Zombies, Gods and Voodoo
by John Winn
© Buzzy Multimedia
They come out of the grave, products of the Devil, witchcraft or experiments gone horribly wrong, stalking us as a hound stalks its prey until no one is immune from their quest for brains or souls. The fear of zombies is so engrained in us that they have been immortalized in movies and popular culture dating back several decades. Yet the reality is zombies–or at least the zombie myth–has been around much longer. In fact, they are said to predate organized religion itself. Though the origin of the zombie myth is as murky as ancient tales of old, scholars and novelists have been mining the depths of recorded knowledge, inspired by the mystery surrounding these strange beings.
According to experts of the zombie myth, their origins–like many supernatural beings-date back to colonial Haiti. As Wade Davis notes, many of the black slaves who resettled on the island nation worshipped a god from an area near the modern-day Niger-Congo border, Damballah Wedo. While Damballah held no sway over matters of life and death, he was a sort of ferryman of the underworld, helping to ease the newly dead into the afterlife. It is from his name that the word zombie originates, and though the exact origin of the zombie myth is unknown, it is strongly suspected that there is a link between Haitian Vodau beliefs and the primitive animist beliefs of their free ancestors.
As their French captors observed their strange religion–which would later become the belief system we recognize today as voodoo–they noticed that one of their more bizarre practices (from the French POV) involved raising individuals from the dead, presumably as slaves themselves. However, very few written records appeared to have survived. In 1937, author and folklorist Zora Naele Hurston traveled to Haiti to interview a family whose daughter supposedly became prey to zombie-like behavior via the dark arts. While she did not find any hard evidence that anyone tried to manipulate Felicia-Felix Manor, she did uncover circumstantial evidence that neurotoxins may have been used, a theory which would be followed up on by paranormal investigator and ethnobiologist Wade Davis.
Necromancy, to be sure, has a large role in the zombie myth. Long before the white man ever set foot in Haiti, to say nothing of Africa, humans have been summoning spirits from beyond this world, either for good or evil. In some cases-as with the Haitians-individuals have dug up graves and recited rites to the gods in an effort to bring back the dead, either as a way of combating death itself or an attempt to conjure mindless free labor. Such shamanistic practices would have horrified Westerners, who only understood resurrection in the context of Christ’s death and ascent into Heaven. Naturally, the bias against pagan religion worked its way into the modern zombie myth, and eventually film, as noble white men and women were depicted as fending off hordes of undead representing the “Other”.
Today, zombie films and novels from George Romero’s “Land of the Dead” to David Wellington’s “Monster Nation” carry little if any of these racially and ethnically charged connotations. They are more date movies than anything else, meant to scare and provoke couples into cuddling up, if only out of an artificial sense of fear. Ironically, the film that comes closest to portraying the truth about zombies–and the zombie myth–did not premiere in the thirty some odd years between 1970 and the present. In 1937′s “White Zombie”, not only did the two protagonists stumble into the world of voodoo, only to become enslaved to it-as well as their own, narrow minded points of view of the often contradictory island.
John Winn
Staff Writer / Buzzy Multimedia (Sci-Fi & Fantasy Audiobooks — Funny T-Shirts)
Zombie Pick Up Line #42 – “I Love You For Your Brains” – Click here to view larger image
shirt.html”>
FYI:
Hatian Penal Code: Article 249– “It shall also be qualified as attempted murder the employememnt which may be made against any person of substance which, without causing actual death, produces a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the person has been burried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows.”
Lomax Lamat
Interesting tidbit of info, Lomax. Do you know why they consider it murder?
Previous to the conversion, Europeans would have understood the concept of the walking dead in a different light that Christs’ resurrection – Pre-christian Northern Europe was home to the draugr; the inspiration for Tolkiens’ barrow-wights. Animated corpses (animated by what is not very clear) they rose from the grave mound to which they were bound possessed of myriad superhuman powers and not kindly disposed towards the living. Generally, they were perceived as being hideous creatures either “death black” or “corpse pale”, wreathed in the unmistakable stench of decay. Largely immune to mortal weapons (after all, they’re already dead)the only way to defeat a draug permanently was to destroy it so completely that nothing was left; such as burning the body and scattering the ashes.
However I doubt those pre-conversion Northern Europeans (who took significant precautions to avoid draugr) would have been any more appreciative than their Christian descendants were of someone deliberately trying to create such creatures.
The Epic of Gilgamesh mentions living dead that feed upon the living and that really predates just about any other written record.After all history begins at Sumer, at least written history.
History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History
John,
It is considered murder because the person who is casting the magical spell and brewing the magical potion is doing so in order to KILL a person so that the victim can then be resurrected as an animated corpse that is bound to do their bidding.
A revenant by its very definition is an animated corpse. A corpse is the deceased remains of a once living human being. If a person becomes a revenant through the act of zombification, that person would first have to first be killed. In many countries, murder is a crime. Despite the fact that Haitian voodoo zombie creation states that by feeding a zombie a piece or red meat or salt will give the revenant enough consciousness of mid to realize that it is dead and return to the grave of its own free will (and I cannot believe how many oxymorons are in this sentence I am writing) the fact that a zombie is involved at all implies someone was murdered. No one in the history of voodoo willingly became a zombie.
And technically, the religion is called voodum now. Voodoo had a lot of bad press, as one can imagine.
And only since others have mentioned it, zombies have been around for thousands of years. Some of the oldest writings of ancient man describe them.
There are a number of books available for you to read, but be advised, Max Brooks is a FICTION writer. His books, although are chock full of info, had been manipulated for the sake of good story telling. One of the regular staff writers, Theresa Bane has written a historical nonfiction book about vampires. She has many blogs posted on this site; in fact, I dare say you would be hard pressed to find one where she does not mention in the opening paragraph that she is a vampirologist.
Nevertheless, this was an entertaining blog you penned. I look forward to many more.
It is nice to know where the Zombie ‘myth’ originated. Because most zombie movies I’ve seen, zombies came from viruses. But in movie makers defense, I don’t think you could really have racial connotations due to everyone’s sensitivity and tendency to sue. The new Resident Evil 5 (zombie/survivor horror video game) takes place in Africa, and suprise, suprise the zombies are black; someone is already starting to say that Resident Evil 5 has racial undertones.
Hey, do you recall the way Peter Jackson handled the “natives” on the island in the 2005 remake of King Kong? They looked really gruesome but I defy anyone to give them a racial or national designation. Well maybe proto-Melanesians..maybe.