The Custom
We keep our dead in caves, and visit them on Tuesdays, carrying rocks. The rocks are not offerings. They are to remind us how heavy it is to be dead, so that we will speak respectfully and not ask for too much. Things it is acceptable to ask for include rain, a good harvest, a child. It is not acceptable to ask for long life — the dead hate those who seem too reluctant to join them.
The caves are on the beach, and sometimes a wave washes the dead far out into the sea. This too is part of our custom. When it happens we mourn the dead a second time. We kneel where their bodies lay, and we tell stories and sing songs. We weep, but also we envy them, traveling across the ocean to begin their new deaths.