The Shilluk of southern Sudan hold their kings responsible for drought. During prolonged periods of no rain the killing of kings is common.

Nicolae Ceausescu ruled Romania from 1974 through December 1989, when a revolution forced him and his wife Elena to flee the capitol. They headed by helicopter to Snagov, a commune north of Bucharest then fled again to Targoviste, an ancient city on the Ialomita River. Here the army ordered their helicopter to land and placed the pair under arrest. On Christmas Day, they were put on trial under charges that included illegal gathering of wealth and genocide. The trial lasted two hours; they were convicted and sentenced to death. Soldiers led the couple, whose hands were tied behind their backs with clothesline, outside the building then opened fire. The communist leader and his wife were dead.

Or were they? The entire episode was filmed but there is a brief break in the video, between the time when Ceausescu and his wife are led outside and the start of the shooting. By the time the camera comes back bullets have been fired and the couple lies on the ground. Fearing the tombs might be desecrated authorities brought the bodies during the night to Bucharest’s Ghencea Cemetery, where they were buried in simple plots. Aging communist sympathizers continue to place flowers beside the graves to this day. But based on evidence like the break in the tape, the couples’ three children and other critics have continued to question just who in fact was executed. For years, the group tried to obtain permission to unearth the grave but state officials wouldn’t allow it. But last month, saying they had nothing to hide, authorities agreed to the exhumation. Cemetery officials dug up the wooden caskets and a team of pathologists took samples from the corpses and placed them into plastic bags. DNA tests will be performed, although results won’t be available for up to six months.

In attempting to squash the rebellion that ultimately overthrew him Ceausescu and his political police killed hundreds of Romanians, brutality that seemed to justify his swift execution. One only has to look to examples like Saddam Hussein or Louis XVI of France to find other leaders, tyrants or not, who were put to death after public opinion turned against them. Sometimes, the killing of kings takes an invasion, sometimes a revolution from within, but in a remote stretch of southern Sudan, it takes a lack of rain.

Among Sudan’s Shilluk, when there is reason to believe the king is not acting in the communities best interest an assembly is convened. The people can ultimately put the king to death, an outcome especially likely during times of drought. It is believed that the king has the power to make rain, and so when no rain falls the king is blamed. During drought, the king, knowing his end may be near will try desperately to bring about rain by performing sacrifices and praying to his fathers for assistance. If drought continues the king faces an ultimatum, make the rains fall or die.

The social anthropologist Declan Quigley spent significant time in southern Sudan in the 1980s and collected more than two dozen cases of regicide (the killing of a king) from the past century and a half. In one case from 1981 a king was executed by his half-son and others after a long period of drought. A goat was then sacrificed on the grave to prevent the king’s posthumous revenge. Police later arrested 22 people in association with the killing, but all of them were deemed to have acted appropriately and were later released, except the half-son.

The Finnish anthropologist Marta Salokoski studied regicide among the Owambo of northern Namibia. Among this tribe, it is believed that if a king dies under his own power he will take the entire kingdom with him. Thus, in order to avoid ruination of the kingdom, a sick king is swiftly executed. The method is usually suffocation. Salokoski, quoting an earlier text by Iituku describes the process:

“The face is covered with a soft animal skin, one hand clenches the neck, the other presses the mouth and nose. Alternatively, a sitting cub is pressed on the throat. It is usually a slave who does the strangling.”

Felix “Bush” Breazeale, of Roane, Tennessee was a hermit who became a celebrity overnight when he decided to host his own funeral. Robert Duvall plays Bush in a newly released Hollywood movie about the story called "Get Low".

Last month, Theodore “Pete” Peterson sat at a New Jersey bar with a vodka tonic in hand and an oxygen tank at his side. There was a buffet lunch, a 50/50 raffle and he was surrounded by friends and family, but this was no ordinary party, this was Pete’s wake. The 67 year-old bricklayer was also an avid hunter, fisherman, drinker and smoker. He had racked up 11 DUI’s over the course of his life, had one serious car accident and had been through one divorce, but earlier this summer he received the worst news of all: he had lung cancer as well as a tumor behind his esophagus and had just a few months to live. Pete wanted a chance to say goodbye to friends and family while still in relatively good health, so he decided to host his own wake. “Why wait until I’m dead to have one?” said Pete, to a local reporter.

