Blood in the Walls – The Weird Side of the Internet

Blood in the Walls – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

Did you ever hear of Ed Gein? Yeah, you have; I know it. Mostly because Netflix had a show. Ed Gein killed two people, confirmed. They thought he killed seven. Ed had a thing for using body  parts like skulls and skin for bowls and lampshades. I mean, he made all kinds of stuff. When I first heard of him, it was nightmare fuel. And I really didn’t get it. Why is it more horrifying to make a bowl out of someone’s skull than it is to toss somebody in a woodchipper? Hell, we think the woodchipper is badass, right?

Ed Gein was really, for me, just the first time I’d ever heard of someone with such a craftsman predilection. I didn’t know about Ghezo.

Ghezo was the ninth king of the kingdom of Dahomey, and he lived in the capital, Abomey. Ed Gein would’ve loved him. He was a voodoo practitioner who was known to sacrifice 41 slaves or captives to use as building materials for his palace. Walkways were lined with skulls and jawbones, blood was used in the wall binder. 41 is an important number in Voodoo, explaining the odd body count.

On the occasion of the death of a Dahomey kind, up to 500 people were sacrificed. I wonder if civilizations that sacrifice 500 people do it because they’re warlike, or if they do it to satisfy their bloodlust so they don’t do it some other way, as in war. Imagine if, instead of endless wars, two sides just started sacrificing people until they weren’t mad anymore.

I read one place that blood has the same consistency of egg white. In fact, you can substitute an egg for blood in baking recipes. And that is now something you will

Know for the rest of your life, something you will think about the next time you run out of eggs.

 

 

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