Tower of Silence

Warning: Not for the squeamish.

Parsis are descended from a group of Iranian Zoroastrians who emigrated to Western India over 1,000 years ago. The legend of the Parsis arrival in India says that the priestly [Parsi] leaders were brought before the local ruler who presented them with a cup filled to the brim with milk to signify that the surrounding lands could not accommodate more people. The Parsi head priest responded by gently slipping sugar crystals into the milk to signify how the strangers would enrich the local community without displacing them. They would dissolve into life like sugar dissolves in the milk, sweetening the society but not unsettling it.

The ruler responded to the eloquent image and granted the exiles land and permission to practice their religion unhindered if they would lay down their arms, adopt local dress, respect local customs, conduct ceremonies only at night, and learn the local language.

To be Parsi (Freddy Mercury and Zubin Mehta are two famous Parsis) you must be born of a Parsi father and within more conservative segments of the community both parents must be Parsi. As a result, the Parsi community is in a steady decline. Today there are less 100,000 Parsis globally with approximately 70,000 concentrated in Mumbai.

Now, onto the Tower of Silence from Wikipedia...

Zoroastrian tradition considers a dead body unclean. Specifically, the corpse demon is believed to rush into the body and contaminate everything it comes into contact with, hence the Zoroastrians have rules for disposing of the dead as "safely" as possible.

To prevent the pollution of earth or fire the bodies of the dead are placed atop a tower—a tower of silence—and exposed to the sun and to birds of prey.

In Parsi tradition, exposure of the dead is additionally considered to be an individual's final act of charity, providing the birds with what would otherwise be destroyed.

In the past several decades, the population of vultures in India has declined substantially due to poisoning of the birds following the introduction of drugs for livestock in the 1990s. The few surviving birds are often unable to fully consume the bodies. Parsi communities in India are currently evaluating captive breeding of vultures and the use of "solar concentrators" to accelerate decomposition. Vultures formerly disposed of a body in minutes, and no other method has proved fully effective.

The Parsis aren't the only people who dispose of their dead in this manner. In many ways, the Parsi ritual is similar to the Tibetan Buddhist practice of sky burials.