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  • Incense burns in Macau's Temple of Kun Iam Tong (goddess of mercy)
    CHI_MAC_33_xs.jpg
  • Incense burns in Macau's Temple of Kun Iam Tong (goddess of mercy)
    CHI_MAC_34_xs.jpg
  • Taipei, Taiwan
    TAI_110324_257_x.jpg
  • Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar (Rangoon, Burma). The gold-leafed Buddhist Pagoda and surrounding shrines is the most important religious site in the country..
    BUR_120131_067_x.jpg
  • Wat Xang Khong, Luang Prabang, Laos..
    LAO_120125_522_x.jpg
  • Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar (Rangoon, Burma). The gold-leafed Buddhist Pagoda and surrounding shrines is the most important religious site in the country..
    BUR_120131_040_x.jpg
  • One pilar pagoda, Hanoi, Vietnam
    VIE_120205_278_x.jpg
  • Taipei, Taiwan
    TAI_110324_260_x.jpg
  • A visiting monk reads Buddhist scripts during a house blessing of Namgay and Nalim's house. Shingkhey, Bhutan. The family of subsistence farmers lives in a 3-story rammed-earth house in the hillside village of Shingkhey, Bhutan. From Peter Menzel's Material World Project.
    Bhu_mw_710_xs.jpg
  • On Green Island, a former prison island off the coast of SE Taiwan where political prisoners were incarcerated and re-educated during the unnervingly recent White Terror. There's actually still a high-security prison on the island, but it only holds 200 inmates (actual felons, not polital prisoners), as opposed to the couple thousand of earlier decades..Now it's mostly a tourist destination. We visited in the off season in March, thereby avoiding the 5,000-10,000 tourists that inundate the little place daily, though, being the off season, we had to contend instead with intermittent cold rain and high winds.
    TAI_110325_173_x.jpg
  • Shwedagon Pagoda at dawn in Yangon, Myanmar (Rangoon, Burma). The gold-leafed Buddhist Pagoda and surrounding shrines is the most important religious site in the country.
    BUR_120204_266_x.jpg
  • Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar (Rangoon, Burma). The gold-leafed Buddhist Pagoda and surrounding shrines is the most important religious site in the country..
    BUR_120131_026_x.jpg
  • Luang Prabang, Laos. Buddhist stauary on Phousi Hill in the center of Luang Prabang.
    LAO_120122_143_x.jpg
  • IND_040417_239_x<br />
Peter Menzel photographing at Manikarnika Ghat on the Ganges River in Varanasi India. The Bodies arrive day and night from far and near to be cremated at Jalasi Ghat, the cremation grounds at Manikarnika Ghat. One hundred or more times a day male family members carry a loved one’s body through the narrow streets on a bamboo litter to the Ganges River shore—a place of pilgrimage for Hindus during life, and at death. Not every Hindu can be cremated here, because of transportation costs and logistical considerations. Sometimes a body is burned in one location and the ashes brought to Varanasi. There are other rivers in India, such as the Shipra which flows through the sacred city of Ujjain, that are considered sacred as well, but none holds the importance of the Ganges. Sometimes a small dummy representing the person will be burned at Jalasi.<br />
Only male family members are present and tend to the bodies at the cremation site as no show of emotion is allowed and also, they don’t want any of them jumping onto the fire, says one manager at the ghat. The body is carried to the water’s edge for a last dip, and then the main mourner prepares for his role in the ritual burning.<br />
The main mourner—usually the eldest son or closest male family member’s hair and facial hair is shorn, and his nails are cut. He wears a simple dhoti (traditional Indian male’s wraparound clothing). The chief mourner follows a prescribed ritual, which involves circling the body and showering it with ghee (clarified butter) and incense—like sandalwood—again often purchased from one of the local funereal accessories vendors. It takes about three hours for an average sized body to burn completely. If a family is poor and doesn’t have enough money to buy the right amount of wood to burn the body, then wood left over from other fires might be used. It takes about 350 kilos of wood to burn a body completely.<br />
Afterward, the workers dump ashes from the burned pyres and douse
    IND_040417_239_x.jpg
  • Faith D'Aluisio lights incense underground in Menzel & D'Aluisio cave. Napa Valley, California, USA. ((PRIV)).
    USA_020831_07_x.jpg
  • A Chac Mool statue on the Temple of the Warrior at Chichen Itza or "at the mouth of the well of the Itza". Mayan ruins in Yucatan, Mexico. These were believed to be receptacles for incense and human hearts during sacrifices.
    MEX_006_xs.jpg
  • A Chac Mool statue on the Temple of the Warrior at Chichen Itza or "at the mouth of the well of the Itza". Mayan ruins in Yucatan, Mexico. These were believed to be receptacles for incense and human hearts during sacrifices.
    MEX_005_xs.jpg
  • Vang Vieng, Laos. Nam Song River with karst formation mountains. A spriit house in the foreground is for offerings and incense.
    LAO_110314_154_x.jpg
  • A rainbow of colorful dye powder and incense in a vendor's stall in the market at Mysore, South India.
    IND_047_xs.jpg

Peter Menzel Photography

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