So.. earlier today I was contemplating my reasoning for being cremated and having my ashes potentially flown to India and scattered in The Ganga. This had me postulating on what archaeological evidence would be left in Varanasi in the future. People travel long distances to die in this city and hundreds are cremated daily at the ghats, yet, I would simplistically assume there is most likely little physical evidence of this enormous practice.
While parousing such information, I landed on the fieldwork of Jonathon Parry. While doing his ethnography in Varanasi, he studied the rare and secret practices of 15 Aghori who lived on the cremation grounds.
Aghori are a small sect of renouncers who live intimately with death, corpses and the cremation ground so that they can liberate themselves from the cycle of death and rebirth.
The Aghori travel naked, or clothed in shrouds taken from corpses, smear their bodies with ash from the pyres, consume food out of a human skull (that is their constant companion), wear necklaces made of human bones and perform their rituals of worship sitting upon corpses. One Aghori was known to have "built an entire wall of his hut out of skulls." They have been persistently associated with human sacrifice.
A "true" Aghori is indifferent to what he consumes and lives as a scavenger in the cremation grounds consuming urine, excrement vomit and the putrid flesh of corpses (side note: case study!).
The Aghori are believed to have supernatural powers; they can make water flow from their dreadlocks, cure the sick, raise the dead and control malevolent ghosts.
Aghori are not cremated but sunk in the Ganges when they die.
I found this practice of mortuary ritual incredibly fascinating, and wondered how archaeologists of the future might be interpret these practices; would they be able to comprehend that the modifications of skulls for drinking as a form of respect for the dead? How would one decipher "extreme" rituals? Would they simply designate this custom to cannibalistic affinities?
As always, it is essential to remember that "interpreting" past practices such as cannibalism is very complicated and fraught with difficulties for archaeologists; as exemplified by the complex ritual traditions of contemporary societies.
http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=r10f4uwzcosC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=Jonathan+Parry+Death+in+Banaras&ots=JhsjjC64GP&sig=MKKgt7hYFSiKkS0VcFIurHpzFf0#v=onepage&q&f=false
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