashunta Funerary Practices

Lashunta practice a variety of different rites for preparation and disposal of the dead, according to various philosophies they may follow. Since most Lashunta beliefs in an afterlife revolve around their lives and memories’ union with the World-Soul, they seek to unify their bodies with the earth. Many practices revolve on having the body break down as swiftly as possible.
Among rural Lashunta dwelling within the great megadendra rainforests, tree-burial is the most common grave method. However, rarely does this involve being entombed within a tree’s trunk, since this would require a hollow, which along with any decomposing matter enclosed, may jeopardize the tree’s long-term health. Instead, most Lashunta treeholds prefer to bury their deceased members under the roots of their hometree (sufficiently deep to avoid stench or scavengers), thereby providing the tree fertilizer and transforming the body’s life into the tree, a symbol of keeping one’s ancestors alive and part of the symbiotic community. There are common sets of dances and hymns performed after the burial, and the monthly Treesong ritual contains a portion to honor the memory of ancestors.
Simple earth-burial is practiced in the wilds when it is not practical to bear a body back to the community. This may occur anywhere, although a location as close to a tree - especially a milk-tree - is preferred.
Within cities, where the population exceeds the number of milk-trees that can viably hold bodies, communal tombs may be maintained, often in a shrine or temple to Mahaere, the Green-Earth Mother. These may be opened and resealed as needed. The funeral dances and hymns are similar but more elaborate than those practiced at outlying treeholds.
The Nomad Clans of the Shemez Desert and Retaea Savanna-Moors often practice sky-burial, leaving the body exposed either on a raised stand, or even more auspiciously upon a crag or promontory. Among these peoples the rites invoke Shandias - Father-Sky - although, since these peoples also commonly hold the philosophy of the World-Soul, they believe Shandias conveys the departed soul Mahaere’s communal memory. Thus birds and pterosaurs flocking to scavenge the body are reckoned as good omen. Yet even more auspiciously shows the arrival of a Megafauna ~Qoelu~ - whose consumption of the body they believe shows the gods’ favor and the soul’s transporation straight to the World-Soul’s bosom.
Similar to the Retaea and Shemez, beast cults - Shotalashu, Coeurl, Harpy Jasmines, Qoelu, Mobats, great Qutau-serpents, and even Squox - which are most commonly found in the great marsh-jungles on the Yaro River’s eastern flank, the Stormshield Mountains to the west, and along the great River Hisyho further south, have developed practices based on reincarnation to the cult’s totem animal. Many practices vary wildly by both individual cult and area, and may include having the body eaten by a carnivorous totem, to being buried within a sacred field or orchard where the body’s fertilizer may eventually feed the totems representatives, and even to being ground up and mixed into a more palatable form. Lurid rumors have even reached the cities of live sacrifice, possibly willing, or not.
One defunct practice of the ancient Thief-Queens was relic creation. Beginning with the Retaean Conquest of the Yaro Valley after the First Formian Hive, the Thief-Queens collected the skulls of the Sage-Queens they executed and silvered them as heirlooms. Since the rainforest environment did not conform to the practices of sky-burial, they took to cremating bodies atop a stone pyre. Queens, princesses, and noblewives would then have their bones silvered onto the top. Any slain foes’ heads not bequeathed to one’s heirs would then be inset at the base. The Thief-Queens’ Yaro and Shattersea helot populations ever saw this as an abomination separating the departed spirit from the World-Soul. When they eventually rebelled, these grave monuments were destroyed, although possibly some exist lost within a jungle-shrouded ruin.