The Xiangxi zombies do exist in reality, but they are not as mysterious as they appear in the movies. The so-called Xiangxi zombie driving refers to some people in southwest China who embalm corpses and carry them.

Only in recent times there has been no one engaged in this occupation, and back then, Xiangxi zombie is also a technology that is only passed on inside and not outside, the record of documents about Xiangxi zombie most of the documents are simple a few words, which led to Xiangxi zombie left a very strong sense of mystery to the people.

Southwest China is mostly a mountainous region, and in ancient times transportation was not convenient, so the people were very poor, and many people had to leave their homes in order to make a living.

But after people go out, and inevitably have old age, sickness and death, in ancient times the Chinese people have a thought is? The Chinese had an idea that in ancient times, people would go back to their roots. These people who carry corpses are the archetypes of the Western Hunan Corpse Catching Taoist priests.

Of course, this corpse remover is not something that anyone can do just because they want to. Because for ordinary people to carry a corpse is already facing a huge psychological challenge. Not to mention the fact that corpses are usually very heavy, and most of the roads back in western Hunan are mountainous. In ancient times, transportation was also not developed, if it is summer, it is possible to walk on the road for two or three days the body stinks, until the body is moved home to rot, the client's family naturally will not agree.

So, these corpse movers are made up of a specific group.

In ancient times, people again had a heavy belief in ghosts and gods, so the corpse movers were generally able to ? psychic? and most of them are Taoist priests. If you want to be a corpse remover, the threshold of entry is also relatively high, first of all, the psychological quality is better, because every day with the corpse, after a long time, may be psychologically broken. Therefore one must be mentally tough to do such a profession.

Secondly, is the physical quality to be good, if they are often frail and sickly poor physical quality, can not do the job of carrying corpses, after all, you need to take the body trekking all year round.

Lastly, it is a person to be calm, good memory, good sense of direction, walking at night can not get lost, after a few filtering, can do to catch the corpse is not much.

In addition to this, and then according to western Hunan folklore, want to do the corpse catchers must be over 18 years old, and also not a go in can follow the master to go? The first thing you need to do is to learn at home for a couple of years. Running work? For example, to have to draw charms, know some of the exorcism and demonic incantations, and be prepared for a lifetime of not getting married.

Because of the ancient time when mankind's knowledge of nature is limited, there are many things can not be explained by science, at that time, people will think it is the behavior of the ghosts and gods, so in ancient times in western Hunan to catch corpses is the Taoist origin of the Taoist priests. They would stick some charms on the corpses, and in the process of walking, they would ring bells and recite incantations to avoid being possessed by ghosts and evil spirits.

The movie and television productions in Hong Kong and Taiwan show the image of Xiangxi zombie catchers as ? Dressed in Taoist clothing, holding a bell, with a group of corpses dressed in Qing Dynasty clothing labeled with talismans bouncing forward?

But in real life this is not the case, and those corpses are not? bouncing around? walk? So in the rumors people also think that these western Hunan corpse catchers are? Catch up with the corpses. They are not carrying the corpses back, not carrying them back. They are not carrying them back. The rumor is that they are not carrying the bodies back to the city.

But this is not the case, our traditional culture research department tried to demystify the Xiangxi zombies in the last century and collected a lot of information about the Xiangxi zombie catchers. It was found that these corpses were not walking back but were carried back by people, and there would be an up-and-down undulation when the people were carrying them, so it gave people the wrong impression that they were bouncing around.

As mentioned earlier, transportation was not developed in ancient times, and transporting a corpse hundreds of miles was a very difficult thing to do, and if the weather was going to be hot, it was likely that things would rot. That's precisely why these western Hunan corpse catchers had to treat the body before moving it.

And there are generally two ways they handle the bodies. For the more thin and weak people are usually directly to the viscera to pull out, and then stuffed into the grass ash, wait until the body of water absorption is almost the same time, and then through the stuffing of Chinese herbs for embalming, due to pull out the viscera and absorbed water, so the body will become very light, at most a few dozens of pounds of the appearance of the body.

If the deceased is relatively fat, the deceased will be directly below the shoulders and calves above the part of the cut down and thrown away, leaving two calves and shoulders above the part of the middle of the wooden bracket and so on with these limbs connected to form a human form and put on clothes, although it still looks like a complete person, but in fact, it is not the whole body.

The Xiangxi people will look for a talisman to put on the head of these corpses when they drive the corpses. The first is to put a charm on the head of the corpse to keep them in place. to hold them, and then set up a bamboo pole under the two arms of the corpses, generally speaking, two people carry on 3~4 corpses, so it looks like there are five or six people in a row. Only the front and the last two people are alive, the center are corpses, the front leader is usually the master.

Because they would look different walking on the street during the day, and because the temperature is usually higher during the day and the corpses are prone to rot, they mostly operate at night. The reason they keep ringing their bells while transporting corpses is to tell passersby that they are the ones transporting the corpses.

And people think that corpse carriers are bad luck, so they will actively avoid them. Even if the corpse carriers meet robbers halfway, they don't need to be afraid, because the robbers also think that this thing is more bad luck, and they won't go to rob the money of the corpse carriers in western Hunan.

Because the corpses are usually transported farther, the inns where the corpse carriers rest are different from normal inns. In Taoist terms these stores are called ghost stores. And again, because their customers all act at night, they are all only open at night.

Unlike normal inns, ? Ghost store? have two rows of racks placed behind the doors, the racks are for putting up the corpses, and the corpse catchers rest on another bed in the room.

But then some people realized that the corpse catchers were more obscure, and no one wanted to get close to such a feature, and began to pretend that they dared to eat people, and did some illegal business? For example, trafficking in firearms and dumping drugs, etc., and even some grave robbers also dressed up as corpse catchers.

After the founding of New China, in fact, there are still some corpse-drivers, but with the continuous development of society later, the survival space of the corpse-drivers is getting smaller and smaller, and there is no inheritance of the necessity of the corpse, so the corpse-drivers have already disappeared in the long river of history.