Pete was an ordinary working man, though his story is uncommon; very few people have attended their own funerals. In fact, as history tells us, there is only one other, Felix “Bush” Breazeale, of Roane, Tennessee. Bush’s story was recently turned into a Hollywood movie called Get Low, starring Bill Murray and Robert Duvall, a tender and whimsical tale about a hermit who became a celebrity overnight after hosting his own funeral. While Robert Duvall reportedly puts on a good show, the true story of Bush can’t be beat.

He was born in 1864 in the small town of Roane, deep in the hills of eastern Tennessee. Bush’s grandfather was a prominent local lawyer and his father was also a well-respected attorney. A handful of Bush’s cousins had illustrious law careers of their own, one married a Vanderbilt. Bush lived with his parents, farming the same land he had grown up on. He never did marry, saying, “the one I wanted, I couldn’t get, and the ones I could get I didn’t want.” In his later years, he became somewhat of a curmudgeon.

Then in 1938, out of the blue, a local newspaper leaked the story that Bush planned to host his own funeral. The news spread like wildfire, the story was reported by the Associated Press and photos of Bush appeared in Life Magazine. His funeral occurred on June 26th and attracted the largest crowd to ever assemble in Roane, about 8,000 -12,000 people. Cars from more than a dozen states piled in, backing up the highway for two miles. The service was held at the Cave Creek Baptist Churches (two Baptist churches had actually been built side by side). An enterprising local named John Cook charged 25 cents a car for folks to park in his field and reportedly made $300. Soft drinks vendors also made a killing and hot dogs were sold as well.

The funeral procession was late because of the traffic but alas a hearse carrying a hand-made walnut coffin arrived, Bush was seated in the front seat. He wore a brand new suit that had been donated by a local charity, with a shirt and tie, unusual attire for the hermit. The crowds were so eager to get a look at him that police had difficulty clearing a lane for the pallbearers, who carried the coffin to its place in front of a large tent set up in the church yard. At least ten people feinted from the heat and excitement.

A band from Chattanooga called the Friendly Eight Octette performed and a reverend from Illinois handpicked by Bush delivered the sermon. “This service is not a bad idea,” the man preached. “Much good should come from a service divested of the usual tears and heartaches. It gives us an opportunity to take thought of tomorrow and anticipate the great adventure called death.”

A few days later, Bush was asked to throw out the first pitch at a local baseball game. Shortly thereafter, he was invited to New York City for a radio interview with Robert Ripley of Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Bush died five years later. A small quiet funeral was held in Roane and he was laid to rest on a hill above the two Baptist church houses.

Daijuku Bosatsu Shinnyokai-Shonin is one of Japan's most well-known "mummy-monks". At the age of 96, he put himself on a strict diet of salt and water, then drank a poisonous tea and was buried alive.

Last week, police in Tokyo broke into the home of Sogen Kato. According to local records he was 111, the fifth oldest man on earth. But instead of a wizened old man, they found a skeleton in pajamas lying under a blanket. The body was surrounded by yellowed newspapers, whose date the police said indicate when Kato likely may have died; November, 1978.  “Grandpa was a very scary man,” said one granddaughter, who had visited his room a few months back and said she saw a skull.

Police believe Kato’s family hid his death so they could continue to collect his pension checks, a sum that totaled more than nine million yen, or about 100,000 U.S. dollars. But there is another reason that explains why Kato may have ended up the way he did, he was trying to attain sokushinbutsu, a revered state of being in which Buddhist monks cause their own death by limiting themselves to a sparse diet that induces mummification. Throughout history, hundreds of monks have tried to attain sokushinbutsu, but only about two dozen are known to have succeeded. Until the case of Kato, it was assumed that the practice had been extinct for centuries.

Sokushinbutsu was practiced in Yamagata prefecture, in the rural mountains of northern Honshu, Japan’s main island. To attain sokushinbutsu required an ultra-rigorous diet. For three years, the monks drank only water and ate only seeds and nuts. They meditated all day long. For another three years they ate just roots and bark and practiced an exercise regimen designed to rid the body of fat. They drank a special tea made from the bark of the Urushi tree, which coats the inside of the body with a lacquer-like substance. The tea caused vomiting and a rapid loss of bodily fluids, but most importantly, made the body too poisonous to be eaten by maggots.

When the monk was ready, he assumed the lotus position, locked himself in a cramped stone tomb and meditated until he died. His only connection to the outside world was an air tube and a bell. Each day he rang the bell; the noise traveled up the air tube and was heard by his disciples above. When the bell stopped ringing, the disciples sealed the tomb. One-thousand days later, they dug up the monk. If the body had rotted, good try, but no sokushinbutsu. Only if the monk had been truly mummified was he given the holy status, then put in the temple for viewing.

