The walking dead of Indonesia?

You might have seen photos and read/heard stories of supposedly dead people in Indonesia standing up and walking on their own.

Like this one:



I think I might have found an explanation:

This is the Ma'nene Ritual of the Toraja people in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, where once a year in August they take out the corpses of ancestors out of their coffins, clean them, replace their clothes, and then put them back in their coffins.

Some would look like the woman above, some would be merely skin and bones, and perhaps most would have totally disintegrated. They treat the body as if still alive and remain part of the family. This ritual is a manifestation of their love for their ancestors, figures and relatives who had died. They remain hopeful, ancestral spirits to keep them from malicious interference, crop pests, as well as misfortune of living.

Hence, the people pictured are not zombies, they're truly dead, it's just that the human body goes stiff upon death, that's why they appears to be standing on their own.

Note that there's always someone holding the corpses, to prevent them from falling over.

Further, the story about the walking dead is as real as "pangaits" and "singkarads" in Sabah - created and propagated by some for their own, usually selfish, reasons.