This Mess

“Cenotaph.”

“What?”

“It’s only a gravestone if it marks the location of a body. A monument honouring someone whose body isn’t present is a cenotaph.”

“I’m… not sure that’s how it works if the body gets up and walks away on its own.“

“There’s precedent for gravestones being reclassified as cenotaphs if the body is later removed and reinterred elsewhere. There’s no rule that says the body itself can’t do the removing.“

“Okay, but the body very much is coming back. That’s kind of what we’re here to accomplish.”

“So it’s a temporary cenotaph.”

“And naturally our greatest concern here is avoiding semantic ambiguity.“

so you may in fact be my literal soulmate because I was thinking abut making a galra funeral post only yesterday, but then hesitated because I wasn’t sure whether that was too morbid / if anyone would actually be interested in reading about it.. only for this ask to appear ♡

I very briefly touched upon the Dox’s death rites in my Galra Religions post, stating that they are the only galra people who culturally favour burials for their dead over cremation, as Eiyyka’an (the major Dox religion) scriptures dictate that just as the jungles in which they historically made their home provided for their people in life, they should in exchange provide for it in death. It is, therefore, a pervasive Dox tradition that their dead be buried so as to give back to the land upon which they and their family built their homes; the body of the deceased would be carefully dressed in the finest silks and anointed with sacred oils in a line linking the forehead (mind) to the heart (soul) so that these two aspects of the self may find peace even as the body is devoured.

As a nomadic people, neither the Byal nor Kyx could afford to be carrying their dead around with them nor did they have a designated burial site to take them to, and so both cultures favoured cremation; their dead would be stripped and bathed with a scented oils that were meant as both a ritualistic cleansing of the soul so that it may return to Sa unencumbered, and (more practically) to ensure that the body burnt cleanly so all that remained was ash to become one with the endless desert sands. As cremation typically takes two or three vargas, even with these inflammatory oils, the mourners would gather to sing laments and share stories of the deceased’s greatest triumphs.

Gaius: What’s wrong with the one we live in?

Merlin:

Merlin: what

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! In this town we call home, Everyone hail to the pumpkin song!

I know that you are powerful, mighty Jabba, and that your anger with Solo must be equally powerful. I seek an audience with Your Greatness to bargain for Solo’s life.

With your wisdom, I’m sure that we can work out an arrangement which will be mutually beneficial and enable us to avoid any unpleasant confrontation.

Self-Introduction (I am Luke Skywalker) 

Establish Credentials (Jedi Knight) 

Explain how you learned of this opportunity (Friend to Captain Solo) 

Establish Purpose (I seek an audience with Your Greatness to bargain for Solo’s life.)