Enquiry into Zombies

The Enquiry into Zombies and Their Alleged Cannibalistic Nature Can zombies run? This is one of the many questions that one may come across when watching any zombie films. For, on the one hand, if their flesh is rotten, rapid motion would be impossible, but on the other hand, if their flesh is not rotten, most of the depictions about zombies in films would prove to be unreal. However, that zombies do exist is not in dispute but only whether they are really like the ones portrayed in films is. For zombies we see in films have their origin in the Haitian religion of Vodoun rituals. This essay will focus on the nature of zombies and how they operate and for what purpose in relation to the Vodoun religion. The aim of this essay is also to get rid of the common misconceptions with regard to zombies due to popular films, question accuracies and answer some of the obvious problems in the depiction of zombies in popular culture. Above all, this essay will deal with the essence of zombies and how they come about according to the Haitian religion. In the course of exposition, I will first speak and discuss about less rigorous myths yet firmly believed folk notions of zombies, and then I will compare and discuss about the results of Wade Davis’ extensive field research on the folk notions as well as on the ethnobiological origins of zombies. I will also raise some of the interesting philosophical implications as I deal with these issues. The rumour has it that there is a specific poison in Haiti that zombifies people, so-called ‘Zombie Powder’. The way in which it happsn is that when one ingests this poison in the form of powder or liquid, it will cause him a temporal ‘apparent death’, only to come back to life again in a short while. However, the organs would be severely damaged, having stopped operating for however long time it has taken them to revive. This, they say, is the cause of disfiguration in their face and body in zombies. A problem, however, is that how can someone after a long pause from life get resuccitated? Since for this to be possible, the blood must stop circulating once (thereby causing death) and again start circulating in a while. What then causes the blood to set into motion again? What exactly suppresses the blood cicrulation during this apparent death? The story is complicated by the fact that the chemical component found in puffer fish (or fugu) called tetradotoxin makes people zombies – yet in the country where people occasionally consume puffer fish, i.e. Japan, there has never been evidence that zombies ever existed. In fact, zombies seem to be cultural specific, involving a sorceror bringing up the dead from the grave in order to use them as slaveworkers. According to this tradition, a sorceror must call a dead person by his original name before the grave, and the dead rises only to follow the orders from the ‘master’, or the bokor the sorceror. The victim now zombified is “made to work like a robot in the fields, on construction sites, in a bakery or a shop, [and] the zombi[e] may serve as a watchman, keep the books, steal crops or money from its master, or be rented out for or sold to others.” Hans-W. Ackermann and Jeanine Gauthier, “The Ways and Nature of the Zombi” The Journal of American Folklore vol.104:414 (Autumn 1991): 466-494. http://www.jstor.org/stable/541551 (accessed Septemner 29th, 2010). And these zombies would work until they reach a natural death or they are given salt. Once they consume salt, they are said to become ‘spoiled’ and would kill their master. Ibid. Further, zombies are said to eat people, both as in films and as in Vodoun religion. But this creates more problems, for how can they eat people without consuming salt, or sodium? For them to actually succeed in becoming cannibals while retaining their status as somewhat alive, it seems implausible that they eat living human beings. Indeed, the only way they can be said legitimately to be cannibals is if they eat other zombies like themselves. Yet this poses at least two rather theoretical problems, for first assuming that eating is a way to receive nutrition, why would they want to eat other dead people whose flesh may possibly be rotten? What sort of nutrition can zombies possibly provide us? Second, do not even the dead retain sodium in their body, thereby making themselves an implausible candidate for zombie’s diet? In fact, if they do eat zombies, then zombies themselves must be without salt in them, which would be only possible if sodium content has been somewhat eliminated from the time of their burial and their zombification. How could that happen? Again, there are only two causes of death for zombies: natural death and ingestion of salt. Aside from how what has died once can