Danubians practiced mother worship and the religious rite of cremating the dead, for it was the custom of the mother cultists to burn their dead in stone huts. [1] The Nodites encouraged cremation as a means of combating cannibalism since it was once a common practice to dig up buried bodies and eat them. [2] For several thousands of years cremation of the dead was almost universal throughout Scandinavia. [3] Cremation was a later-day invention to prevent ghost trouble. [4]