The beliefs and practices surrounding funerary rituals and customs, as well as people's faith in an afterlife, provide fertile ground for research into the worldview of each society. According to these beliefs, death is often perceived territorially, and the universe is geographically divided between the Upper World of the living and the Lower World, the gloomy realm of deceased souls. This geographical division of the Otherworld has undergone further, complex, and extensive mapping. Consequently, a well-structured system exists, conforming to the spatial patterns of the living world—complete with rivers, lakes, gates, paths, and bridges—that the dead must traverse after death. The preparation of the corpse preceding the funeral involves a series of practices and beliefs often aimed at equipping the deceased for the long journey and their stay in the beyond. Objects such as coins to pay the toll-collecting spirits or the ferryman of the Underworld, specially symbolic food and liquids to prevent thirst, hunger, or memory loss, as well as clothing and footwear, constitute the necessary provisions with which the deceased will adapt to the postmortem topography. This study examines the folk practices and beliefs specifically related to the preparation for the deceased's journey to the Otherworld, the morphology shaping this particular set of traditions, their origins—whether Christian or pre-Christian—the relationship between practice and belief in this specific field, and highlights the fundamental role of the Otherworld's topography in shaping funerary customs in Eastern and Southeastern -Orthodox- Europe.