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| Anonymous #981840 5 months ago |
Ponies don't die, they all live happily ever after in Equestria |
| Lium #981843 5 months ago |
Earth ponies are buried, Unicorns are cremated and Pegasi are tied to baloons and set adrift on the wind. |
| Anonymous #981845 5 months ago |
But they do age... |
| Anonymous #981850 5 months ago |
Well, horses have been known (at least sometimes) to go visit the corpse of a dead herd member. I guess that's kind of like viewings/wakes in human funerary traditions. |
| Harlequin_Jester #981854 5 months ago |
They are all given Viking funerals. |
| Psychopomf #981858 5 months ago |
Here's my silly headcanon.
Unicorns are preserved magically in fanciful tombs, believing that their life's work shall remain immortally with them in spirit, every vigilant under Celestia and Luna's eyes. Earth ponys have simple affairs of their dead being returned to the earth and marked with stone. Soon to begin life once more. Pegasi have funeral pyres where their ashes are scattered to the winds, believing the spirits of their ancestors are carried upon them and guide them. Every breath of breeze is an ancestor giving comfort, every gale one calling out. |
| Fronzel #981862 5 months ago |
Earthies are buried and flower seed sown in the grave soil.
Pegasuses are cremated and the ashes scattered to the winds. Unicorns are donated to the graduate students for experiments. |
| Gittonsxv #981867 5 months ago |
i like to imagen earth ponys are buried with a seed of there favourite plant or plants, unicorns are magically cremated and pegasus are either buried on top of mountains to be with the sky forever or something like that...you like those ideas? I DO xD |
| Harlequin_Jester #981882 5 months ago |
The flower sown on the grave reminds me of how the Nazis believed that if they grew a sunflower on their graves their souls would escape into the roots of the flower and they would reincarnate as the flower. |
| Psychopomf #981891 5 months ago |
@Gittonsxv
I like that. |
| Psychopomf #981892 5 months ago |
The bit about the flowers I mean. |
| mindcannon #981897 5 months ago |
Maybe they just fad into sparkles? |
| Anonymous #981904 5 months ago |
Earth Ponies are buried
Unicorns burn on pyres Pegasi are cremated and their ashes are made into Rainbows. |
| Anonymous #981919 5 months ago |
Cannibalism. |
| Anonymous #981920 5 months ago |
 |
| Anonymous #981924 5 months ago |
There are no "Burial rites" because there is never any body to bury or cremate. The near-death pony is taken away by a grim reaper-like figure. After the pony is gone, friends and family hold a funeral and place a picture of the departed where a coffin would be. |
| Anonymous #981938 5 months ago |
My headcanon is that earthponies are just buried in the dirt -- no coffin or anything -- and decompose.
They also have immortal spirits which gain a degree of psychic mastery over anything that consumes or grows from their corpse. (If Pinkie Pie ever died, some serious shit would go down). |
| Anonymous #981954 5 months ago |
Ponies don't die Fluttershy, they're just missing in action. |
| Scumbag_Crowley #981956 5 months ago |
Griffins, since they mate for life (and don't move on to find another), are buried on their lover's property if one survives. It is customary for the widowed lover to squawk/shriek/cry at the top of their lungs during the burial. When the widow finally dies, they are buried next to each other.
Diamond Dogs are eaten raw almost as soon as they die by their friends and/or family, the belief that they are "passing life, memories and strength" to those dear to them. As gruesome as it sounds, it is an honored tradition among Diamond Dogs. Their bones are discarded, as they only represent the "shell" of the deceased. Dragons are known to have body parts with magical properties, so sometimes Dragons donate said parts to unicorns/scientists. Either way, their bones are then buried at designated burial grounds throughout Equestria and the whole world. |
| Anonymous #981988 5 months ago |
I'd like to think it would be like the "funerals" in Pauline Gedge's 'Stargate'. |
| Anonymous #982021 5 months ago |
Odd, Fluttershy should know: just try to get in her shed... |
| Psychopomf #982059 5 months ago |
@924
Because of you now I imagine 
But as a pony. And somehow even more goofy. Man, Pinkie would get along fine with him. |
| PhilSrobeighn #982064 5 months ago |
All ponies have eternal spirits connected to their magic. Their spirits are reborn into a new, eternal pony body in an eternal world free of entropy or discord which will exists after the world ends.
