Born in 1946 in the Sultanate of Zanzibar (now the independent African nation of Tanzania), Bulsara was raised in the Zoroastrian faith, an ancient monotheistic religion concerned with a cosmic battle between

In one picture, Bulsara wears a traditional topi, the white skull cap donned for prayers or visits to the temple. In another, at boarding school in Mumbai, he wears a posh uniform, freshly pressed and emblematic of the Parsi's elite status in India.



It's unclear, however, if the world-famous singer maintained his religious beliefs as an adult.

Few in the British press, where people like him were (and are) lumped together as "Pakis," asked Mercury about his heritage. In

the rising star exhibits no interest in his past—only his future. And all that archival footage makes clear is that the mandatory religious underwear and sacred string observant Zoroastrians wear around their waist would never have fit under Mercury's leather pants.

Whatever he felt in life, religion has a way of turning up again in death, and the reaper did not make an exception even for Freddie Mercury. At the end of

, after a shot-for-shot remake of the historic Live Aid concert has played, text appears on-screen explaining the singer died from AIDS in 1991. It then states something to the effect of "he was cremated in accordance with his Zoroastrian faith."



Trouble is, that's simply impossible.

As a child, Bulsara's Indian-born parents taught him about his Parsi ethnicity—an unwieldy narrative traversing space and time and long-gone empires—and the strictures of his religious faith, Zoroastrianism. If what Bomi and Jer Bulsara told their children was anything like what the Parsis I know learned as kids, it probably went something like this:

In life, Zoroastrian worship takes place

in the local agiary, or fire temple, like the one seen above. Priests, called dasturji, maintain an eternal flame, which other members of the faith pray to. Outsiders have mislabeled Zoroastrians as fire worshipers throughout history. But the fire is more a manifestation of Ahura Mazda's power than the subject of worship itself. In some ways, it's similar to the stipulation that Catholics genuflect before the altar only when a red-cased candle, signifying the Eucharist is in the tabernacle, is lit. In other ways, though, a Zoroastrian's respect for fire is without parallel. Fire is seen as a pure, unpolluted element, in many ways to be protected from humans. Priests, who are allowed closest to the fire, wear masks to keep their breath and saliva from contaminating the fire. And everyone in the temple must wear their topi hats to keep their hair from floating into the flames.





I wasn't able to reach Freddie Mercury's estate, but coverage of his death at the time confirms he was cremated, his ashes taken by his ex-girlfriend Mary Austin and stored in an unknown location. A Zoroastrian priests appears to have presided over his funeral, but this seems more a concession to the family's wishes—for something discrete and efficient—than anything within the formal bounds of the religion.



In this sense, Mercury was a harbinger of what was to come for the Parsi people. In the decades since his death, many Zoroastrian traditions have come under threat. Because you must be born into the religion, the number of living Zoroastrians is dwindling. Estimates put the entire population under 150,000. For every one Zoroastrian born, three die. At the same time, Zoroastrianism is perhaps the first religious victim of the anthropocene. The



Such crises have forced incremental innovation on several fronts. For a time, Zoroastrians in Mumbai's The constant threat of Nasu's infectious evil has serious implications for Zoroastrian funeral rites. Corpse matter can contaminate fire and earth, so bodies cannot be cremated, as they are in Hinduism, or buried, as they are in Islam. Instead, for 3,000 years, Zoroastrians have relied on carrion birds to eat their dead. This process, often called a sky burial, involves moving the corpse to a Tower of Silence, like the one pictured above. There, priests lay the body out in an open-air arena. Vultures quickly eat the meat and organs. The bones slowly wash in the away rain, or turn to powder in the baking sun. In this way, the nasa is contained.I wasn't able to reach Freddie Mercury's estate, but coverage of his death at the time confirms he was cremated, his ashes taken by his ex-girlfriend Mary Austin and stored in an unknown location. A Zoroastrian priests appears to have presided over his funeral, but this seems more a concession to the family's wishes—for something discrete and efficient—than anything within the formal bounds of the religion.In this sense, Mercury was a harbinger of what was to come for the Parsi people. In the decades since his death, many Zoroastrian traditions have come under threat. Because you must be born into the religion, the number of living Zoroastrians is dwindling. Estimates put the entire population under 150,000. For every one Zoroastrian born, three die. At the same time, Zoroastrianism is perhaps the first religious victim of the anthropocene. The vultures of India have all but disappeared ; scientists attribute this utter decimation to the birds' incidental consumption of diclofenac, a bovine drug in the cows they eat.Such crises have forced incremental innovation on several fronts. For a time, Zoroastrians in Mumbai's

ritzy Malabar Hill hoped buying back tracts of land around their tower for

as an alternative. The photovoltaic cells

are fairly effective at concentrating light and heat on the corpses, except during the cloudy monsoon season. Maintaining the human population has required similar upheaval. A handful of North American Zoroastrians have begun to validate inter-faith marriages . Though they won't be full-blooded Parsis, the hope is for the children of these mixed unions to carry on their fading, ancient traditions.

Life-Giving Links

​That's all for the eighth issue! Thanks so much for reading. If you haven't already subscribed, you can do so here: tinyletter.com/elliepses . And if you can't wait for more deathly discussion, or you have ideas for how the newsletter could be improved, find me on Twitter @elliepses

Freddie Mercury was born sometime in 1970, likely in or around a London recording studio. By that time, Farrokh Bulsara—the name the Queen's frontman's parents gave him at birth—was already 24 years old."asha," or holiness, and "druj," or pollution.Bohemian Rhapsody,Bohemian RhapsodyThere is one god and his name is Ahura Mazda, the man at the center of the winged sun. Sometime before 600 B.C., the prophet Zarathustra codified Ahura Mazda's law. The religion that emerged was called Zoroastrianism. When the great Achaemenid dynasty arose around 500 B.C., Zoroastrianism was the law of this land, which stretched from the Mediterranean to India. All the greatest leaders of ancient Persia, like Darius and Xerxes, followed Zarathustra's teachings.Three difficult things soon transpired. First, Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 336 B.C., destroying Zoroastrian texts and spreading his polytheistic Greek traditions. Second, while though Persians subsequently regained control of a tract of land that roughly corresponds to modern-day Iran, Islam soon overtook the region, which remains a Shi'a Muslim majority to this day. Third, the Zoroastrians, now a religious minority, were forced to flee to India sometime around 600 A.D. When they arrived at the palace of the Raj, he named them "Parsis" (meaning Persian) and asked their leaders to make a case for asylum. Sprinkling sucrose into the king's milk, the Parsi emissaries said, "we are like this sugar—invisible, but sure to sweeten the whole cup."Thanks to the cleverness of these Zoroastrian priests, the raj permitted Parsis to live in India, where they continue to live by Zarathustra's mantra, "Good thoughts. Good words. Good deeds." to this day.This maxim, which Mr. Bulsara's character loudly repeats in three of the four Bohemian Rhapsody scenes in which he appears, is a tidy summation of Zoroastrianism's highest-minded qualities. But, as with every religion, the actual practice requires much more rigor. Nowhere is this more true than in the uniquely germaphobic rituals of Zoroastrianism.There's a reason hair, saliva, and also nails are express targets for control. Nasu, a female "corpse demon," lives in these body parts and in all dead flesh, called nasa. Often represented as a fly, she is the source of decomposition. Containing her, keeping her as far away from the fire as possible, is a central responsibility of good Zoroastrians, who should always seek to help good triumph. a vulture nature reserve would be enough to bring the birds back. When that didn't work, they began to