Fevarik Death Rituals and Ancestor Worship

Graves

The Regalti are very much like any other intelligent species in the galaxy early in their space age. Many of their customs are still mired in the traditions of their homeworld. One such example is in the burial of their dead.

Even though there are a hundred billion Regalti living out in space now, whenever one dies, they still prefer to bury their loved ones in the ground, often sending the body back to Collena or Sephar to be put in a stone casket and be buried in the ground.

Since as many as 800 million Regalti die of old age each year, there is quite a large industry surrounding this. there are even entire underground "Mausoleum Cities" with space reserved for trillions of future Regalti dead.

This is a rather odd practice though, because the Stellar Regalti living in Space almost never visit the surface of their home worlds. This leaves their dead to be buried in nameless tombs for really no reason other than a belief that they won't make it to the afterlife otherwise.

Cremation

One group of Regalti, the Fevarik, have always dealt with their dead in a different way. They cremate the body and some possesions the Reglai had when alive, then scatter the ashes to the wind. For the Fevarik living in space, they will launch a casket containing the body of their recently deceased loved one directly into the Delvi System's sun, Valta.

The Fevarik believe that in order to make it to the afterlife, they must burn away the body they had in life, otherwise their goddess will not accept them. They belive that fire is the path to the next world, and that within Valta herself is that endless brightly lit world where they start their next life.

Ancestor Feathers

In the distant past, the only memento that Fevarik Regalti had to remember their ancestors wasn't any grand tombs, or graves, or anything like that. It was feathers. The Regalti Species grow feathers on their heads, and if properly taken care of, can survive for over a thousand years, long after the Regalti that grew them out of their head is gone.

In modern times, all of a Regalti's possessions aren't burned away. Instead they are passed on to family members, but the feathers still hold enormous value. Fevarik Clans are known to make headdresses, bracelets, and necklaces out of them, and often contain the feathers from ten or more previous generations of Regalti. Fevarik will often meditate while holding a feather bracelet, channeling the wisdom of past generations. Feathers from many other creatures of the planet Collena are also used in making simpler articles of clothing, each type of feather and color having their own range of symbolic meanings.

These special pieces of clothing are also used in ceremonies of birth and death, as well as coming of age ceremonies. For a *Young Fevarik Regalti, carrying the collective wisdom of your entire past family is an enormously important task to becoming an adult. Some Regalti will faint at the stress of potentially holding thousand year old feathers from 30 generations of their clan's history.

*young being relative here as a Regalti on the verge of adulthood is similar in age and maturity to a 22 year old human.

Author's Note

No fancy editing or images, just 750 or so words of solid writing and mythbuilding.

Was for a Spooktober prompt, but is really just a bunch of spitballing for future things to work on...

Earth Inspirations

Stuff in this article was inspired by several sources. The feather part and how they are revered is very obviously inspired by native american culture. Native Americans used feathers for various purposes and have many different beliefs surrounding them.

Generally they are gifts from the sky, or the creator god/goddess themself, and some feathers, like the Eagle feather, are treated with such religious significance that nothing I type here could accurately describe their importance.

Since my Regalti species has literal feathers instead of mammalian hair, I decided it would be neat to have them keep the feathers of the deceased as a form of ancestor worship, and also treat them with the same high level of respect.