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HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Oct. 14th, 2013 12:33 pmMy dad and I are fans of The Walking Dead, the new season of which premiered last night. This led to a discussion about how Boo would kick the Governor's ass, and would kick all the zombies/walkers' asses too. And how he'd jump on them and take a bite and then be like EW GROSS WTF IS WRONG WITH THIS MEAT?! And then he'd realize that in addition to tasting terrible, these things are also competition for his food source (people) and he'd become a zombie-hunter to eliminate said competition---he'd just chew a hole right through their heads and leave the rest!
In honor of that, have some trivia regarding the undead from the world over!
* Some people think that the word "zombie" comes from the word "zuvembie" and that zuvembie is an African word for the undead. This is not the case. The "zuvembie" is a supernatural creature made up by an American author of pulp fiction for the "Weird Tales" magazine in 1938. Because the Comics Code Authority would not allow zombies, many comics since have used the "zuvembie" in place of the word "zombie" because they sound similar enough, even though the two creatures are quite different. Specifically, it was Robert E. Howard that created the "zuvembie" in his short story "Pigeons from Hell", published in Weird Tales in 1938, which LKH states as having been inspiring to her as a young writer (and which I really want to read too!)
* Irish legends speak of the Marbh Bheo, the night-walking dead, corpses that rise from the grave, usually on a specific night such as Halloween. There are two types of Marbh Bheo: The Blessed Dead, who were good people that lived good lives and so are allowed by God to come back to life for a night to enjoy all the things they once did, such as food, drink, and company. All others, however, are raised by the Devil, and were evil people who led evil lives and whose only drive when resurrected is to do, you guessed it, more evil! Usually they torment their family and neighbors, but there are also some tales of blood-drinking, taking this type of Marbh Bheo from being an Irish zombie to more an Irish vampire, though this could be confusion with the many tales of blood-drinking fairies in Irish lore. Of course, fairies were also thought by some to be the souls of the dead, so who knows?
* Though mummies are most closely associated in modern perceptions with the Ancient Egyptians, many other cultures practiced deliberate mummification of their dead as well. In fact, the earliest known examples of deliberately-made mummies are from the Chinchorro people of South America. Unlike the Egyptians and many other cultures, who only mummified royalty or otherwise elite, the Chinchorro mummified ALL members of society, including even miscarried fetuses. Chinchorro mummies are also notable in that their internal organs were not only removed but also replaced with animal hair and plant fibers that gave them a sort of continuous "growing" life from within. (Not supernatural, but cool nonetheless! Besides, mummies are often pictured as among the walking dead, so it sorts of counts to include facts about real ones, right?)
* According to the Kerry-born Sean O'Sullivan, who is the author of a book on Irish folktales and the archivist of the Irish Folklore Commission, Irish folklore says that there's supposedly a famous fairy fortress high in the Kerry mountains known as "Dun Dreach-fhoula" (pronounced "drak'ola") where blood-drinking fairies were said to live and prey on travelers who came through the mountain passes. Like most folks I figured Stoker got the name Dracula from Vlad the Impaler, who was called Drakulya by the Russians, but given stoker's Irish origins, that might be an alternative source of the name for him.
I wish there was an alternative to....
( HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY ONE )
In honor of that, have some trivia regarding the undead from the world over!
* Some people think that the word "zombie" comes from the word "zuvembie" and that zuvembie is an African word for the undead. This is not the case. The "zuvembie" is a supernatural creature made up by an American author of pulp fiction for the "Weird Tales" magazine in 1938. Because the Comics Code Authority would not allow zombies, many comics since have used the "zuvembie" in place of the word "zombie" because they sound similar enough, even though the two creatures are quite different. Specifically, it was Robert E. Howard that created the "zuvembie" in his short story "Pigeons from Hell", published in Weird Tales in 1938, which LKH states as having been inspiring to her as a young writer (and which I really want to read too!)
* Irish legends speak of the Marbh Bheo, the night-walking dead, corpses that rise from the grave, usually on a specific night such as Halloween. There are two types of Marbh Bheo: The Blessed Dead, who were good people that lived good lives and so are allowed by God to come back to life for a night to enjoy all the things they once did, such as food, drink, and company. All others, however, are raised by the Devil, and were evil people who led evil lives and whose only drive when resurrected is to do, you guessed it, more evil! Usually they torment their family and neighbors, but there are also some tales of blood-drinking, taking this type of Marbh Bheo from being an Irish zombie to more an Irish vampire, though this could be confusion with the many tales of blood-drinking fairies in Irish lore. Of course, fairies were also thought by some to be the souls of the dead, so who knows?
* Though mummies are most closely associated in modern perceptions with the Ancient Egyptians, many other cultures practiced deliberate mummification of their dead as well. In fact, the earliest known examples of deliberately-made mummies are from the Chinchorro people of South America. Unlike the Egyptians and many other cultures, who only mummified royalty or otherwise elite, the Chinchorro mummified ALL members of society, including even miscarried fetuses. Chinchorro mummies are also notable in that their internal organs were not only removed but also replaced with animal hair and plant fibers that gave them a sort of continuous "growing" life from within. (Not supernatural, but cool nonetheless! Besides, mummies are often pictured as among the walking dead, so it sorts of counts to include facts about real ones, right?)
* According to the Kerry-born Sean O'Sullivan, who is the author of a book on Irish folktales and the archivist of the Irish Folklore Commission, Irish folklore says that there's supposedly a famous fairy fortress high in the Kerry mountains known as "Dun Dreach-fhoula" (pronounced "drak'ola") where blood-drinking fairies were said to live and prey on travelers who came through the mountain passes. Like most folks I figured Stoker got the name Dracula from Vlad the Impaler, who was called Drakulya by the Russians, but given stoker's Irish origins, that might be an alternative source of the name for him.
I wish there was an alternative to....
( HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY ONE )
