Tombs of the West

Colovians know two common methods of interment: common burial in the earth, and burial in stone tombs after the Nordic fashion. Both are of special interest to the student of obsequies, as both are intimately bound to the history of Colovia, its people, and their peculiar social stratification.

Inhumation in a "common" grave in the earth may seem like a mundane affair to the layman, given that it is practiced by almost any civilized culture in Tamriel for the obvious reasons of practicality and inherent allegorical quality (for those who have an interest in the latter, I recommend Brago Antipharos' "Axiom Catacombs: Inquiry into the Nature of the Law-Bones"). Still, this practice did not come natural to the Cyro-Nedic cultures, for whom water-burial or consumption by moths were the preferred means or internment.

The oldest religious codices of the Eight reflect Nedic prejudices in that they discourage earth burial. While these notions were likely carried over by the diaspora of tribeless Nedes who made up the bulk of the lower-class Colovian population, the growing schism between Nibenay and Colovia prevented this dogma from fully taking hold in the west, as did the absence of a suitable riverways or moth populations. After the forced cultural separation from the theocratic east, Colovians were free to devise their own rites. In this, they were largely inspired by their Nordic ruling caste, who favored stone tombs and embalming as did their brothers in the high north.

Nordic tomb-building held a peculiar fascination to the early Nibenese, which somewhat belies the supposed cultural dominance of the Alessian Order. Of course, the Niben-Colovian split has been greatly exaggerated by past scholars, and there is reason to believe that early Imperial society in the Nibenay was much more Nord-influenced than has until now been assumed. Especially the offices of high nobility, for which native Nedes knew no equivalent, were in large part inspired by Nordic examples - which included tomb building.

The greatest precedent, of course, was Alessia herself, who was entombed in the earth to signify her becoming one with the land, assuming its aspect as the Mother Cyrod (we will leave the controversy of her exact burial site for another day). This set a precedent for Nedic nobility to build tombs and crypts, and this is the reason why most Emperors have let themselves be buried, some exceptions notwithstanding. As a result of Alessia's example, the building of crypts and burial in cemeteries has become the most common method of burial across Cyrodiil (and, some would say, the Empire as a whole).

The Nibenese, ever cosmopolitan in their outlook, devised ways around their own doctrines: the fashion for boat-shaped coffins, or the tradition in affluent families to sail their dead around the Imperial City before entombing them (doubling as one last pilgrimage). Even their scriptures show some leniency in this matter, for it is written that "those who bury their bones in the earth are held for but an hour's breadth, for in all things Mara's grasp will slip, and they too will follow the Waters." Indeed, some of the more notorious Remanite codices claim that exactly this happened to Alessia's spirit following the ascendancy of Reman I. Such is the flexibility of Niben myth.