Short Stuff: China's Corpse Walkers

If you died away from home but wanted to be buried there, don’t worry – Taoist priests had you covered. They’d just have your animated corpse walk itself back home. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 0:35Speaker 02

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• 1:12Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. It's just us, but Jerry and Dave are here in spirit. And speaking of spirits, we've got a pretty spooky, real life Halloween adjacent episode, even though it's a real deal custom over in China.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  That's right, because spooky month continues. It's stuff you should know.

• 1:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So we're going to go Chuck today to the Zhengji region. There's no way you can't say a region like that.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:44Josh Clark?

  Of Hunan province.

• 1:47Speaker 03

  You're doing great.

• 1:48Josh Clark?

  That's in south central China.

• 1:53Josh Clark?

  And if you go there, local custom will tell you that if somebody dies, if someone dies away from their home, especially their birthplace, they have to return back to it to be buried. Because if they don't, they will have a restless spirit that vexes the living, maybe even possessing them. The thing is, sometimes people do die away from home. And there's a remedy for this that the people in Hunan province have come up with. And that is to walk the corpse back home to be buried.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  That's right. And if not, then you're just going to be cursed to wander the earth, pretty upset, harassing people, possessing people. And here's the thing, if you lived in rural China back then, and you were a rural peasant, you probably died pretty close to home because you didn't travel that much. So it wasn't that big of a deal. But occasionally, you might find yourself away from home, and you need to get walked back. And this is a tradition that dates back to like 1616, and continued into the 20th century.

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the Qing Dynasty apparently is where it finds its roots. And the idea that they were doing this in the 60s potentially even, is pretty interesting. Apparently, it was Mao who stamped it out because it was superstitious and therefore counter-revolutionary. I don't know if it still goes on in little random pockets, although it's much easier to get a corpse back home these days.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, traditionalists might do it, you never know.

• 3:27Josh Clark?

  Maybe, maybe so. But traditionally, speaking of tradition, it was the Taoist priests who were responsible for walking corpses back home. And to do this, Chuck, they basically had two options available. One was much more efficient than the other. The first one was corpse walking, which is essentially what it sounds like. The thing is, we should say this here, like, I don't know if we've emphasized this enough. This was a magical...

• 3:57Josh Clark?

  Event.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:58Josh Clark?

  Where a Taoist priest basically reanimated a corpse enough to have it walk behind him to to be led by the Taoist priest back home to be buried. This dead person would walk back home with the Taoist priest. That's corpse walking.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, for days, weeks, months, depending on how far away they were from home. The priests would carry a lantern that was a light both day and night, although they would usually do this at night. Because as we'll see, it was very bad luck for residents of villages that they would go through to see this kind of thing happening. So eventually, they would have people, runners out in front even saying like, hey, we got a corpse coming. I think they were banging a gong to kind of warn everybody. The corpse is behind the priest, like we said, very, very tall, dressed in a black robe, and just following the directions of the priest, saying, yo ho, yo ho. You know, it's just so the corpse knew which way to go, go.

• 4:57Josh Clark?

  Right. They would be like, yo ho, yo ho, we got a pothole coming up on the right.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:03Josh Clark?

  And the corpse would kind of like walk around the pothole, right? And there was one other thing you would see, in addition to this priest leading this tall corpse dressed in a black robe back home. You would probably see a black cat running along with them.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 5:18Josh Clark?

  They essentially did not ever travel without a black cat because this is how the corpse was reanimated every day. Or I should say every night, when the priest and the corpse took their journey back up. The black cat would rub itself all over the corpse several times. And the idea was the static electricity from the cat's fur was what reanimated the corpse to move again.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. I'm going to take a quick moment, since you mentioned cat. To tell people who have not yet seen that I have a new kitten.

• 5:51Josh Clark?

  Oh.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  That I think we're gonna keep now. And it's all on my Instagram at Chuck the Podcaster, the story of Olivia being rescued from the undercarriage of a car.

• 6:00Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  And very sick with worms and bacterium and seemingly near death and had her little butthole stitched shut.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  And then unstitched. It was quite a ride. We thought we were gonna lose her. Then we nursed her back to health. We thought there's no way we can keep her because our dog Gibson has no chill. And it turns out they are in love.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  Oh my gosh Chuck, that is a wonderful story.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  It's wonderful. So the other two cats are gonna hate this. But as I said on Instagram, they can get bent because I think Olivia is staying and she's very cute. And you can go check out the story. It's been wildly popular on my Instagram.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. Well, welcome to the family, Olivia.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  That's right. But Olivia was not a black cat. And since I took so much time with that story, maybe we should take a break and finish up with corpse walkers.

• 6:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, let's do that.

• 7:02Josh Clark?

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• 7:11Speaker 03

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• 7:24Josh Clark?

