Is the skeleton meditation of Buddhist origin?

[I came across a skeleton meditation mentioned in this answer on this site](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/10332/254) , and I was interested because it supposedly grants interesting special abilities. Googling it, I just found pages about something called white skeleton meditation, which I assume is the same thing (although according to guesswork on other forums it is either a Tibetan Buddhist type of meditation or a Taoist meditation but apparently NOT zen). Most sites that describe WSM talk of qi (because it "nourishes ones qi"), something I've never heard mentioned in a Buddhist context but I've heard very little. Wikipedia seems to have nothing on the subject, so what is the origin of skeleton meditation? Is it a Buddhist meditation? A skeleton meditation is mentioned in [this little book by Pa Auk Sayadaw](http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/nibbana1.pdf) (which I suppose is the same as the meditation mentioned in the answer referenced above). Did Buddha ever talk of/teach this meditation?