Nowadays, sokushinbutsu is illegal, as it is considered a form of suicide, but during periods of famine the practice was encouraged as a way to cope without food. It was thought that if you preserved yourself as a mummy you would be called to see the return of Bodhisattva Maitreya, a sort of Buddhist messiah who it is said will return some 5.67 billion years after the death of Buddha, a time when humans will live to the age of 80,000 and a king called Cakkavatti Sankha will rule the world, a time when oceans will have greatly decreased in size, allowing the Maitreya to walk across them, and a time that will signify the end of the middle time in which humanity currently resides. In Kushinagar, a remote mountainous region in far northern India, near the Nepal border, an international organization known as The Maitreya Project has been raising funds for the last two decades to construct a 500 foot steel statue of the Maitreya Buddha, in honor of his return. The statue is designed to last 1,000 years.

It is believed a Japanese monk named Kukai, a famous calligrapher and engineer who also founded the True Word sect of Buddhism, may have introduced the practice of sokushinbutsu from China, where it was later lost. One of the most famous mummy-monks was Daijuku Bosatsu Shinnyokai-Shonin, born in 1687 in the city of Tsuruoka. He was attracted to the teachings of Buddhism at a very early age and as a young man entered the Buddhist priesthood. Beginning in his twenties, he aspired to become sokushinbutsu. At the age of 96, he put himself on a strict diet of salt and water, which lasted for 42 days. He then drank the poisonous Urushi tea and was buried alive.

A man in Taiwan paid a stripper $160 to perform a 10 minute striptease beside his father's coffin. "Stripper funerals" in rural Taiwan and China have become so popular that local authorities are cracking down on the events, which they see as "obscene".

Cai Jinlai and his son Cai Ruigong had a bet; if Jinlai lived past 100 his son would hire a stripper for his funeral. He lived to 103, and Ruigong followed through on his end of the deal. He paid the equivalent of $160 for an adult dancer to perform a ten minute striptease in front of his father’s coffin.

In farming villages across rural China and Taiwan, stripper funerals have become commonplace. Local folks believe that the number of mourners who gather for a funeral indicates the worthiness of the deceased. Also, the more people who come to the funeral, the more luck will befall the surviving family and offspring. Strippers are a surefire way to draw mourners. In some towns in Jiangsu, a province in eastern China, the events have become nightly spectacles, drawing the entire town out. Sometimes rival funerals occur, and strippers compete to see who can attract the best crowd. “Some strippers even take off the trousers of male viewers and persuade them to join in the dancing, while others bathe in public or perform nude with snakes,” reports one Chinese newspaper.

Stripper funerals have become so popular that they have caught the eye of the overbearing communist government, which a few years ago detained five people for running “striptease send-off funerals”. The arrests also took place in Jiangsu province. Local officials have ordered a halt to the performances, calling them “obscene” and are requiring funeral plans to be submitted to the state in advance for approval. Officials have also set up a hotline, asking villagers to call in and report funeral misdeeds.

As wacky as some funerals get in the United States, a thorough search revealed nothing about stripper funerals. Surprisingly, China seems to be ahead of the curve. But there is one recent case that involves nudity on the part of a funeral home director. That is Gregory J. Routson, an Ohio funeral home director whose business was shut down by the police last month. The Ohio Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors says that Routson Funeral Chapel, in Findlay, Ohio, “presents a danger of immediate and serious harm to the public.”

The charges against Routson are absurd. In an eight-page report the state accuses him of the mishandling of a corpse, unprofessional embalming including failure to sterilize equipment and failure to destroy waste materials in accordance with state and federal regulations, misappropriating funds including taking money donated as memorial contributions for the deceased, intoxication and drug addiction and unprofessional behavior such as appearing naked or partially clothed during business hours in public areas of the funeral home.

Routson “failed to treat at least one body with proper care and dignity by partially embalming it and leaving it unrefrigerated for 13 days” and was “habitually intoxicated, or addicted to the use of morphine, cocaine or other habit-forming or illegal drugs.” He also reportedly harassed his employees and used a container that previously contained cremated remains to make a gift for a female employee. On one occasion he tried on the jacket of a dead man in front of his family.

“We were appalled,” the man’s sister reported. Later the woman came to the funeral home to check on her brother’s remains. “A very sickening stench in the funeral home was actually the decomposition odor coming from my brother’s body,” she said. “Upon my insistence to find out the condition of my brother’s body, I learned that there were serious deficiencies in the embalming that had been done and that maggots and mold would have to be treated as well as additional embalming and restoration done to try and have the body viewable.”