come to a natural death, it is hard to conceive how being eaten by another zombie can count as a natural death, since it is not a death by ingestion of salt and zombies are assumed to be saltless. Perhaps, then, is it that zombies can endure even after having been eaten? How does cannibalism among zombies even conceptually possible? To answer all those disquieting questions, we must first look at some literature concerning the beliefs about zombies in the Haitian tradition. First, the term ‘zombie’ has a number of possible etymological origins, but one possibility is that we take it from the French word for shadows, les ombres. Ibid. The other possible candidates include the West Indian term for ghost, duppy or jumbie, a descent from zemi, which is the Arawak name for spirits or their images. See the pages 467-468 of the same article for more possibilities. This makes sense, since the term Vodoun is not actually used by the natives to refer to their religion, but only addresses a specific event: “a dance ritual during which the spirits arrive to mount and possess the believer.” Wade Davis, Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (USA: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 291. Next, the way in which zombies are made seem to be consistent and share similarities among various African cultures; namely, an intended victim is killed by the use of specifically prepared poison, i.e. zombie powder, and upon death, he is buried, and a sorceror, i.e. bokor, comes to the grave at night, calling the victim by name. The victim, then, responds to the bokor and comes out of the grave, “remains stunned and incapable of selfdirection, so as to be at the mercy of the sorceror.” Erika Bourguignon, “The Persistence of Folk Belief: Some Notes on Cannibalism and Zombis in Haiti”, The Journal of American Folklore, vol.72:283 (Jan. – Mar., 1959): 36-46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/538386. (accessed September 29th, 2010). This procedure normally takes place on the same day the victim is killed and buried, and “[t]he resurrected individual is deprived of will, memory, and consciousness, speaks with a nasal voice, and is recognized chiefly by dull, glazed eyes and an absent air.” Ackermann and Gauthier, “The Ways and Nature of the Zombi,” 466-494. This is perhaps one of the primary reasons for the common belief that “zombies are thought of as individuals who either do not speak at all, or who only communicate little… apparently unable to direct their own activities and do not know their own names.” Ibid. Quite possibly, as Ackermann and Gauthier suggest, the reason why zombies are thought to speak with nasal voice is associated with the native spirits of death and of cemetary, the Guede, who are said to possess people, dressed in black and purple, wearing dark glasses, and speaking in highpitched nasal voice. Bourguignon, “The Persistence of Folk Belief,” 36-46. Zombies are said to continue to live for two to five years, unless they have consumed salt. Ackermann and Gauthier, 466-494. What happens, though, if they are given salt? Do they die? According to a number of folk beliefs, the answer is ambiguous. Rather, a zombie “awakens, realizes its condition, seeks its grave, and may kill its master in vengeance” for having controlled him. Ibid. Another scholar reports that “[o]nce the sorceror has revived his victim, he carefully avoids letting him eat salt, which would help the zombi recover his senses, remember his name, and the fact that he is dead, and consequently cause him to fall dead.” Bourguignon, 36-46. Yet another account tells us a similar account that if they are fed salt, “they become conscious of the state of their abnormal existence and are therefore likely to desert their masters.” Louis P. Mars, “The Story of Zombi in Haiti” Man, vol. 45 (Mar. – Apr., 1945): 38-40. It seems, however, this belief about zombies’ saltless diet seems to originate in the Vodoun belief that “an unbaptized child may be taken by the devil, incarnated in the form of Baron Samedi, the spirit of the dead, and that to release the infant from his grasp, a small taste of salt must be placed upon the child’s tongue.” Davis, The Passage of Darkness, 180. It is perhaps because the salt is said to repel the evil spirit, though there is another pharmacological importance in the choice of salt as a evil-spirit repeller, as opposed to pepper or ginger, etc., which will provide us with the more scientific reasons for why salt is said to nullify zombie phenomenon. The inquiry into salt brings us to an enquiry into how zombies are actually made. For the essence of zombie making is found in the pharmacologically prepared poison, Zombie Powder, and salt is said to counteract its primary ingredient. The