The most accepted scholar is probably A.V. Seaton. In his 1996 article, From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism: Guided by the Dark, Seaton argues that thanatourism is dependent on the traveller’s frame of mind. The thanatourist is “motivated by the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death.”

Seaton claims that there are various degrees of thanatourism:

1. Travel to watch death (public hangings or executions)

2. Travel to sites after death has occurred (Auschwitz)

3. Travel to internment sites and memorials (graves and monuments)

4. Travel to re–enactments (Civil War re–enactors) 

5. Travel to synthetic sites at which evidence of the dead has been assembled (museums)

This leaves quite a bit of overlap and makes thanatourism seem like a common word that could encompass holocaust tourism, cemetery tourism, a visit to Strawberry Fields, or just about any type of grief tourism.

However, on the rare occasions when the word thanatourism is used, it often refers to very specific types of tourism (primarily type 1 – watching death – when the traveller most clearly wants to encounter actual death). This must include burials, such as Tibet’s famous sky burials. I have not heard thanatourism used to refer to celebrity burials, but I suppose it could be used for tourists who visited Reagan’s wake / funeral in Washington D.C.

The fact is we can not rely on scholars to define words for us. We have to see how the words are used in real life by normal people. This is difficult with uncommon words, but I think we can see that dark tourism and grief tourism are the more general terms that refer to many sites associated with death and disaster. Thanatourism is sometimes used for sites associated with violent death, particularly when travellers actually want to see a death or burial.

It must be remembered that Tibet is a land where sky burials are closely associated with nature, partially due to necessity.  Here, soil is at a premium and wood for funeral pyres, other than yak chips, is practically nonexistent on the 12,000-foot plateau.  Beyond Llasa, the spiritual heart of Tibet, the area is remote and regulations seem too distant to apply.  There are 1,075 sky burial sites, where about 100 people called sky burial operators, are designated to perform the rituals.  The largest sky burial site, Drepung Monastery, founded in 1416, has received an average of 10 bodies per day for thousands of years. 

Sky burial rituals are not performed on the 19th day of the Tibetan calendar, a day of reading the sutras for the dead, a divine procedure in Buddhism.  The sky burial takes place, usually at dawn, and tourists, if allowed, are bathed in juniper incense, while three or four attendants wrap the bodies of the dead and lay them on flat rocky ledges.  Monks lead the procession to the burial ground where Tibetan prayer flags surround the area.  The higher up the mountain the more precedence is given, as in a burial site for a monk, rather than for a commoner.  The vultures or lammergeyers, known as “dakinis,” or “sky dancers,” hover above the site while strange calls emanate from attendants summoning these birds of prey to devour the pieces of carcass that are tossed 10 to 15 feet in the air toward the sky.  Bones are chopped and tossed aside in a methodical and solemn procedure, designed to emphasize the impermanence of life.  Since Buddhists believe there is no purpose in keeping the body after death when the spirit has gone, the actual feeding to the vultures is considered a final act of charity, an essential part of the cycle of life and death. 

In some cases, the body is tied to a pole, and slowly stripped of flesh by the vultures.  A Tibetan monk arrives with a sledge hammer and a burlap apron around his waist to continue chopping up the skeleton and the head, and these small pieces are mixed together with a paste of roasted barley flour, sugar, and butter to further attract the birds.  At the end of the ritual, the entire area is swept clean, although some religious sects retain pieces of the skulls to use as teacups. 

For many, the visits to the sites of these rituals near Mt. Kailish, the home of the Buddhist God Kang Ringboche, are pilgrimages, firmly rooted in religious beliefs.  For others, it is a way to connect with nature, to rejuvenate the mind and spirit, to regain a feeling of perspective between man and the universe.  Tibet itself is a country so distant that its spirituality seems to be everywhere.  Indeed, the entire land of Tibet seems to hold a magical attraction, a Nirvana where time stands still and pleasure comes from meditation and deep reflection. 

The media has brought death and tragedy in lurid, morbid details and reports from the far corners of the world to us all.  It is entirely possible that thanatourism in Tibet exists simply because of the unknown, mysterious phenomenon of death itself.  Although the sky burial may seem primitive and bizarre, its apparent link between the living and the dead seems to provide an opportunity to experience death vicariously.  Thanatourists are fascinated with symbolic encounters with death and the more realistic the ritual appears, the greater the fascination. 

Sky burials were banned in the 1960s and 1970s to foreigners or Westerners; however, Chinese officials began allowing sky burials again in the 1980s.  Again, in 1983, the sites were closed for a time when a group of tourists were stoned by grieving relatives.  Although the government has banned outsiders from actually participating, unless by invitation, and photography is forbidden, many monks act as guides and take tourists to these sites.  The compensation they receive is usually left as donations for the monastery or collected by the government.  The Chinese government, anticipating over 5 million tourists to visit Tibet in the next few years, is actively arranging tours and encouraging hotels and travel agents to promote tourism of any type.  Whether the Tibetans will be able to keep their religious beliefs and traditions to live in peace or whether pressure from the Chinese government, the media, and the thanatourist will take precedence remains to be seen.

Sharon L. Slayton