Burn my body, please. I want to be cremated when I die. I think cremation is the only honorable thing to have done with your body these days. The land used for cemeteries could be put to much better use. Maybe I just don't like the idea of my body rotting and stinking in the ground for years and years. It isn't like your body is going back to the earth anytime soon. A lot of preservatives are used in burials so your body is laying there, six feet under, for a long freaking time.

A typically cremation is performed by placing the body in a coffin and burning the body and the coffin. I could do with out the coffin and would prefer a funeral pyre. Burned out in the open in a big field. Health boards might have something to say about that though. And it might be a little conceited.

After a cremation some people like to keep the ashes in an urn and take their dead loved ones home. Personally I think that is sick. For the same reasons I want my body burned I don't want anybody keeping the ashes either. I might be ok with my ashes being placed in an ashes cemetery (I don't know what they are really called). I would prefer to have my ashes spread. I really don't care where, over land, over sea, it really doesn't matter just get rid of them.

Cremation, the act of cremating or disposing of a corpse by burning instead of burying it. Cremation was practiced among the Greeks and Romans. The first crematory in the United States was established in Washington, Pa. in 1876. It was first used for the incineration of the body of the Baron de Palm in December of that year. In 20 years the number of cremations in the United States rose from 25 to 2,500 yearly.


Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.

The use of fire to dispose of the dead. This practice is far from being new. Prehistoric people saw fire as a gift from the gods, and using the gift to return the dead to the gods was a common practice as far back as the Stone Age. Even the Bible contains evidence of cremation, in the book of Samuel in regards to Saul:

"and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-Shan, and burnt them there."
Cremation is one of the main methods of disposing of the dead used by Hindus in India. In Central America, a tribe known as the Yanomami have been recorded taking the cremated remains of their dead and mixing it with bananas to make a frothy drink that they then ingest. To them this reassures that they will infact live on, unforgotten. Cremation in the U.S. is becoming more and more popular. In 1884 there were forty-one cremations in the U.S., whereas today there are several hundred thousand a year. One of the reasons for this rise, is the decline in burial space. Another is the alteration of popular beliefs religion wise.

The requirements by crematories for this practice include: a rigid, combustible container for the body. This usually means wood. All electrical devices must be removed from the body prior to cremation, or the lithium batteries could explode. Many states have their own rules for cremating bodies, such as the person must be dead for a minimum of 48 hours prior to cremation. This gives investigators enough time to determine the cause of death.

Incineration of the body and casket of choice occurs at 1800 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. Natural gas is commonly used to produce such an intense heat, but isn't the only fuel useable. The combustion chamber is lined with fire bricks that can withstand up to 3500 degrees Fahrenheit. Cremation time for bodies incinerated at 1800 degrees is roughly an hour to an hour and a half. This of course depends on the weight of the body. After cremation and bone fragments left are pulverized in a grinding machine to the size of granulated sugar.

The cremains are collected in an urn and sent to the funeral home, or shipped by registered mail. There are no laws regarding the handling and disposal of cremains.

Cre*ma"tion (kr?-m?"sh?n), n. [L. crematio.]

A burning; esp., the act or practice of cremating the dead.

Without cremation . . . of their bodies. Sir T. Browne.

 

© Webster 1913.

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