If someone sent a message of a bouquet of roses to a deceased who died in water, will they receive it? Many cultures say that a soul may linger around the place where their body died. If the corporeal body died in water, the soul may hand around that area, or visit there once a while.

That’s why relatives of the deceased may efforts to ride out to the area of water where the deceased was last alive, to pay their respects and tribute. If one were to toss a bunch of roses or flowers in the water, the soul/ ghost of the deceased may see this gesture as a consolation. The act of sending flowers to a watery grave is more likely to present mental relief, emotional comfort and spiritual consolation to the living survivors. The act is more for their peace of mind.

May the dead rest in peace.

I started to read “Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian women in horror”.  In the first essay of this volume, Lee Murray wrote that in 1902, the SS Ventnor, a ship carrying around 499 bodies of dead Chinese miners from New Zealand, sank before reaching its destination of Hong Kong. The sea eventually washed up some bones on the Northland beaches of New Zealand. However, most of the coffins still lay buried in the shipwreck. The local Maori tribes collected whatever bones the sea yielded up to them and buried them in caves near the beaches. The bulk of the coffins remain in their watery graves. The Maori passed down this information, hoping that the Chinese descendants would come to pay respects to their ancestors.  And they did, 100 years later. The dead were respected with memorial services and plagues.

Modern underwater equipment allowed the finding and discovery of the SS Ventnor. However, a new controversy has surfaced. The Chinese descendants seem to disagree with the exploration team’s intention of bringing to surface the human remains and artefacts from the shipwreck. Readers can access the full article by visiting the link in the reference below.

Reference

Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian women in horror. Edited by Lee Murray & Angela Yuriko Smith. Black Spot Books Nonfiction.

The Story of the SS Ventnor at link https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/131278468/the-story-of-the-ss-ventnor-a-tragic-shipwreck-hungry-ghosts-and-a-bitter-controversy