An Appraisal: The Bo versus the Russian Orthodox Christians

            Comparing and contrasting the death rituals of the Bo and the Russian Orthodox Christians is a challenge seeing as there is almost no written record of the Bo’s customs. Viable similarities include the ritualized dressing of the bodies, the Christians in white and the Bo in fine silks, and the implementation of funerary items in the coffins of the dead. In both cases, the dead are put to rest with foods, clothing, and tools that one might need to live life. The most obvious distinction between the rituals of the two groups is that the Christians are buried in the ground and the Bo are dangled from a cliff side.

            The rituals of the Bo seem to proclaim a proud people, an ethnic group that thrived on traditions that were abnormal if compared to the other peoples around them. With so little known about them, researchers and anthropologists are compiling together the reports of neighboring peoples and what they can find from artifacts. The Orthodox Christians on the other hand are a people set deeply in their traditions, preforming their burials as they have been performed for decades.