ZombieWiki
Illustration of Kirkonväki
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
Ifayela No. 034 kwangu-446

Kirkonväki

Ibuye libizwe: kirkkomaanväki, kalmanväki, churchyard folk, manalaiset

Kirkonväki is the Finnish name for the dead as a body, the population of the churchyard acting together. Finnish legend gives them corporeal form, as a congregation of decaying corpses that fills the church at night and mauls any living intruder, though everyday belief treated them more as an invisible, foul-smelling force. They enforced respect for graves and proper burial and could be weaponised by cunning folk. They are the closest thing in Finnish tradition to a horde of the walking dead.1

Lwa nayo
Kuqoshwe kuqala
1551
Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s
Imvelaphi
Finnish
I-Finland
Okuyibangela
Okunye
The collective dead of a churchyard, active as a crowd around the church and around any unburied corpse.
Indlela oba ngayo yinye
The dead buried in the parish churchyard.
Indlela inyakaza ngayo
Iyehluka
In legends they gather in the church at night as a solid crowd; in personal accounts they pass as a swarm of small figures in the air.
Ubuhlakani
Ubuhlakani obuthile
Izindawo ezibuthaka
  • precautions when crossing churchyard boundaries
  • leaving something behind: in one legend a man escapes by dropping his fur coat on the church threshold, and the dead tear the coat apart

Yaqala nini ukuvela?

Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s

amanothi ensimini

Okushiwo yimithombo

1

The word means 'churchyard folk', but väki also carries an older sense of 'force' or 'power'1

2

In legends they look like ordinary people or like rotting corpses and skeletons1

3

A migratory legend tells of the dead holding their own Christmas service and attacking a living person who walks in1

4

They reek of death; seers can see them, others only smell them1

5

Churchyard soil, bones or splinters of grave markers could be used to 'send' them against an enemy or set them on a thief1

6

Kaarina Koski's study draws on more than 2,000 records in the Finnish Literature Society's archives, richest in Ostrobothnia1

Ubungayidlula ngokugijima?

Isigaba sejubane esisuka ekuchazweni yimithombo (iyehluka), hhayi isilinganiso.

Wena, uhamba cishe 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Wena, ugijima kancane cishe 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Kirkonväki cishe 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Umuntu omdala olungile egijima ngamandla cishe 24 km/h (15 mph)
Umgibeli webhayisikili osheshayo cishe 37 km/h (23 mph)

Imithombo

  1. Kaarina Koski, 'Conceptual Analysis and Variation in Belief Tradition: A Case of Death-Related Beings', Folklore 38 (2008)

Wonke amaqiniso kuleli khasi avela kule mithombo, abhalwe ngamazwi ethu. Ubone iphutha? Sitshele ku-[email protected].

Phakela isixuku. Awukho ukukhangisa, awekho abalandeli, kukhokhwa umuntu oyedwa. Ithiphu igcina isayithi isebenza.Shiya ithiphu

Inkathi efanayo: 1500 kuya ku-1899

Phakela isixukuShiya ithiphu