Pegasi naturally decompose into clouds within a matter of hours after the magic in them leaves their bodies. There are great halls in cities in which a plaque is errected in honor of the pegasus. Such plaques errected in cloud cities will sometimes have a copy placed on the surface if the family or friends of the pegasus are not pegasi themselves. There is a magicaly linked hall that exists in both Cloudsdale and Canterlot for great ponies. The rites traditionally include the phrase "Here we mark the life of ~, whose body is now among the beloved clouds;" the plaque itself simply state the name of the pony and bear the cutie mark. Earth Ponies decompose into organic materials. They are burried in individual graves, usually marked by a headstone. Most farmers will be burried directly into the ground, whereas ponies who lived apart from the ground may choose a coffin. Their rites usually include the statement "Earth returns to Earth;" and their tombstones are marked as "Here Lies ~" with a cutie mark, dates of birth and death, and a few words describing the pony. Unicorns slowly decompose into a natural magic reagent referred to by great magicians as "Essence of Body." Unicorn families will generally keep a strong box sealed with a magical rune to hold the remains until they are fully decomposed, normally after about one century. The pony's wishes are normally then carried out by the rune; if they wished to be preserved, a new, more malliable rune will replace it that can only be opened by certain rites, normally only by family in distress; although if done well these runes can check for close friendship, verify if there are any family members remain, and weigh lack of distress against greater good for the intentions of opening the box. Some ponies refuse to be used, and other ponies insist that their Essence be used; often donating their remains directly to magical study if their families are not in a field that directly uses magic. Powerful unicorns create powerful Essence. Because the interment is so private and use of Essence of Body is so common, there is normally no formal rites, unicorn friends and family will gather and mourn or celebrate and remember the pony in the places and ways they best see fit. Alicorns, who are all royal, are capable of dying, though not through age or illness. Their bodies are normally lit on a pyre and mourned by all their subjects. Their ashes are allowed to scatter to the wind, and a great statue is normally placed on the pedestal where the pyre took place. Legend states that alicorns are born when the ash of an alicorn is strong in the wind, so it is not uncommon for couples to mate on the night of the pyre after the mourning ceremony. These deaths are so rare that it cannot be said that there is a tradition beyond the pyre, and what is said and how the grave is marked is left to the heirs and rulers who remain. |
| Aggressively-Pastel #982097 5 months ago |
Earth ponies: buried underneath tree saplings normally. In the past, some cultures mummified their dead in high mountaintop caves, in a crouched pose facing the rising sun or moon.
Unicorns: cremation, retaining the ashes in an urn. For particularly revered scholars, the horn is retained in a jewelled box as a kind of relic separately, although this practice is dying out. Pegasi: sky burial, the fragments being arranged in very ancient concentric clouds known as the cumuli of silence. Fluttershy is surprisingly OK with this. Buffalo: exposure to the elements, raised on platforms. It's a real bugger getting the body up there, but this is a very ancient tradition, and ain't nobison who mess with tradition. Zebras: a great variety of practices over history, though ritual cannibalism has always to be done in really tiny quantities due to the nature of the equine stomach. Vomiting up a loved one shows fairly poor respect for the dead's essence and memory. Mummification with the full rites and the little jars or grand tombs for royalty; commoners often donate their bones and bodies to alchemy. |
| Aggressively-Pastel #982115 5 months ago |
(I think they'd have to be relatively low clouds to let the birdies in) |
| Akintudne #982137 5 months ago |
I love a lot of the ideas here, but I have to admit I LOLed at the bottle of glue pic. |
| Mattatatta #982239 5 months ago |
And here I was thinking the races just cremated or buried their dead...
