Holiday Ayo - Hanging coffins are coffins which have been placed on cliffs. They are practiced by various cultures in China, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Hanging coffins in China are known in Mandarin as xuanguan which also means "hanging coffin". They are an ancient funeral custom of some ethnic minorities.

The most famous hanging coffins are those which were made by the Bo people (now extinct) of Sichuan and Yunnan.

Coffins of various shapes were mostly carved from one whole piece of wood. Hanging coffins either lie on beams projecting outward from vertical faces such as mountains, are placed in caves in the face of cliffs, or sit on natural rock projections on mountain faces.

Hanging coffins is one of the funerary practices among the Kankanaey people of Sagada, Mountain Province, in the island Luzon of the Philippines.

They have not been studied by archeologists, so the exact age of the coffins is unknown, though they are believed to be centuries old.

The coffins are placed underneath natural overhangs, either on natural rock shelves/crevices or on projecting beams slotted into holes dug into the cliff-side.

Hanging coffins is one of the funerary practices of the Toraja people of Sulawesi, either for primary or secondary burials. The distinctively boat-shaped coffins, known as erong, are always placed below overhanging parts of the cliff-face.

These can be natural overhangs or cave openings, but some coffins are placed beneath man-made overhangs.