An interesting sideline of scattering ashes is the old practice of burial at sea, especially in the sailing ship days. They had no way to preserve a body so they put them overboard. It was an interesting ritual.
They didn't have coffins available and sail cloth was precious so the body was sewed into the man's own hammock as a shroud. If he died of a serious disease, his clothing was sewn in with him to get it off the ship. 2 cannon balls or other heavy weights were tied around the feet to take it to the bottom quickly. As the shroud was sewed shut, the last stitch was through the nose. The idea was to make sure the man was dead. They figured that a large needle through the nose would wake up anyone was still alive. Medicine being what it was in the 1800's and earlier, live burials were in everyone's mind and everyone feared it. This nose thing was more than just making sure that didn't bury someone alive. Sailors have always been very superstitious. They believed that if a live man was buried at sea, his spirit would follow the ship and bring terror or death to those aboard. Likely the ship would never make port again in one manner or another. Sewing through the nose had another practical aspect - in case the body should come out of the shroud on the way down, it was still attached and guaranteed to sink.
