Jørgen Håland/Flicker
In the Andes mountains of South America folk belief includes providing deceased members of the community with a khipu, a rope object with knotted cords that conveys information. Khipu were long used during the Inkan Empire and were still made after the Spanish conquest. In the case of the deceased and their funerary khipu, the knots on the khipu represent prayers that help the dead person negotiate the afterlife. But there is a dark side to this khipu-assisted afterlife, too.
Some people of the Central Andes believe in the idea of the condenado — a frightful Andean example of the “living dead.” Condenados are said to be undead cannibals that haunt the land seeking victims to consume. They are consigned to their fate by the evil acts they performed while alive. The condenados require the funerary khipu buried with them in order to walk. The surest way to escape a condenado is to snatch away its khipu and render it motionless.