sky burial

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A traditional Tibetan funeral practice in which the body of a dead person is exposed to the open air to be eaten by vultures.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a traditional Tibetan funeral ritual in which the corpse is exposed to the open air to be eaten by sacred vultures