ethnobiologist, Wade Davis, has uncovered some of the recipes for making the powder in his field research with bokor and houngan – a Vodoun preist. One recipe the local bokor at Saint Marc in Haiti prepared included: two types of sea toad Crapaud du mer, checkered puffer fish or Sphoeroides testudineus L., and Sphoeroides spengleri Bloch., fufu fish Diodon hystrix L., spot-fin purcupinefish, a sea snake A polychaete worm, or Hermodice carunculata Pallas., a large Buga toad Bufo marinus L. as well as several lizards Ameiva chrysolaema Cope and Leiocephalus schreibersi Gravenhost. and tarantulas Crabe araignee, or Theraphosidae.. Once the capturing of these ingredients are done, “the toad and sea snake were placed in a sealed container, to be left there overnight before they were killed the next morning,” which is done to irritate the toad as buga toad is equipped with large patroid glands that secrete potent chemicals when irritated. In the morning, these animals are killed and placed in the sun to dry. Meanwhile, two more plant ingredients are gathered – a kind of shade tree locally called tcha-tcha and an itching pea, “a weedy climbing liana whose fruitpods are covered with vicious urticating hairs.” Davis, The Passage of Darkness, 110-112. Lastly, the crushed and ground remains of a human cadaver are added. The more fresh the cadaver is, the better its effect becomes. Hence, normally the cadavers are collected at night in the graveyard. As it is essential to gaining insights on in what way ‘zombies’ are said to exist, I have taken the excerpt from Davis’ book, The Passage of Darkness, which explains the procedure of the powder making. Earlier in the day [bokor’s] assistant had dug up the cadaver in the courtyard and, with great caution, [the bokor] had lifted pieces of the child’s skull and brain into a glass jar… [h]e placed these fragments, along with the carcasses of the lizards, sea snake, and tarantulas, on a grill, roasting them to an oily consistency before transferring them to a mortar. The bones of the child stayed on the gril until they had burned almost to charcoal. Then they, too, were placed into the mortar. Another assistant had meanwhile taken a metal grater and begun to grind the tip of a human tibia and a skull, collecting the shavings in a small tin cup. A small handful of the seeds of Albizia lebbeck, eight fruits of Mucuna pruriens, and several shards of broken glass were placed in the mortar. The dried fish were then placed carefully on the grill and left only long enough to ensure that they were completely dried, whereupon they, too, were added the other ingredients in the mortar. The assistant then ground all the contents of the mortar to a coarse consistency and sifted them. He pounded the residue a number of times, until the bulk of the raw ingredients had collected as a fine brown powder at the base of a calabash. The final product was placed into jars to be carried back to the hounfour [the Vodoun temple], where it would be buried inside the coffin in the lap of the dead child for forty-eight hours. Ibid., 112-114. Both the ingredients and the procedure become extremely important in understanding where the folk beliefs come from as well as the science of zombie making. Although the number and types of ingredients vary from region to region, all preparation for zombie powder seem to include at least one or more species of puffer fish, the large buga toad, the hyla tree frog, ground human remains, and several plants that are capable of irritating the human skin. Ibid., 124. For instance, the preparation at Valley of Léogane, about 40km west of Port-au-Prince, included human cadavers, a mixture of centipedes, tarantulas and lizards as well as tree frogs two species of puffer fish. Ibid., 119. The one prepared at Gonaïves, over 100km north of Pot-au-Prince, had three stages to the preparation, taking about an entire week to complete the poison. In the first degree of preparation, again, are included a toad and a snake being sealed in a jar. About twenty grams of ground centipedes and two whole tarantulas are mixed with some plants similar to the ones we have listed above. Once they are ground to a powder, they are placed in a jar and buried underground for two days. In the second degree, two more plants locally known as tremblador and desmembres are added, and in the final degree, four more plants capable of causing severe topical irritation are mixed as well as a number of animals, such as ground two species of tarantulas with the skins of the white tree frog in addition to buga toad and a puffer fish. Ibid., 121-122. This also somewhat explains the popular belief supported by the account frequently reported why zombies are sometimes seen to “vomit up a number of leaves, or small