HANGING COFFINS

 One of my goals is to learn something new every day.  Now that we have the whole world in our hands by way of the world wide web, hey, it's attainable.  Before writing this morning, I thought it would be fun to search for unique cultural traditions.  The one I settled on comes to us from Sagada, Mountain Province, on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, south of Taiwan. 

One of the disappearing funeral practices of the Igorot tribe (people of the mountains) on that island are the Hanging Coffins.  In a ritual that dates back 2,000 years, the  Igorot bury their dead in a coffin, nailed to the sides of cliffs high above the ground.  They believe that by moving the bodies of the dead higher up brings them closer to their ancestral spirits.  Plus, they wanted a place where the body would be safe from animals and head hunters.  Years ago, enemies from other provinces hunted for heads and took them home as trophies.

Nowadays, fewer elders want to be buried in this way, as they are Christian.  They want to be able to visit the grave sites of their relatives.  Therefore, the tradition is disappearing.

.......There's a whole lot more to this practice, but a glimpse is really all I need.  It's the idea that was new to me.  We all get wrapped up in our own small space on the planet, we forget that other cultures are looking at life in ways we don't even dream of.  That's the business of every person on the planet having a right to their own opinions, their viewpoints, all coming from a unique perspective and place.  I'll probably never visit what we call a traditional cemetery again without thinking of the coffins hanging on the sides of cliffs on islands far far away.  That's the power one bit of knowledge can have on us.

We had beautiful rain most of yesterday.  Ideal rain that soaked into the ground.  Won't be long the grass will be turning green.  58 degrees predicted for today.  Cloudy again.