Then there’s the natural decomposition process. Add to that the popularity of grave robbers, and you have sufficient grounds for the belief that sometimes the dead don’t stay dead. Upon exhuming these bodies following reports of the undead, people occasionally found markings such as nail scratches on the inside of the coffin-if the person didn’t actually make it out alive and scare villagers outright. Vampires may have been inspired in part by premature burials in the past, when unfortunate people were mistakenly taken for dead. For instance, how strange is it that the vampire-an immortal demigod-was believed to be undone by garden-variety garlic? The vampire is an especially interesting monster because it’s an example of how multiple real-life events can inspire one creature with seemingly incongruous and contrasting traits. Turns out enclosed, millennia-old death chambers aren’t the most hygienic environments.įinally, we have a mythological creature that for centuries on end has provided humanity with inspiration for terrifying legends and romantic YA novels. What most likely occurred in Tut’s tomb, and in other similar scenarios, was that the search parties were exposed to bacteria, fungus, bat droppings, and the poisonous toxins from the mummification process. However, historians point out that the idea of a mummy’s curse had existed for decades prior to that excavation, the result of the tombs’ written warnings against grave robbers and the Victorians’ infatuation with spiritualism. The most well-known event behind the myth of the mummy's curse was the excavation of King Tut, following which several members of the search party died under abnormal circumstances. The idea behind it–that whomever disturbs the tomb of the mummy receives a fatal curse–is just superstition, but it was inspired and amplified by real-life events. The “Curse of the Mummy” was a myth originated by nineteenth century archeologists, and not the ancient Egyptians themselves. Mummies, obviously, are real but the monstrous, reanimated mummies seen often in Western fiction are not. and the fascination surrounding zombies persists. However, Davis’s clinical analysis received criticism for lacking any real presence of toxins. From there, the witch doctors kept their victims drugged and docile with amnestic drugs. In his 1985 book The Serpent and the Rainbow, Davis put forth that voodoo victims were poisoned by a neurotoxin that temporarily simulated death by slowing the heart and stiffening the muscles. His story attracted media and scientific attention, including from Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis, who suggested another explanation. This Haitian man was pronounced dead in 1962 with a burial attended to by his family, but resurfaced 18 years later, claiming to have been zombified and used as a slave. That’s exactly what Clairvius Narcisse said happened to him. In Haitian voodoo folklore and written accounts dating back the early twentieth century, witch doctors were said to bring the dead back to life as mindless puppets to do their bidding, usually as free laborers in sugar cane fields.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |