Hûdhsunga

The Hûdhsunga (Orc."Soul-capture") was an orcish ritual of initiation.Unknown to most other races orcs were born soulless, as beastly creatures with a Hröa but no Fëa.So at a time in his youth or young adulthood every orc whom the tribe chose to be worth of, had to undergo the rite of Hûdhsunga in which the tribes conjurers called out into the spirit-realm (Orc."pafund", "Abyss") to summon a spirit to enter the young orcs physical body.Usually these were elder souls, homeless spirits of orcs who had died and refused to enter the Halls of Mandos (Orc."skator", "Hell") and who otherwisely only continued to exist as a form of poltergeist.The origin of these souls was unknown, some were believed to have been originally the souls of elves, once corrupted by the dark lord, others the spirits of cursed men whose souls had been captured by morgoths demons and held back in the world from going to mandos, on very rare occassions the bodyless spirit of a fallen maia, a wandering Rauko (Orc."Dagûl"), could be convinced to enter the fleshly body of a young orc.These spirits would retain their old personality and much of their old memory, but add to this the experiences and memories of their new physical home.All orcs who did not undergo the rite of Hûdhsunga, would remain in a soulless state of clever, but not truly intelligent beasts.

With this the orcs, while in a constant state of hunger and pain, had a twisted perspective of some sort of immortality at their expectation.