Sunday, February 5, 2017

The Chimpanzee Undead

This account of a wild chimp troop in Senegal is curious.
"The chimps...abused and cannibalized his body for nearly four hours...As a leader, Foudouko was very dominant and feared by the other chimps...It was obvious the other chimps were still afraid of Foudouko. They showed signs of fear, especially when Foudouko’s body would jerk or move during the attacks."
Early Christians believed that the Roman emperor Nero - an infamous persecutor of Jews and Christians alike - was so powerful, and so evil, that even death would not stop him, and that he would return from the grave to conquer Rome and continue his terror. Christians remained so terrified of him that they began to believe he was the Antichrist, and encoded warnings about him in the Book of Revelations - in chapter 13. "Let him who hath understanding" - hint hint - "reckon the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man." HINT HINT. "The number is 666."

But Nero's case was certainly not the only one. Independently around the world, people have often feared that their local tyrant might come back from the dead, and mutilated their bodies in specific ways to prevent this. For example, in Europe, these dead rulers were called "vampires", with stakes through the heart as the appropriate countermeasure. One can imagine that during these ritual mutilations the villagers would be showing signs of fear, especially if the count's body would jerk or move during the attacks.

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