Geophagy in the Non-Living Community

To answer a question posted in the comments section of the previous entry: yes, I was once acquainted with a young woman who indulged in the practice of dirt-eating.

Dirt-eating in the rural south and among the Tzombi population is a complex phenomenon and worthy of an entire paper of its own. The literature presents us with a number of conflicting testimonies about the “mud eaters”: it is sometimes difficult to separate racist propaganda and cultural bias/misunderstanding from disinterested observation; what we do know is that the earliest known reference to the “mud eaters” is in the aforementioned Kish stele.

The next mention comes from the diary of Agnolo di Tura in his 1347 A.D. plague remembrance. There is also an abundance of documentation regarding dirt eating among slaves in the rural south in the United States; because many American slaves came from various related regions through whatever circuitous route, it seems probable that the dirt eating which persists in the rural south was spread by this means. Whether dirt eating is a legitimate practice among the Tzombi population remains to be seen.

Of course, there are also members of the Living Community who still consume dirt, even in modern times. Here, from the White Dirt website:

Some people have actually been known to consume White Dirt regularly and not only like the taste but crave it. It has been said that the taste of white dirt is akin to the fresh way that the ground smells when it's real dry and a little sprinkle of rain falls. Dirt-eating is an ancient tradition that is practiced all over the world and although the demise of the practice has been predicted for many years, it still persists, particularly in rural areas of the South.

Aside from psychopathology (see aforementioned Soil Pica link), there are also possible medical reasons for dirt-eating. One may simply be that, though the need for eating has ceased, the habit continues, and dirt requires no digestion. In some African cultures, dirt eating is practiced among pregnant women, and medical studies have shown that it helps in producing antibodies. Since the post-deceased body is essentially a new life-form with a known susceptibility to certain viruses, it’s entirely possible that dirt-eating functions as a means towards increasing resistance.

Historical Fact becomes Myth

In an earlier entry, I told the story of Agdistis, who gave birth to the goddess Cybele. The “Black Rock of Cybele” has become something of a grail for those of us who study the Tzombi community, since it disappeared from the palace of the Roman emperor Tiberius and has yet to reappear. This is unfortunate, as the Black Rock is thought to have cosmic origins, and may be the same which fell in the Hé-Gál Valley around 2500 B.C., destroying all the vegetation there and poisoning the Tigris river. The valley became known as the Hur-sag Uq, or the Valley of the Dead.

A couple of hundred years later, a Semite known to history as Sargon the Greatcrossed this valley with his army, bringing with him a black rock. The Kish Stele describes Sargon and his army were described as being “covered in ashes” because of their pallor. It also rechristens the Valley of the Dead as the Valley of the Living Ashes. Sargon established hold of the Sumerian city of Kish, destroying all of his enemies. He claimed to be directly descended from Cybele. The center of worship for Cybele became the black stone, which was enshrined at Pergamum (see entry entitled “Persecution and Fear” 11/28/06 for more on Cybele).
Eventually the Sumerians were overrun by the Amorites, and they disappeared as a recognizable race. Those that survived were taken to Babylonia, where they are referenced in the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, and demonized as conquered cultures typically are. Because there was no food to be found in Sumer when the Amorites conquered, and no cooking utensils, and no cooking pots, the Sumerians earned the title of “mud-eaters”, and mud came to be considered the food of the dead in Babylonian mythology. The fourth tablet of the Enuma Elish recounts the wholesale slaughter of the Sumerians, where it says of Marduk, the Babylonian hero:

The four winds he stationed so that nothing of
the mud-eaters might escape;
The South wind and the North Wind and the East wind
and the West wind
And the fourfold wind, and the sevenfold wind, and
the whirlwind, and the wind which has no equal;
He sent forth the winds which he had created, the seven
Of them;
And scattered the mud-eaters to the lands beyond the sea;
He severed their inward parts, he pierced their hearts,
Their heads he burst like ripening fruit
He cast down their bodies and stood upon them
Their might was broken, their host scattered.

Astute readers will probably recognize that the story of the Valley of the Dead found its way into the Old Testament, where it was converted into a prophecy of the regeneration of the house of Israel in Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones coming to life. So the story passed from historical fact into legend and then myth and then prophecy.