On certain shocking websites from abroad, a video—featuring a completely naked woman—has resurfaced and is being hailed as truly legendary. It’s an unedited clip of a Tibetan sky burial (a funeral rite where a body is fed to birds, such as vultures); viewer discretion is strongly advised.
Video
Photography of sky burials has been prohibited since 2005.
Footage of the Tibetan “sky burial” (tensa) is a recurring subject on various international websites that feature shocking or sensational content. Rooted in a Buddhist perspective on life and death—which holds that the soul has already departed the body by the time of death—this ritual involves offering the deceased’s remains to birds, thereby returning them to nature. The practice also became the established funeral custom among the general population due to the scarcity of wood in these high-altitude regions (averaging 3,000 to 5,000 meters), which made cremation largely unfeasible.
Meanwhile, in 2005, the Tibet Autonomous Region in China introduced regulations prohibiting the observation, filming, or recording of sky burials. In 2015, a law was enacted that, for the first time, explicitly mandated the protection of the sky burial tradition while formally banning outsiders from observing or filming the rites. Today, sky burials are practiced in only a limited number of areas, and the frequency of the ritual itself is reportedly on the decline. It is important to note that because the filming and public dissemination of these ceremonies have long been subject to such restrictions, the origins and dates of the footage circulating online are often inherently unclear.
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