in india, at the funeral of her husband, 65 year old kuttu bai, sat down on top of some big ritual funeral fire and calmly burned to death at the cheers of the attending villagers. the reports appear to be contradictory in whether it was voluntary or forced, but from the article [found here on bbc.com], i see no indication of physical force, though with all the crowd cheering and fending off the local police from being able to stop it, as well as her two grown sons who watched her do it, there was obviously at least some level of encouragement involved. background: this ritual burning thing [called "sati"] started about 700 years ago with the ruling class in india. they would immolate themselves after their husband was defeated in battle so that they could not be captured. it's pretty rare nowadays [the last reported case was in 1987], but apparantly if you do it, you get to be worshipped [which is pretty cool]. since this incident, the local villagers have insisted on worshipping her as their new goddess [how come somebody else always gets to be the deity? marsha! marsha! marsha!]. the practice was outlawed by india's british rulers in 1829 so fifteen people have been arrested for this event on charges of murder and conspiracy. Matt @ 1:44 PM