The corpse turned on the coffin to go home: Scientist headache

The story of a dead body suddenly stood up, walked back to normal and returned to its home as if it were only in Hollywood horror movies. However, this is true and very familiar to the Toraja people in Indonesia, making the walking zombies a ritual handed down from ancient times in their spiritual life.

'Magic' has a long history

The scary story is one of the strange burial practices of the Toraja tribe of South Sulawesi, Indonesia (the word 'Toraja' means 'people in the highlands' ). For many years before the Toraja land was inhabited and isolated from the outside world, rumors of miraculous magic , causing normal walking dead were many people in the world. gender known.

According to the oldest people in the tribe, making zombies know since ancient times. At that time, a civil war took place between the Tana Toraja in the West and the Tana Toraja in the East.

The Tana Toraja in the West was defeated miserably and almost killed. Meanwhile, the Tana Toraja in the East was killed less and most of the warriors carried the bodies of those who died to the village for burial.

On the contrary, since it was impossible to bring the bodies of the ill-fated people to the village, the Tana Toraja in the West thought of a special way to bury the dead. Later, they use a mysterious method to make the corpses walk and find their way to their village. Since then, the Tana Toraja has kept this "magic" and so far the witches have only done so when requested by the deceased.

This bizarre story causes many people to question skeptically about the truth of information and if it is true, what mechanism makes the dead person still in the coffin stand up and walk like a living?

The art of preserving corpses is perfect

Since 1905, scientists have found intact human bodies, not decomposed in this land. Especially, it seems that these bodies have not been marinated in any kind of chemical, unlike the known embalming method of the ancient Egyptians. However, many scientists still doubt that there is a special substance to help preserve the dead body, but so far they have not been able to find the answer.

According to the locals, the unique way of Tana Toraja burial with special soil conditions can be one of the important reasons why why the walking knows only unique in Mamasa, Indonesia.

When a person in the village dies, their body will be wrapped in clothes before placing it in the coffin. After that, the men will carry the coffin to the burial place of the tribe.

What is special is that the graveyard of the Tana Toraja is crouched on steep limestone cliffs . Here, people chisel into squares deep inside the stone, long and wide enough to fit a coffin.

Looking from afar, the tombs in the mountains looked like pigeons or the windows of a high-rise building. Only healthy men can do this hard work of burial.

Initially, they used bamboo ladders to climb up the graves on the cliff and then needed 4 to 5 people to transport the deceased body to a vertical cliff like a wall before placing the dead in place. Last rest.

Understandably, when approaching the graves, the people did not see the stench of decomposing corpses but looked like a mummy . Many corpses came out of the coffin after years and still had eyelashes, eyebrows, hair and face that were almost completely deformed or changed.

According to the people here, such good quality ' corpses ' may be due to the limestone in this region has a substance that helps preserve the body. In addition, the fact that the bodies are deep in the cliff to avoid the effects of weather or digging of animals can also be a cause of the bodies being kept intact. Because a corpse will not be able to walk normally if the bone is disconnected one by one.

Journey home to the corpses

According to the beliefs of the tribe, the dead must return to the village where he was born to meet relatives. This is important because they will teach skills to help the dead enter a new life in the afterlife.

In the past, many people feared that the journey back home of zombies was too long, and feared that the zombies would 'die' again on the way, so they often hired a wizard to go behind, aiming to Help guide these zombies back home safely.

The dead must make the journey home, despite that distance or near. After being 'allowed' , the corpse can walk normally. The zombies moved rigidly, looking like a robot and the face didn't seem to show any emotion.

If someone speaks directly with the corpse, the corpse will fall and cannot continue the journey back home. Therefore, a dangerous thing in the journey back home of the corpses is to meet the survivors and get them talking.

To limit the risk, witches often find deserted roads, almost uninhabited, so that the corpses can freely walk without being disturbed.

How to make a zombie?

Until now scientists still have to find a solution to find out how the Sorceress Toraja can make the corpses walk and identify their home to return.

The most plausible answer is that witches used a powder-type poison to bring the dead to an unconscious state, for a certain period of time.

Accordingly, this powder is said to be extremely toxic to people living by being extracted from very toxic animals in nature such as puffer fish, scorpion, poisonous spiders . These substances are also said to exist in skin and viscera of newts, toads, salamanders, green round octopus .

However, for the dead, it has the same effect as the psychotropic medicine to help restore the death. When this powder is 'blown' into the corpses, it stimulates the dead nervous system to function unconsciously like a machine.

Usually this drug will make the zombies come back to life in about 3 days, enough time to find the way home. If you want the zombies to live longer, the witches have to prepare the medicine with a different rate and dosage.

However, many people still appear dissatisfied with the answer and think that doing the walking zombies is just a deviant magic of witches.

Today, the Tana Toraja have rarely seen zombies find their way home. People are afraid that the story of walking zombies will soon be available only in movies or fantasy. Because, fewer and fewer people know this 'magic' and few families can afford the exorbitant cost of hiring a wizard.

To this day, making walking corpses is still a mystery that hurts Indonesian and world scientists .

How unbelievable the truth of truth is, perhaps only Tana Toraja witches have the most accurate answer. Whether using magic or not, this is a spiritual ritual that needs to be preserved and protected by the Tana Toraja community and the Indonesian government.