front); while in yet another variation, the body is in a flexed position with the knees drawn upto the chest. Some ancient societies buried their warriors in an upright position, while the Muslims, as mentioned earlier, are buried facing Makkah. Even when burials are difficult, many cultures believe that burying their dead is a sign of respect to the departed, and that appropriate positioning of the body should be made as far as possible. In mass graves or mass burials, understandably no standards could be followed, and things are done arbitrarily. And justifiably, in such instances, charges of insensitiveness, nonchalance or disrespect to the deceased are made. The only mitigating factor in such situations is that perhaps those who conducted the burials were under oppressive considerations of time and space. Like the layout of a church, which is east – west, the body in a Christian burial is positioned accordingly, with the head at the westside of the grave.The reason is that such a positioning helps the deceased to view the coming of Christ on Judgement Day. Just as a human finds an upside down position extremely uncomfortable after a length of time, it is believed by some that a burial in that manner would cause acute distress to the deceased and would be a just punishment for the transgressions committed. Occasionally, in the past, Christian suicides were buried thus so as to prevent their supposed ghosts from doing any damage. There is, however, one fictional account of people who buried their dead in an upside down position. Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels descrbed how the Lilliputians did it :
” They bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an opinion, that in
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