A sky burial is a funeral practice where body of deceased is placed out in the open, often on a hill or high place, to decompose or to be eaten by scavenging birds.
While the body was seen as an empty vessel after death, this was meant to represent the giving up of body to the earth and the soul to the sky beyond. It was even held in folk lore that the birds were physical incarnations of the Honored Dead, coming to take the Rider to his rest.
Traditionally, the body is cut up or, at the very least, 'opened' by slitting corpse from groin to chin, breaking open the sternum, and prying open the rib cage, though this fell out of practice as ceremonies had to be tourniqueted due to persecution, meaning that often the body would just be left on the altar whole.
The left over bones are often ground up into a paste and mixed with milk and barley which is given to the horses. It is considered an ill omen for any part of the meat to be left over when the birds fly away and so they are often coaxed to eat by ritual dance and the burning of Steppe grass.
As the worship of Morjanos spread, sky burials were largely abandoned in favor of cremations. In holy texts Morjanos forbids the Arpadians from practicing sky burials as it is a direct offering to the Ancestors. In addition to the burials being seen as disrespectful to the bodies, which Morjanites saw as more then just an empty vessel, a change from traditional Arpadian views, cremation was favored as the smoke went directly to the Father of Sky, instead of passing through lesser gawds.
Still, even with the persecution, you may find the lone hill on which an Arpadian has offered his body to his ancestors.