He “appeared to be impaired,” reported the woman. “When we inquired about this to the two girls working for Mr. Routson, they informed us that he was using cocaine and was under the influence and that this was a frequent occurrence on a regular basis.”

Routson has denied the charges, claiming a competitor is trying to destroy his business.

Earlier this year a New York City comedy club held a mock funeral for actress Sarah Jessica Parker. Around the world, mourners gather to remember things as abstract as city services, web browsers and political freedom.

On a winter morning in New York City a handful of mourners gathered underground. They dressed in black with black armbands, hung their heads low and listened to a bagpiper. A bushy wreath of bright yellow, green and red flowers framed a handsome photo of the deceased: a green circle with a white G in the middle. This corpse was not a person, but the emblem for the city’s G-train subway, which hauls thousands of commuters to work each day but is not as well-used as other lines; its services are being curtailed because of budget cuts. “The G Train has been on life support for years,” said one state assemblyman, “Now we stand here at its funeral.”

The event, which took place on the platform beside the G-train tracks was a mock funeral protesting the cuts. Some of the world’s strangest funerals don’t bury men or women, but instead mourn the death of things as abstract as city services, web browsers, Hollywood stars and political freedom.

Earlier this year about 100 people clad in black assembled around a coffin which held a dummy with a logo on its head that read “IE6”.  Flowery and philosophical eulogies were given and attendees spoke eloquently about the good times shared with the dear departed, “Internet Explorer 6”, a web browser made antiquated by Google and Firefox. “Oh, where to begin?” began one eulogy, recited by a man named Leonardo De La Rochs. “You were there to witness my hair pulling, face squishing, monitor punching fits and just watched, ever so stoically, as tears filled my eyes when I finally found a work around and knew we’d be okay. You were so understanding when I found my new, foxy friend and even when I came back to you just to check in, you didn’t mind the virtual window that I insisted stay between us. Fare thee well, old friend.”

In July of 2007, the NAACP held a mock funeral in Detroit for the racist slur known as the “N” word. The funeral was a reaction to the racist remarks of radio talk show host Don Imus, in discussing black members of the Rutgers University woman’s basketball team. It was also an effort to stem the burgeoning use of the N word in television shows and rap music. “We are committed to ending hate — word and talk,” said the president of the civil rights organization’s Detroit branch. “It doesn’t do anyone any good, whether it’s a journalist on TV or a rapper on the radio.”

Just last month a comedy troupe held a mock funeral for Sarah Jessica Parker, whose career has stabilized if not slumped since her star role in the HBO sitcom Sex in the City, which followed the sexcapades of a group of flirty New York City career women. Parker played a writer and the funeral featured a bronze statue of her lying on her stomach and typing on a computer while talking on the phone. “She wasn’t Jewish, but her nose was,” said one eulogizer.

In Asir Province, Saudi Arabia, hundreds of students assembled in a courtyard at a high school for a mock funeral last spring. Pupils were silent as one classmate was wrapped in shrouds and carried in front of them on a bier. The ceremony was meant to instill in students the fear of death but critics said it went against Islamic law and reflected the worrisome “culture of death” promoted in Saudi schools. The governor of the province ordered an investigation into the incident and promised that measures would be taken against those responsible.

One of the more serious mock funerals took place last December in Moscow at the Prechistinskiye Gates. It marked the sixteenth anniversary of Russia’s constitution, which the mourners said was being abused by the current government. Activists from opposition groups held placards describing articles of the constitution they believed no longer functioned. “In Russia, human rights are observed on three counts,” declared Roman Dobrokhotov, the event’s orchestrator, “The right to be silent, the right to endure, and the right to die.” Participants lit candles and lay flowers beside a copy of the constitution. There was a moment of silence, then Dobrokhotov and several other mourners were promptly arrested by law enforcement agents.

The latest funeral trend involves packing cremated remains into fireworks. The best known example is Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, whose ashes were blasted from a 153 foot tower he had designed with a friend decades earlier. (Photo by Justin Nobel)

On Independence Day, about 200 people gathered at a remote lake in north-central Florida to see an old friend explode. They ate barbeque and corn on the cob, some took canoe rides. As dusk settled, they sat on the grass and watched the sky. But their firework display was far from the typical small town American July Fourth event. Packed inside the casing of several dozen fireworks were the cremated remains of local man Tom Moore, who had died days before, at the age of 70. “For those who knew him, this is most appropriate,” said his wife Ann. “Don’t all men love something that goes bang?”

