Carla Valentine

Carla Valentine Instagram – Something to think about when having a cocktail at the Halloween party… This is a lovely example of the top of a skull (the calvarium) carved decoratively to be used as a cup known as a Kapala. This one is from Tibet, photographed by Shizhao, and uploaded to Wikicommons. In Tibetan monasteries these were used to hold wine or bread for ceremonial purposes rather than everyday eating & drinking, so they were elaborately prepared and consecrated before use. The skull usually came from a deceased person who’d had a Sky Burial, still practiced today, which involves the dismembering and scattering of the remains to “give alms to the birds” then retrieving the bones.
It’s nearly ‘Halloween’, but of course that holiday originated as a Pagan holiday, Samhain (pronounced sow-EN) and during all pagan rituals, cakes and ale were part of the process. Ritual tools like this have long been used for worship all over the world.
#humanremains #halloweencountdown #carlaween #carlaweencountdown #remains2beseen #tibet #skyburial #kapala #halloween #samhain #skull #cakesandale | Posted on 22/Oct/2023 03:25:22