I think I'll stick with that idea, saying that the more symbolic and complex burials are usually done at the request of the deceased via will or at the request of family and friends. Therefore, a pony who was cherished by dozens is often given a large ceremony due to the amount of ponies donating to cover the cost of burial. Meanwhile, ponies who did not have such a large number of social connections tend to be given smaller funerals. The few that die with no known relation or friend, including John and Jane Does, are honoured with a proper burial, and quite a number of ponies volunteer their time to attend these funerals, so that the deceased shall be remembered by somepony. When ponies go MIA and are presumed dead, the funeral uses a photograph instead of the body. The most common burials involve a pony buried in a coffin, or are cremated with their ashes collected and placed in an urn. Pegasi tend to favour cremations over burials, because of their heritage. Yeah... my headcanon is heavily influenced by Western culture, it's because I've never been curious about how burials are performed in other cultures. This thread will probably change that. |
| Psychopomf #982284 5 months ago |
Huh. I'm actually impressed with all these ideas.
I will admit: This question was mostly self-serving since my non-avatar-self-insert OC is a pegasus that sees ghosts. |
| Anonymous #982599 5 months ago |
Earth ponies are buried, unicorns are cremated. Pegasus ponies get a sky burial - their bodies are left exposed on the summit of a very tall mountain, where scavengers like vultures and griffons pick the bones clean. |
| ILSS #982708 5 months ago |
Pegasi, being a cloud-dwelling race since ancient times, traditionally prefer to hurl their dead overboard to the Earth beneath.
It is customary to issue a shout, generally along such lines as "look out below!", "special delivery!", or "think fast!" before the body is thrown. A hit upon an earth pony or unicorn is considered to be a good omen for the deceased's family and loved ones in the year following their passing. |
| Gundlach #982937 5 months ago |
I'd think that a regular funeral service for any race would start at church or some other hallowed site and the coffin carrying the body of the diseased would be carried via carriage (or an airborne counterpart if the procession is moving from air to ground) followed by close family and friends to the burial site.
For military funerals I would imagine the service would include something similar to a 21 gun salute done by unicorns, alicorns, or even honorary alicorns. |
| Anonymous #982952 5 months ago |
Back when I wrote WoP I decided on:
Earth Ponies - simple burial. Earth returned to Earth. Relates to their connection to the natural world and the cycle of life. Pegasi - cremation. The scattering of the ashes represents the 'returning to the wind' and eternal sense of freedom that they wouldn't get otherwise if, say, confined to the ground/earth. Unicorns - elaborate funerary rites and internment (in a crypt or mausoleum). Observe such things as mummification or other attempts to preserve the dead using magic or alchemy (or science) or the like. Strong sense of observation of their ancestors and search for permanence. While not detailed in the fic, I think for other races: Diamond Dogs - Catacombs. Interment in hollowed out 'holy sites' that are sacred hill or mountains. Practically also reuses old tunnels as vast, creepy, maze-like catacombs. Dragons - Most of them self-immolate on death. Have no real society, just as they have no sense of family grouping. Every dragon thus decides on their own preferred method of death when their time comes. Most just end up dying, surrounded by their horde. Zebras - I imagine them as more like the pastoral Khoi people of Africa. The funeral rites then would be burial in communal cairns (kind of a cross between the unicorn and earth pony traditions). |
| Anonymous #983091 5 months ago |
Moon. |
| Anonymous #983197 5 months ago |
"Of all the souls I've met on my travels, hers was the most...equine." >slow MLP Theme on Bagpipes< |
| Anonymous #983792 5 months ago |
To qoute Harrison Ford for an equally unimportant and sperglordy question he once got:
"Who gives a shit?!" |
| Anonymous #984109 5 months ago |
^I smell butthurt person who can't stand people disgussing in peaceful and civil manner. ;) |
| Psychopomf #988446 5 months ago |
Looks like we were right on one front. Earthies are at least put in coffins then placed into the ground. |
| Panzerpferd #1002495 5 months ago |
 |
| Psyga315 #1046966 4 months ago |
Unicorns are put through the Rainbow Factory. |