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Illustration of Lithuanian returning dead
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
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Lithuanian returning dead

Era ayitibwa: sugrįžtantys numirėliai, numirėlis, walking dead of Lithuania
Enfumo n'emboozi ez'eddaAbafu abalamuOkufa obubi oba okuziikibwa obubiEmirembe egya wakati

Lithuania kept a strong tradition of the dangerous dead long after its conversion to Christianity. Cemeteries of the 14th to 17th centuries contain bodies deliberately beheaded, dismembered or turned face down, which archaeologists connect with fear of corpses returning. Lithuanian legends collected in modern times still describe meetings with the 'walking dead', usually brought on by disrespect for a grave. The material and the stories together give a Baltic counterpart to the revenant evidence from England and Poland.12

Lwanyisa
Yasooka okuwandiikibwa
1350
Deviant burials of the 14th-17th centuries; legends recorded by modern folklorists
Gy'ava
Lithuanian
Lisuwaniya
Ekikireeta
Okufa obubi oba okuziikibwa obubi
Folklore names the untimely dead and the very sinful as those who return; the legends add that the living provoke them by disturbing remains or grave goods.
Engeri omuntu gy'afuukamu omu ku bo
An unexpected or wrongful death, a sinful life, or interference with the grave.
Amagezi
Amagezi matono
Ebifo ebinafu
  • decapitation of the exhumed corpse
  • burial face down or on the side
  • physical force
  • the intervention of a priest

Yasooka ddi okulabika?

Ensi ey'eddaEmirembe egya wakati1500 okutuuka 18991900 okutuuka 19671968 okutuuka 19992000 okutuuka 20092010 okutuuka leero1350

Deviant burials of the 14th-17th centuries; legends recorded by modern folklorists

ebiwandiiko by'omu nnimiro

Ensibuko bye zigamba

1

Archaeologist Gintautas Vėlius documented headless, limbless and prone burials in Christian-era Lithuanian cemeteries12

2

He interprets posthumous beheading as exhumation carried out from fear of the returning dead12

3

Many prone male burials contain weapons, suggesting men killed in battle12

4

In legends analysed by Edita Korzonaitė, short tales end with the living person's death and longer ones with a narrow escape12

5

Priests in the legends sometimes use methods with no obvious Christian basis12

Ensibuko

  1. Gintautas Vėlius, 'Sugrįžtantys numirėliai' (Returning dead: unconventional burials in medieval Lithuania), Lietuvos istorijos studijos 25 (2010)
  2. Edita Korzonaitė, 'Human contacts with the dead: relationship of fable and reality in folklore', Tautosakos darbai 25 (2003)

Buli kintu ku lupapula luno kiva mu nsibuko zino, nga kiwandiikiddwa mu bigambo byaffe. Olabye ensobi? Tubuulire ku [email protected].

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Omulembe gwe gumu: Emirembe egya wakati

DraugrNorse, 1250VetalaHindu (Indian), 1070GlámrNorse (Icelandic saga), 1300Revenant (medieval England)Medieval English, 1100UpiórSlavic, 1100AsvithNorse (Danish chronicle and Icelandic saga), 1200
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