Ro-langs

Maqaa biraa: རོ་ལངས, rolang, Tibetan zombie

Seenaa aadaa fi afoolaDu'aa ka'eLafa harkisaa deemaJinniiwwan ykn hafuurota hamoo

The ro-langs is the Tibetan walking corpse. One kind is raised deliberately by a tantric practitioner for occult ends; the other is a body hijacked by a demon and spreads its condition by touch, in stories where a whole community is infected in a night. It is stiff, mute and has to be physically broken to be stopped. The combination of contagion by contact and a mindless, lurching body makes it one of the closest folkloric matches for the modern film zombie.1

Lolsiisi

Ka'umsa

Tibetan

Chaayinaa

Maaltu isa fida

Jinniiwwan ykn hafuurota hamoo

Either a sorcerer raises the corpse by tantric rite, or a spirit (gdon or bgegs) slips into the body before the funeral.

Akkamitti isa taata

A touch on the head from a ro-langs turns the victim into another.

Akkamitti sochoo'a

Lafa harkisaa deema

It cannot bend at the waist or any joint, so it lurches forward stiff-limbed with its arms held straight.

Beekumsa

Sammuu malee

Bakkeewwan laafoo

low doorways, since it cannot stoop
breaking the skin, drawing blood, cutting the flesh or breaking a bone, according to its type
striking the single mole that is the only weak point of the 'mole' type

yaadannoo dirree