"Snow Mountain Hall" was the main venue for the upcoming Ten Thousand Spirits Festival. It was also where the tribes at the foot of the Snow Mountain gathered for meetings. Other holiday celebrations were held here as well, and ordinarily, no one except Tribal Chiefs and Elders was permitted to enter.
Naturally, an Outlander like Shade was not allowed inside to look around. However, Old Priest Kane, who was showing him around Kael-Todd Town, took Shade to observe a local funeral.
The locals regarded the Snow Mountain as a Holy Mountain and would not casually bury corpses there. Burial in the earth was not popular here either; instead, they followed the traditional practice of water burial.
After Shade and Old Priest Kane followed the town's paths all the way to the westernmost dock, they stood at a high point and watched the people at the dock solemnly bid farewell to a coffin that had already been placed on a wooden raft. The funeral was presided over by another young Priest from the village, though he was only an ordinary person.
The funeral was quite similar to those in the city: relatives said their farewells, eulogies were read, and memories of the past were recalled. After the farewell ceremony ended, everyone began softly singing a spirit song with a strong local flavor. The singing was ethereal and beautiful, yet it also carried the rugged character of island fishermen.
The raft was then pushed into the sea and drifted with the current, eventually disappearing beyond the horizon under the push of the waves.
Overall, everything here was rather interesting to an Outlander. Since coming to this world, most of what Shade had seen had been the scenery of various Steam Epoch cities. Though every city had its differences, they shared many similarities.