In (mythical) memoriam...

[Durris]

Fist and Faith's new .sig in honor of ShadowLurker, which includes a benediction for the departed from the Neverness series, got me thinking about this:

What memorial practices or funeral scenes in different works of F/SF do you find particularly memorable?

Le Guin's Always Coming Home, a pseudoanthropological miscellany describing a culture in the far future of the Napa Valley, has a whole section on "How to Die in the Valley," including the "Songs of Going Westward to the Sunrise." One set of songs are sung by loved ones keeping vigil with a dying person; the other set are sung simultaneously (in the mind, if not vocally) by the dying person him- or herself.

When I first read the scene in Dune where friends are dividing up the personal property of a Fremen killed in a duel, and speaking tributes beginning "I was a friend of Jamis," my chest was full of rocks.

[dANdeLION]

I think a particularly touching funeral scene in a Sci/Fi movie was Spock's funeral. Of course, Spock got better.....

As for books, Stranger in a Strange Land gets my vote for being the most memorable. Yikes!