The topic says it all. Any ideas? Does it lead to some meaning? I'm curious

Lol. An evil place needs to be wild, dangerous and uncultivated. A jungle will do justice (no pun intended).

It seems some memes are hard-coded into our genes. Many stories of similar things happening within cultures that have no interaction whatsoever. It makes me wonder sometimes

Maybe man's innate fear of the dark.

Those are places where the general public arent allowed to go.

Because other elements in a society need to meet there and safeguard the privacy.

^^^ This makes sense but only for a few cases. But not when 'evil forests' or their equivalent permeates most cultures.

most african, or nigerian cultures you mean.


they're just used by elements who want the general public to stay out of their business, that's all.

vescucci: ^^^ This makes sense but only for a few cases. But not when 'evil forests' or their equivalent permeates most cultures.

I think tpia has a point; the need for secrecy/explanation-of-the-unknown is prolly solved by the immediate geography/vegetation/climate. Think about it, most of these stories steam chiefly from cultures and societies that developed around tropical rain-forest vegetations - Igbos in south-east naija; Yorubas in south-west naija and Benin republic; the Ashanti in Ghana and parts of Cote d'Ivoire... I'll bet people from around the amazon forests of Brazil have similar ''evil forest'' tales, too.

Contrast with them ''rusalka'' and ''demovoi'' (spelling?) stories from Kraal regions of Russia/Europe. And even more contrasting, the Hausa/Fulanis of the north dont have ANY evil forest tales!

Yeah, naturally you won't have any evil forests if you don't have forests at all. You guys are correct because where there are no forests, there would be another suitable version to obtain this secrecy.

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Indonesia cleared theirs and turned them into farmland btw.