Zombie (folklore): Difference between revisions

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A zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.^[1]

There are several possible etymologies of the word zombie. One possible origin is jumbie, the West Indian term for "ghost".^[2] Another is [nzambi] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), the Kongo word meaning "spirit of a dead person."^[2] According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word entered English circa 1871 and is derived from the Louisiana Creole or Haitian Creole zonbi, which in turn is of Bantu origin.^[3] A zonbi is a person who is believed to have died and been brought back to life without speech or free will.^[4] It is akin to the Kimbundu nzúmbe ghost.

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According to the tenets of Voodoo, a dead person can be revived by a bokor, or sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Vodou snake lwa Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kikongo word nzambi, which means "god". There also exists within the voudon tradition the zombi astral which is a part of the human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power. The zombi astral is typically kept inside a bottle which the bokor can sell to clients for luck, healing or business success. It is understood that after a time God will take the soul back and so the zombi is a temporary spiritual entity. ^[5]

In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of a woman that appeared in a village, and a family claimed she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. Hurston pursued rumors that the affected persons were given powerful drugs, but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote:

What is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony. - Zora Neale Hurston.^[6]

Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), the poison found in the pufferfish. The second powder is composed of dissociatives such as datura. Together, these powders were said to induce a death-like state in which the victim's will would be entirely subject to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice.

Davis' claim has been criticized for a number of scientific inaccuracies. One of these is the unlikely suggestion that Haitian witchdoctors can keep “zombies” in a state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years.^[7] Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis, unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to neurologist Terence Hines, the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis' assessment of the nature of the reports of Haitian zombies is overly credulous.^[8]

Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing further highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification.^[9]

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Modern zombies, as portrayed in books, films, games, and haunted attractions, are different from both voodoo zombies and those of folklore. Modern zombies are typically depicted in popular culture as mindless, unfeeling monsters with a hunger for human flesh, a prototype established in the seminal 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. Typically, these creatures can sustain damage far beyond that of a normal, living human. Generally these can only be killed by a wound to the head, such as a headshot, or being set on fire, and can pass whatever syndrome that causes their condition onto others through bites or cuts.

Usually, zombies are not depicted as thralls to masters, as in the film White Zombie or the spirit-cult myths. Rather, modern zombies are depicted in mobs, flocks or waves, seeking either flesh to eat or people to kill, and are typically rendered to exhibit signs of physical decomposition such as rotting flesh, discolored eyes, and open wounds, and moving with a slow, shambling gait. They are generally incapable of communication and show no signs of personality or rationality, though George Romero's zombies appear capable of learning and very basic levels of speech as seen in the films Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead.^[10][10]

Zombies are a popular theme for video games, particularly of the first-person shooter and role-playing genre. Some important titles in this area include the Resident Evil series, Dead Rising, House of the Dead and Left 4 Dead.^[11] The massively popular, multiplayer online role-playing game Urban Dead, a free grid-based browser game where zombies and survivors fight for control of a ruined city, is one of the most popular games of its type, with an estimated 30,680 visits per day. Some games even allow the gamer to play as a zombie such as Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse". Commonly in these games, Zombies are impervious to most attacks, except trauma to the head (which would instantly "kill" the zombie).

Modern zombies are closely tied to the idea of a zombie apocalypse, the collapse of civilization caused by a vast plague of undead. The ideas are now so strongly linked that zombies are rarely depicted within any other context.

There are still significant differences among the depictions of zombies by various media; for one comparison see the contrasts between zombies by Night of the Living Dead authors George A. Romero and John A. Russo as they evolved in the two separate film series that followed. In some zombie apocalypse narratives, such as The Return of the Living Dead and Dead Set, zombies are depicted as being as quick and nimble as the living, a further departure from the established genre stereotype.

Another departure may consist of the image of zombies as loveable creatures, "being tamed, Disneyfied and made suitable for children", as featured in "zom-coms" (derived from the abbreviation of situation comedies, sit-coms) such as Fido, starring comic actor Billy Connolly as a boy's pet zombie ^[12].

A philosophical zombie is a concept used in the philosophy of mind, a field of research which examines the association between conscious thought and the physical world. A philosophical zombie is a hypothetical person who lacks full consciousness but has the biology or behavior of a normal human being; it is used as a null hypothesis in debates regarding the identity of the mind and the brain. The term was coined by philosopher David Chalmers. ^[13]

Some zombie fans continue the George A. Romero tradition of using zombies as a social commentary. Organized zombie walks, which are primarily promoted through word of mouth, are regularly staged in some countries. Usually they are arranged as a sort of surrealist performance art but they are occasionally put on as part of a unique political protest. ^{[14][15][16][17][18]}

• Discussion of zombies in film at NPR's On The Media