The Sitting/Standing Dead

This phenomenon first appeared in Puerto Rico in 2008, four years before the first such funeral in New Orleans, with a 24-year-old murder victim whose viewing took place in his family’s living room, the body tethered against a wall. Angel Luis Pantojas’s funeral — called “muerto parao,” dead man standing — became an instant sensation.

Such funerals are still quite rare in the United States, though not unheard-of: This year, a deceased biker in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, was towed to a cemetery in a homemade plexiglass coffin, his body astride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. There, in accordance with his longstanding request, he was buried, motorcycle and all.

The services began in New Orleans in 2012 with the death of Lionel Batiste, a brass band leader and dapper man about town. Mr. Batiste had said he did not want to have people looking down at him at his funeral, so at his service, Mr. Batiste stood with his hands on his walking cane, derby tipped to one side.

"Uncle" Lionel Batiste's body propped up at a funeral home as mourners said goodbye.

Funeral for 24-year-old murder victim Angel Pantoja Medina. The funeral parlor that prepared him told the AP, that they used some unique embalming technique to keep him standing up. He stood up in his mother's living room draped in a brown t-shirt, Yankee fitted and gold chain for the entire 3-day wake.

The body of Carlos Cabrera, alias "El Che Cabrera," dressed like Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara

The body of Christopher Rivera, a boxer who was shot to death, was propped up in a fake boxing ring for his wake in January in San Juan, P.R. Photo credit: AP

 

Dolores Lamboy touched a hand of her mother, Georgina Chervony, whose body was posed in a rocking chair for her funeral in San Juan in May. Photo credit Ricardo Arduengo/Associated Press

At the family’s request, a funeral home in New Orleans posed the body of Miriam Burbank. Photo credit: Percy McRay via Reuters

The body of Mickey Easterling, a New Orleans socialite, sits on a bench surrounded by flowers and some of her other favorite things at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans, La. April 22, 2014.Top Photo credit: Matthew Hinton/The Advocate, bottom photo credit: CNN

The body of murder victim David Morales Colon, placed on his motorcycle in a peculiar viewing ceremony requested by his family

Deceased biker Bill Standley, 82, in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, was towed to a cemetery in a homemade plexiglass coffin, his body astride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. There, in accordance with his longstanding request, he was buried, motorcycle and all.