Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 6.3.7

6.3.7

I have not yet mentioned all the barbarity and atrocity of these monsters. In some parts of the Indies, instead of burning the women who determine not to survive their husbands, the Brahmens bury them alive, by slow degrees, up to the throat; then two or three of them fall suddenly upon the victim, wring her neck, and when she has been effectually and completely choked, cover over the body with earth thrown upon it from successive baskets, and tread upon the head. Most of the Gentiles burn their dead; but some partially broil the bodies with stubble, near the side of a river, and then precipitate them into the water from a high and steep bank. I have attended these funeral rites on the Ganges several times, and observed flights of crows fluttering about the carcass, which becomes as much the prey of those birds as of the fish and crocodiles.