Yarma

Basic Requirement	Porter's Bar Traditions

The body is washed and cleaned, and made to look as composed as possible.	In Porter's bar it is traditional to bathe the body with water that has had lovage steeped in it, although that isn't essential.
The body is then clothed for the funeral and laid out ready for the first ceremony. The body is never laid out in armor.	In Porter's bar, the body is often dressed in a simple yellow shift, to indicate deaths separation from worldly goods, although this expense is down to the deceased's relatives, paupers are buried in whatever clothes they came in with, wearing a simple strip of yellow cloth
When the body is laid out its sponsors, along with a priest, will dedicate its grave goods.	Sponsors are normally the immediate family of the deceased, but can be anyone who is prepared to stand on it behalf. Sometimes friends and colleagues will stand instead of family and in extremis, if no one else can be found, one of the temple servants will stand.
There are three mandatory grave items - a bag, a coin and a food item. The bag to hold the goods, the coin to ease the path of the traveller and the food to sustain the soul on its journey. It is believed that without the bag the soul will lose the goods, without the coin the soul's journey will be long and uncomfortable and without the food the souls will hunger and perhaps even return.	If friends or relatives will not supply these, the temple will supply a simple neck pouch, complete with a copper coin and a small rice cake.
Often a body is buried with a weapon and, perhaps, a shield - which allows the soul to defend its self, in case it is beset by dangers on it journey. The deceased may take a small token of his former life with him, to help him remember his past and ease his transition to the other world.	If the deceased had a favored weapon, s/he is normally buried with that, or at least a weapon of the same type. Warriors may be buried with a shield as well, although it is not compulsory. In the case of a seamstress it may be a needle and thread, a cook may take a mixing spoon or a carpenter, a small chisel, A loving husband, his wife's brooch etc. It is never something large, just a small something to help them remember.
Each of the grave goods is blessed by the priest, placed in the bag, and then the bag is either placed over the neck or shoulder of the corpse.
The body is disposed of, as The Prayer Of The Dead is spoken or sung. Disposal could be by cremation, burial sinking or any other method. It isn't actually defined anywhere in religious writings.	Finally the body is wrapped or sewn into a sheet, and carried by a black and yellow draped funeral carriage to the docks, where it is loaded onto a black and yellow draped barge. As the body is transferred to the barge the priest delivers a short speech about the deceased, giving very brief details of his life. The barge is then rowed out to the sacred place in the swamp. During each of these journeys it is considered good luck to throw a coin into the carriage or the barge, and this is one of the ways that temple is financed. Once loaded onto the barge the body is taken to the sacred pit in the swamps, where it is slid into the water and disappears, as the priests sing a dirge like hymn. (It is fairly common knowledge that the body is weighted while on the barge to help it sink sweetly and easily into the depths.) Funnily enough, no bodies have ever been known to float back out of the deep pits.