Churel
The churel is the dangerous dead woman of South Asian folklore, the returned form of someone who died in childbirth or through ill-treatment. She seduces and destroys men, beginning with her own male relatives. The precautions taken against her are aimed squarely at the corpse: it is pinned, bound, broken and buried face down under thorns and stones. Those measures closely match anti-revenant burial practice in Europe.1
- filling the grave with thorns and piling stones on top
- nailing or binding the fingers and toes with iron
- breaking the legs, sewing the eyes shut with thorns and burying the body face down
- sowing mustard seed along the funeral route
- carrying the body out through a side door
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1880Described in colonial-era ethnography, including William Crooke's study of North Indian folklore (1894)
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Described as a 'demonical revenant' with a physical, monstrous body1
Her feet point backwards1
She can appear as a beautiful woman, behind which is a pot belly, claws and fangs1
She drains men's vitality so that they return aged, or kills them, starting with the youngest males of her own family1
The belief travelled with Indian indentured labourers to Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname1
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