These days, the dead are put into diamonds, flown to the moon and made into jewelry; practically anything seems to be fair game. The latest trend involves placing cremated remains in fireworks.

Heavens Above Fireworks is a British company that offers a variety of ways to send your loved ones off with a bang. Clients can pay to have the company arrange the displays for them, or they can order their own rockets for self firing kits, which come with instructions on how to incorporate ashes into the rockets. Pointers are provided for how to create interesting displays and there are special instructions for pets. “On the night it is advisable to wear gloves, ear, head and eye protection. Avoid loose or unbuttoned clothing,” reads the company’s website. “When unpacking any fireworks keep away from naked flames and inflammable material. Never smoke when handling or lighting fireworks. Always light fireworks at arms’ length, and under no circumstances lean over a firework. Never go back to a firework if it fails to ignite.”

One of the most publicized firework sendoffs in history occurred just several years ago, with the death of Hunter S. Thompson, author of the shocking novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and inventor of his own brash breed of Gonzo journalism. Thompson grew up in a well-to-do Louisville, Kentucky neighborhood, served in the Air Force, and worked for a series of small newspapers and magazines before writing his breakthrough book on the motorcycle gang The Hell’s Angels. He covered the 1968 election riots, the 1972 election of Richard Nixon and the suicide of Ernest Hemingway. Thompson adored firearms, alcohol and psychedelic drugs and spent the majority of his adult life in a home near Aspen, Colorado that he referred to as Owl Farm. At 5:42 p.m. on February 20, 2005, he shot himself in the head. He was 67.

His final wish, well known by his family and close friends, was to have his ashes fired from a cannon set atop a 153-foot tower that he had designed himself decades earlier with longtime friend Ralph Steadman. The tower was to be in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, all rising from the hilt of a dagger. Six months after Thompson killed himself his wish was carried out. As the cannon fired, Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky and Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man played. Red, white, blue and green fireworks were launched along with the ashes. The funeral was financed by actor Johnny Depp, who played a version of Thompson in the film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and was also a close friend. “I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out,” Depp told a reporter at the time. Also in attendance was U.S. Senator John Kerry, Charlie Rose and actors Jack Nicholson, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn.

Only a few hundred listed guests were allowed into the event. Security guards kept reporters and the rest of the public away but numerous fans showed up anyway, camping out on surrounding hillsides to watch the show. “We just threw a gallon of Wild Turkey in the back and headed west,” said a young man from West Virginia, who made the 1,500 mile road trip with a friend.

When Thompson first moved to town Aspen was scruffy, now it is filled with chic folk and glamorous homes. The city only allowed Thompson’s cannon to remain up for one month. Afterward, it was dismantled and put into storage, where it remains today.

Walter Hudson weighed 1,200 pounds, the fourth most obese human in medical history. His daily diet included, two boxes of sausages, 12 eggs, four hamburgers, four cheeseburgers, three ham steaks, two chickens and four heads of broccoli. His massive coffin required 12 pallbearers.

Walter Hudson was the fourth most obese human in medical history. By age 12, he weighed 200 pounds and by age 33 his waist measured 119 inches (a Guinness World Record) and he weighed 1,197 pounds. His daily diet was as follows: two boxes of sausages, a pound of bacon, 12 eggs, a loaf of bread, four hamburgers, four cheeseburgers, eight portions of fries, three ham steaks, two chickens, four baked potatoes, four sweet potatoes, four heads of broccoli and 36 pints of soda. He made headlines when he got sandwiched in his bathroom and was unable to move, it took nine men to get him out. Hudson died in his sleep at the age of 47, just weeks after he announced plans to be married.

As the world has become wealthier it has become fatter and this creates problems for the afterlife. Morbidly obese corpses often can’t fit into mortuary refrigerators or crematory furnaces. Traditional coffins were once tapered and widest at the shoulders, but to accommodate a general increase in body-weight, most present day coffins are cigar-shaped, wide throughout. Some coffins have become so large they can no longer fit inside a hearse or in a standard grave, forcing families to buy two plots in the cemetery. Indiana-based Goliath Casket Co. specializes in oversized coffins; a normal coffin is about 28 inches wide; Goliath’s biggest is more than 50 inches wide. Such coffins can be too heavy for pallbearers to carry. “If the worst comes to the worst, we will keep the family away and the coffin will be taken in on a truck,” a British cemetery manager told a reporter. “It is not the most dignified way out.”

