Graveyard Shift 14 Bizarre Death Rituals From Around the World  

In the Menyama region of Papua New Guinea, these red corpses hanging on a cliff is a death ritual that preserves bodies. The locals smoke them, string them up, and hang them on a cliff face. This way, the bodies can look down and protect the village below.

In the Amazon rainforest, the Yanomami tribe prepare a corpse for eating so that the soul can go to Paradise. When a loved one dies, they wrap the corpse in leaves and allow bugs to indulge. A little over a month later, the bones are made into a banana soup for everyone, and a little over a year later, the ashes are mixed with plantain soup.

In Sichuan, a man prepares another man for sky burial, a primarily Tibetan ritual in which a dead body is taken to the top of a mountain to be eaten by vultures. Mongols and TIbetans, who often do these sky burials, are adhering to the Vajrayana Buddhist belief that, after death, the body is just an empty vessel that doesn't need to be preserved. Hence, it's for the birds.

About four centuries ago, the Bo people of China's Sichuan province hung these wooden tombs from the cliffs. It is unknown whether the intention for these suspended burials was to keep the coffin out of reach from animals or to be within reach of the gods. An ancient death ritual, these tombs are approaching 3,000 years old.