New World
A charnel house is also a structure commonly seen in some Native American societies of the Eastern United States. Major examples would be the Hopewell cultures and Mississippian cultures. These houses were used specifically for mortuary services and, although they required many more resources to build and maintain than a crypt, they were widely used. They offered privacy and shelter as well as enough workspace for mortuary proceedings. These proceedings included cremation (in the included crematorium) as well as defleshing of the body before the cremation. Once the houses had served their purpose, they were burned to the ground only to be covered by earth creating a sort of burial mound.
Read more about this topic: Charnel House
Famous quotes containing the word world:
“He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Raising a daughter is an extremely political act in this culture. Mothers have been placed in a no-win situation with their daughters: if they teach their daughters simply how to get along in a world that has been shaped by men and male desires, then they betray their daughters’ potential But, if they do not, they leave their daughters adrift in a hostile world without survival strategies.”
—Elizabeth Debold (20th century)