But many morbidly obese lose their dignity long before the die. Often, they live sad and troubled lives, and die premature and chilling deaths.

Jose Luis Garza lived in Juarez, Mexico and was always fat. At the beginning of 2008, both his parents died within weeks of each other. Because of this, he said, his overeating became out of control. Manuel Uribe, who has been bedridden since 2001 and is presently the worlds’ fattest man, sent Garza packages with kiwis, grapefruit, pears and a protein supplement in an effort to get him to trim down. Garza didn’t lose any weight and by the summer he was having trouble breathing and was struggling to eat. Emergency workers were called in. They had to demolish his bedroom wall to get him out. Garza was placed in the back of a truck and rushed to the hospital, but died en route. He was 47 and weighed 992 pounds. “The family wanted to cremate him but there wasn’t an adequate oven for someone his size,” a funeral home worker said at the time.

Carol Yager, of Beecher, Michigan, says she developed an eating disorder as a child in response to being sexually abused by a close family member. Her weight ballooned to well over 1,000 pounds. By the early 1990s, bacteria was decomposing her skin, a condition known as cellulitis. She was also having difficulty breathing and had dangerously high blood sugar levels. She could no longer stand or walk because her muscles had atrophied to such a degree that they could not support her. Yager was hospitalized 13 times in two years, according to the local fire chief. Each trip required as many as 20 firefighters from two stations to assist ambulance workers in carrying Yager, in relay fashion, from her home, through the doorway, and outside to the awaiting ambulance. In January of 1993 she was admitted to a medical center and put on a 1,200 calorie a day diet. She lost 521 pounds but upon release gained it all back. Yager had frequent boyfriends though her family questioned the authenticity of some. Her last one, Larry Maxwell, was characterized by her family as “an opportunist who courted media attention for money-making possibilities.” In 1994, Yager died of kidney failure. Shortly thereafter, Maxwell married one of her good friends.

Mills Darden, born in North Carolina, in October 1799, is one of history’s earliest cases of morbid obesity. He was 7 feet 6 inches and weighed between 1,000 and 1,100 pounds. At his largest, it required more than 13 yards of cloth to make him a coat. He was a farmer and reportedly owned a saloon. His wife Mary was 4 feet 11 inches and weighed 98 pounds. They had several children together. Darden died in 1857 and was buried in a coffin that was eight feet long, thirty-five inches deep and thirty-two inches across.

A pyramid tomb in Metarie Cemetery in New Orleans. In April, Nicolas Cage announced he will be buried in a similarly shaped tomb in a New Orleans cemetery.

Nicolas Cage owns a Gulfstream jet, two Europeans castles, a haunted mansion, a collection of shrunken heads, a dinosaur skull, a line of comic books called VooDoo Child and more than 30 cars, including nine Rolls Royces, an Enzo Ferrari and a Lamborghini once owned by the Shah of Iran, but this past April he purchased what may be his most outrageous possession of all: a nine-foot tall pyramid in a New Orleans cemetery. In it, he plans to spend eternity.

Cage’s pyramid is just the latest eccentricity in a city with a colorful, and often ghostly, cemetery history. Because much of the city lies at or below sea-level, early graves were dug just a few feet down rather than the standard six. Still, they often became soggy and filled with water. During big rainstorms, caskets would pop out of the ground and float away. Settlers placed large stones atop coffins to try and keep them down or bored holes in the top, but to no avail.  The solution was above-ground burial vaults.

The first cemetery in New Orleans with above-ground burial vaults was Saint Louis Cemetery #1, which was built in 1789 by Governor Esteban Miro, while the city was still under Spanish rule. People continued to be buried below ground but in the early 1830s a series of epidemics struck the city. Many died and the outbreak was blamed partly on noxious fumes emitted by corpses. The city council passed an ordinance requiring all future burials to take place on land adjacent to the Bayou St. John, but an exemption allowed burials to occur elsewhere as long as they were in above-ground structures. This began the tradition of above-ground tombs.

Buried in Saint Louis Cemetery are numerous legends from the early days of the city, including Homer Plessy, a Creole man who in 1892, violated a Louisiana state law by boarding a white only railroad car. His famous case, Plessy vs. Ferguson, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The resulting decision institutionalized segregation in the south for more than half a century. There is also Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, a French-Creole American playboy and businessman who now has a section of the city named after him. As a child, he dined on plates of gold and is credited with introducing the dice game craps to America. Eventually, Marigny lost his fortune gambling and died impoverished.