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• 7:40Speaker 03

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• 8:16Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, I said that there were two ways for a Taoist priest to lead a corpse back home. The first one was corpse walking, which we just talked about. It was a priest and a corpse. The much more efficient version is corpse herding. And it's very much like how today, if somebody's transporting a car for an owner, they're gonna transport more than one at a time, and they're gonna group the cars together on the back of a truck by the region that they're all going to. This was basically the concept behind corpse herding.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, there were more priests involved, because there were more corpses. So you had like, you know, a priest up front, priest in the back, maybe a couple of priests on the sides. I think this is when we talk about the runner being out front. I think this is when they had their runners that would warn the townsfolk that they were coming. And the way it's described, uh, sounds to me like, have you ever seen at a, like an NBA game, they'll have somebody come out at halftime? And it's like a guy that's dancing like, um, like, you know, some popular performer, but he's got, uh, like a curtain rod running through his outfit on the top and attached him at the bottom.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  And there are fake, you know, dummies of people. And every movement he's making with the rods, they're making at the exact same time. So it appears as if there's like five people dancing in synchronicity.

• 9:41Josh Clark?

  There's essentially nothing more hilarious that you can see than that.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  So you know what I'm talking about?

• 9:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Is that what this is sort of like? Because that's how I pictured it.

• 9:50Josh Clark?

  Sort of. This was, instead of them being on either side of the priests, they would be in a single file line, all following behind the lead priest.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 9:59Josh Clark?

  And then there'd be priests on either side, kind of corralling them in, because you didn't want walking corpses kind of wander off and, you know, try to possess somebody or steal their chi. And it did bear some similarities to what you're talking about. We'll see that in a second. But I want to talk about a Chinese-American writer named Louise Hung, who wrote an account, a really interesting account, of her grandfather's experience way back in the day when he was a young boy. She posted it on the Order of the Good Death website, which we've talked about them a million times over the years. But, um, just to kind of summarize, if I may.

• 10:36Speaker 03

  Please.

• 10:37Josh Clark?

  Her grandfather and his brother lived in a town where a corpse procession walked through, and they heard the gong coming and they were hiding with everybody else in town, just keeping out of sight, but they were brave enough to kind of peek out. And they saw, she says, a line of corpses lurching, hopping, swaying through the streets to the beat of the gong. They saw white cloths covering the heads of the dead, faces positioned up and forward, supposedly looking toward their final resting place. Yeah. And so like this happened, like this is not like a, this like there weren't like legends of corpse walking.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:15Josh Clark?

  These happened in real life. And if you say, I don't really believe in magic, Taoist or otherwise, I don't really think a black cat's static electricity could reanimate a corpse. If this actually happened, guys, guys, what was going on, guys?

• 11:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, a cat would be more likely to eat the nose off of that person.

• 11:36Josh Clark?

  Yes. Yeah, which is probably something you had to watch out for.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh, what really was going on, uh, and it was really going on, like you said, is there was a Taoist priest and Louise Hung even said, hey, I don't even sure all these people were Taoist priests. I think they might've just been doing the job and kind of saying that. But, uh, in the, in the case of the, the solo corpse walker, it would be a Taoist priest carrying a corpse on their back with a bamboo pole stuck up the back to hold them upright as if they are alive and a big black robe draped over both of them. Kind of like the old bit with someone on your shoulders in a big long trench coat.

• 12:14Josh Clark?

  Exactly. That's why the corpses that were in a single corpse walking procession always were very tall.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 12:22Josh Clark?

  Because they were on the back of another priest who was hiding. Uh, and just to be clear, they didn't like impale the dead person on the bamboo pole. It was like tied to them.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:34Josh Clark?

  So the way that they did this was they could see kind of through the black robe, they could see the lantern enough to be led. And remember, the priest in front would be like, there's a pothole coming up on the right. Yo ho, yo ho. So they would do this. And then obviously, they would switch off night to night who would carry the corpse and who would do the processing. That was how corpse walking worked. Corpse herding also used bamboo poles, but they used them horizontally, kind of like you were talking about with the basketball halftime guy.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Okay, well, I'm glad I didn't spoil that because people are probably just very confused about what I was talking about. But yeah, it sounds like they are all tied to the pole and the pole kind of runs under their arms. And that's what kind of made me think of the dancer. I should get one of those systems. I'm sure you can buy those, right?

• 13:21Josh Clark?

  Surely. They can all be homemade.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, or make one. How hard could that be?

• 13:27Josh Clark?

  I'm sure there's a halftime basketball dancer being like, yeah, you'll find out, pal. It's really hard.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  That'd be a fun, yeah, that'd be a fun Halloween getup. I already have my, or I don't have the outfit, but I have my idea this year, so I can't do it this year, but I'll probably do it next year.

• 13:43Josh Clark?

  Can you reveal your idea on this episode?

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah. If you saw The Righteous Gemstones, I'm gonna be Baby Billy, Walton Goggins, brilliant character.

• 13:54Josh Clark?

  Okay, awesome. Oh, so wait, hold on one second about the bamboo poles?

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:00Josh Clark?

  There would be two of them, one running under each arm of the corpses. So basically, they were hanging the corpses by their arms by bamboo poles. Then the poles would be, the ends of the poles would be carried by a priest in front and back on their shoulders. And the way that those two priests would walk, it would get telegraphed through the bamboo poles, which would make the corpses look like they were just kind of bouncing around. Their feet would probably hit the ground and touch it here or there. So it looked like they were walking in line behind the Taoist priests.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 14:29Josh Clark?

  Isn't that nuts?

• 14:31Speaker 03

  And they would say, MBA, it's fantastic.

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  That's right. I don't think there's anything that could top that, Chuck. So I say short stuff is out.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 14:59Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.