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Illustration of Kodukäija
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
Ifayela No. 054 kwangu-446

Kodukäija

Ibuye libizwe: kodukäijad, home-wanderer, Estonian revenant
Amasiko nezinganekwaneAbangafiIyehlukaUkufa noma ukungcwatshwa okubi1500 kuya ku-1899

The kodukäija is the restless dead of Estonian folk belief, a deceased person who returns to the farm outside the sanctioned autumn 'time of souls'. It ranges from a worried parent checking on children to a hostile corpse that wrestles travellers by moonlight and kills livestock. Estonian funerals carried a whole apparatus against it, from sweeping away the mourners' footprints to burying the body face down. It is the Baltic-Finnic counterpart of the Scandinavian gjenganger and the German Wiedergänger, and it remained a living belief into the 20th century.12

Lwa nayo
Kuqoshwe kuqala
1860
Systematic records begin with Jakob Hurt's folklore collection (1860-1906); the belief itself is older
Imvelaphi
Estonian
I-Estonia
Okuyibangela
Ukufa noma ukungcwatshwa okubi
Folklorist Eha Viluoja traces most returns to a flaw in the passage out of life: a violent or lonely death, a botched or missing funeral, or the dead person's last wishes being ignored.
Indlela oba ngayo yinye
Spiteful people, suspected witches, misers, the murdered, and anyone buried carelessly or mourned too hard were expected to 'walk home'.
Indlela inyakaza ngayo
Iyehluka
Usually walks, with a normal or a bobbing gait, in its own likeness or grave clothes; it can also come as a dog, cat or other animal, or as a moving haystack, sack or whirlwind.
Ubuhlakani
Ubuhlakani obuthile
Izindawo ezibuthaka
  • wolves, which were held to be as deadly to it as lightning
  • a beating with a rowan or juniper stick or a nine-knotted whip
  • a silver bullet or quicksilver
  • crosses, knives, salt or flax seed at thresholds and gates
  • binding or crippling the corpse, or burying it face down
  • a cock's crow, which halts it for the night

Yaqala nini ukuvela?

Izwe lasendulo
Ezikhathini Eziphakathi
1500 kuya ku-1899
1900 kuya ku-1967
1968 kuya ku-1999
2000 kuya ku-2009
2010 kuya namuhla
1860

Systematic records begin with Jakob Hurt's folklore collection (1860-1906); the belief itself is older

amanothi ensimini

Okushiwo yimithombo

1

The name means 'home-walker': a dead person who comes home at the wrong time12

2

It is cold to the touch and can pinch, strike, scratch or try to strangle12

3

It lets cattle loose, rumbles in the loft and imitates the sounds of work12

4

Dogs with spots over the eyes ('four-eyed' dogs) can see it12

5

The Estonian Folklore Archives hold about 3,600 records of it, seven times more than for the ordinary autumn visit of ancestral souls12

6

Viluoja notes that blood-drinking, vampire-type dead are not part of the Estonian tradition12

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)
Kodukäija 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. Eha Viluoja, 'Manifestations of the Revenant in Estonian Folk Tradition', Folklore 2
  2. Eha Viluoja, 'Relations Between the Living and the Dead in Estonian Folk Religion', Folklore 4

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

Inkathi efanayo: 1500 kuya ku-1899

JiangshiChinese, 1789Zombi (Haitian)Haitian (Vodou folklore), 1750StrigoiRomanian, 1714Vampir (South Slavic)South Slavic (Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Bosnian), 1725AbhartachIrish, 1870Arnold PaoleSerbian, 1732