Also buried in the Saint Louis Cemetery is the famous voodoo queen of New Orleans, Marie Laveau, a mysterious 19th century Creole hairdresser who serviced wealthy white families. She supposedly owned a snake named Zombi, after an African god, and may have run a brothel. According to the local papers, she died on June 16, 1881, but many residents claimed to continue to see her in town. Doubters said the sightings were simply that of one of her daughters, also named Marie, but some were sure it was her. Her tomb still draws crowds. Visitors customarily mark three X’s on the side of her grave in the hopes that her spirit will grant them a wish.

Other famous New Orleans cemeteries include The Carrollton Cemetery, established in 1849. It was divided into two sections, white and colored. The colored section had smaller plots and wooden tombstones with handwritten epitaphs. After Hurricane Katrina, this side of the cemetery lay scattered with bones. The white section consisted of elaborate vault tombs decorated with copings.

The Charity Hospital Cemetery, built in 1847, was a mass grave for the cities poor for nearly 150 years. Most of those buried within died during the Yellow Fever and Malaria epidemics that ravaged the city during the 19th century. Many of the dead were lain in unmarked graves. Bodies are no longer buried here and because dogs kept getting into the cemetery to dig up body parts, the gates were closed. The cemetery is now surrounded by a chain-link fence and barbed wire.

The Cypress Grove Cemetery is dense with live oak and magnolia trees though it has few actual cypresses. Inside a large tomb for Chinese immigrants is a small fireplace where family members burn prayer notes for the deceased. Also in Cypress Grove is the grave of the first New Orleans firefighter to be killed in the line of duty. His name was Irad Ferry.

Saint Vitalis of Milan, an early Christian martyr, was racked then buried alive in a pit of stones. Movies and TV shows love to play off the theme.

On a Virginia mountaintop, a man and a woman are buried alive by a massive mushroom which induces a hallucinogenic trip then digests its victims. Sounds farfetched, but this actually happened, in an episode of the sci-fi TV show “The X-Files“.

The theme of being buried alive has a lively history across recent television shows and films. Uma Thurman is buried alive in Kill Bill Volume II, Quentin Tarantino’s ultra gory thriller about a murderous bride seeking revenge. The theme also appears in the two-part CSI episode Tarantino directed and in an episode of the crime scene show, Bones, in which two people are buried alive in a car. The world of fiction loves to play off the theme, but its occurrences in the real world are even stranger.

In ancient Rome, Vestal Virgins convicted of violating their vows of celibacy were buried alive by being sealed in a cave with a small amount of bread and water. The burial was a cruel test, if the woman was innocent then Vesta, goddess of the hearth, would swoop down and save her.

In the year 286, Saint Castulus, a convert to Christianity who sheltered other Christians in his home, was betrayed by an apostate named Torquatus. Fabian, the prefect of Rome, had him tortured then buried alive in a sand pit along the Via Labicana, a road that led southeast out of town. Another early Christian martyr, Saint Vitalis of Milan, was racked then buried alive in a pit of stones. And in 17th century feudal Russia, women who killed their husbands were buried alive in what was known as “the pit”. The last known case occurred in 1740.

That being buried alive is a means of torture, execution or something imposed during a war seems fitting, but on several occasions people have voluntarily requested to be buried alive.

In the early 19th century, Sadhu Haridas, an Indian yogi famous for his abilities to utilize kundalini, an unconscious force that lies coiled at the base of the spine, arranged to be buried alive in order to prove he could withstand the procedure. He was sealed in a bag then placed in a wooden box that was put in a vault which was buried in the earth. Crops were planted above and the location was guarded day and night. After ten months, Sadhu was dug up, and found to be very much alive. He said his only fear during his “wonderful sleep” was that he would be eaten by worms. Historians refute the event. Nevertheless, so many of his countrymen attempted the feat on their own, unsuccessfully, that the Indian government eventually made the act of being buried alive illegal.

And then of course there is Harry Houdini, the master magician who once escaped a pair of special handcuffs it had taken a British locksmith seven years to craft. Houdini was buried alive on two separate occasions. The first time was in 1917, in a pit of earth six feet deep, in Santa Ana, California. He panicked and tried to dig his way to the surface. When he finally reached it he fell unconscious and had to be pulled from the grave by assistants. Nine years later, he had himself sealed in a casket and submerged in the swimming pool of a New York hotel for an hour and a half. He claimed there was no trickery involved, he simply controlled his breathing.

Not all examples involve magicians. The Shilluk, a tribe in southern Sudan, believe that a natural death weakens the life force of their chiefs, thus threatening the survival of their people. To avoid this, leaders were buried alive in a large grave, usually close to their home. Godfrey Lienhardt, a 20th century British anthropologist who spent many years in Africa, initially reported on the practice, which was later described in the book, “Death, mourning, and burial: a cross-cultural reader“, by Antonius C.G.M. Robben:

“A platform of branches was raised in the pit on which the master would be lifted and to which a live ram was tied. The master began singing, and the clansmen joined in his joyous mood. Another platform was raised above the master’s head, and the grave was closed with cattle dung. Finally, a bull and a calf were sacrificed on top of the heap…”

The ritual, according to Lienhardt, ended with a feast.

In Chris Rock's new comedy, “Death at a Funeral”, mourners continually battle each other. The flick is lighthearted, but in many funerary tiffs the blood is real. At a Bay Area funeral two years ago a man killed a close friend with a World War II collector’s knife.

Men in sharp suits carry a well-lacquered coffin into a fancy suburban house. “Who is this?!” screams Chris Rock, when the lid is cracked. The body is supposed to be his father but there’s been a mix-up, inside is an Asian-looking man. Thus begins “Death at a Funeral”, a slapstick movie released last week that stars Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence and Luke Wilson. It tells the story of a family funeral that turns into mayhem. The fiancé of a foxy niece accidentally takes mescaline and her jealous ex-boyfriend shows up to win her back. An invalid and irascible uncle goes off the deep end, two competitive brothers brawl beside the coffin and a suspicious dwarf in a leather jacket is demanding money and packing heat.

“Death at a Funeral” pulled in $17 million last weekend but some reviewers weren’t so fond of the edgy aspects of the flick. For others the film’s violence is hilarious, but in many funerary tiffs the blood is real.

Two years ago, a funeral in the Bay Area turned deadly in what began as a booze-fueled altercation. Emotions were running high and many guests were drinking heavily, a lawyer involved in the case later said. Two close friends, Darien Munson and Derrell Woods, got into a loud argument outside the funeral home. Munson passed out and later awoke to the sound of yelling, two women had gotten into a fist fight. Munson, still in a stupor, grabbed a large World War II collector’s knife from inside the funeral home and sprinted outside like a madman. He thrust it into Woods’ stomach; his friend died later that day.

At a funeral home in Martinsville Indiana, a fight broke out last month between brothers who were putting their mother to rest. Eulogies had been given and the coffin was in the ground when “out of nowhere” Eddy and Dennis Nail began beating the hell out of each other. “My concern was that if somebody would hit their head on a monument,” said the funeral director. The police showed up with stun guns to find a barroom-like brawl. Both brothers and one of their wives were arrested on the charge of disorderly conduct.

A 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal about violence at funeral parlors provides insight into the trend. “I’ve been in this business 42 years and I’m jittery now,” says a Cincinnati funeral home director named Clarence Glover. On at least two occasions he says that gunfire at grave sites has forced him to dive into the dirt. He recently installed a surveillance camera in the chapel of his funeral home and now regularly hires security guards. Often, before a wake he will brief staff on who potential trouble-makers might be.

The article describes a funeral in Louisville Kentucky for an elderly man named Frank Sherley Jr. who had died of natural causes. It was “a perfect day,” remembered one funeral home employee, “there was no expectation of violence.” Suddenly two gunmen appeared in the parking lot and began firing. One attendee was killed and four others were wounded.

Another incident involved funeral home director Carl Swann Jr, whose family has been in the business for a century. He expected trouble from the beginning for the funeral of Raeshaun Hand Jr., an ex-con who had continued to deal drugs after being released from prison and was also wanted for murder. Hand was murdered himself, inside his car. His family tried to keep the funeral private but word got out. Once inside mourners guzzled booze and smoked in the church bathroom. Just as the lid was coming down on the casket a group rushed in and pinned the undertaker. They clocked Swann in the face then attacked Hand’s father and brother. “I started fighting back, throwing punches,” says Swann. “This wasn’t in the job description.”

But with funeral violence showing no signs of slowing up, self-defense just might have to be added to a funeral director’s job description. “Death at a Funeral” certainly makes it seem like fights are a requisite. By the end of the film nearly the entire cast has gotten into some sort of violent argument. But the tone stays light, quite a few of them have also accidentally ingested mescaline.