Mongolian Air Sacrifice

     Have you ever heard about this Mongolian Air Sacrifice before? Honestly, I am not. This is my very first time hears about it. So I have made a little research about this one of a kind burial. I was fascinated by what I have found about this culture. Mongolian takes good care of the dead body. When someone die, the first thing Mongolian will do is calling up the lamas. According to Google, lama is the Mongolian Buddhist Monk. Lamas are the most respected leader in their society, so their responsibility is conducting the entire process of the traditional burial ceremony. The lamas have full  power to decide on where and when the ceremony will take place. 

Google : Lamas (Mongolian Buddhist Monk)

     During the ceremony, family and friends of the someone who has passed away will prey and offer food. It is because they want to chase the evil spirits away. Besides that, in order to prevent evil spirits from coming near to the dead body, blue stones will be placed around he or she. Mongolian also believes that the good spirits will visit the dead body, so they burn incense and leave out food for them. The ongoing process of ceremony will not allow anybody to touch the dead body except for the lamas. The lamas will be the only people who can touch the dead body but must follow certain process to avoid evil spirits from contacting the dead body. When the time to move the dead body has come, they must be passed through a window or hole in the wall as to avoid evil spirits from creeping in through the door.After that, when the dead body is taken away from the village, she or he will be placed on the ground and encircles by stones. Finally, the dead body will be left to natural predators and local dogs.

Natural predators are eating the dead body - courtesy of Google

     When the physical body is no longer there, the stone outline that encircles the dead body is aimed to represent his or her spirit. The Mongolian strongly believe that if they do not complete any each one of the steps stated above, they will be haunt by karma. Don't you think that their tradition is unique? Yes, I am thinking that way because our Malay tradition and Mongolian tradition are really different from one another. That's all for this entry. Thanks for spending your time to read this entry. :)