lizards or a large centipede” which is said to be a sign of illness. F. J. H. Huxley, “The Ritual of Voodoo and the Symbolism of the Body” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences Vol.251:772 (Dec. 29, 1966):423-427. http://www.jstor.org/stable2416754 (accessed September 29th, 2010) Having administered the poison on the intended victim by either topically applying it on the victim’s skin or by spreading it in the form of a cross on the threshold of the doorway or inside the victim’s shoes, the victim is said to die usually within the next six hours. Davis, 114. The Haitians hastily bury their dead to avoid the pungent smell of death in such a warm, tropical climate. Ibid., 93. This may perhaps explain one of the reasons why zombies are more effectively made during the summer. On the same day at night, the bokor will come to the grave of the buried victim, calling by his name. Then the victim is said to come back to life as a zombie. When the zombie comes out of the ground, it is beaten severely, and “force-fed a paste made up of thee constituents: sweet potato, cane syrup, and concombre zombi.” Ibid., 122. Concombre zombi, or zombi’s cucumber, is a plant called Datura stramonium, which, containing atropine and scopolamine, can hence induce a state of psychotic delirium marked by disorientation, acute confusion and complete amnesia, as well as agitation, hallucination and rambling speech in the patient. This hallucinogenic paste is applied to the zombie again in the morning after the resurrection, when it reaches its place of confinement. Ibid., 122-123. Why is this necessary? After all, a zombie has been successfully made upon its rising from the ground. This beating and ingestion of the paste is what may be termed as an initiation, a baptisim for zombies. Many questions come to be raised. How is it possible that a person who has died to come back to life at the name-calling by the bokor? What significance is there that all those ingredients for zombie powder involve specific species of toads, puffer fish and irritatable plants? And further, what is the nature and the role of zombi’s cucumber? Can this all be explained scientifically, or is it all ‘black magic’ as the locals call it? Zombies are actually not completely dead, but they are who have gone through apparent death. The secrets are hidden among the primary ingredients of the zombie powder. For instance, puffer fish is known to be extremely toxic – in fact, it is so toxic that people who eat fugu, i.e. puffer fish, are willingly taking the risk of death. It appears that eating fugu has been nothing more than having an aesthetic experience, giving the consumers a sense of tingling paralysis that boarders between life and death. Its toxin comes from tetradotoxin, a chemical component found in fugu. Tetradotoxin (TTX) blocks the sodium channels of the excitable membranes of nerves and muscles, thereby causing neuromascular paralysis. Ibid., 146, 180. The victims of tetradotoxication may experience a tingling or prickering sensation starting with fingers and extremities, eventually leading to the numbness of the entire body, hypersalivation, profuse sweating, subnormal body temperative due to the decresed blood pressure. The pupils are constricted and later become dilated, making them glassy, and the victims “may become comatose but in most cases retain consciousness, and the mental faculties remain acute until shortly before death”, even though since the lips and throat are normally paralyzed amongst other things, they cannot move or utter a single word. Ibid., 154-155. This induced state of complete paralysis can last for several hours to twenty-four hours or even more in extremely rare cases, when the apparently dead victim wakes up again. Many case studies have been done with regard to fugu poisonings, and in dealing with the patients, even trained physicians have hard time recognizing if the patints are dead or merely ‘apparently’ dead. This is because not only the breathing stops, but also the symptoms resemble and are consistent with brain death. There are a number of accounts where physicians are reported to have performed artificial respiration and other appropriate treatments only to discover that the patients show no sign of life, but later the supposedly dead patients come back to life, and report how they had wanted to say something when the family members of the ‘deceased’ wept over their body. Ibid., 156-165. How were the victims able to fool the experienced physicians? After all, is it not necessary that if the systems in the body utterly shut down for hours the patients could not be revived? Some investigators seem to posit the possibility that, in some cases, the patient’s heart continues to beat even after the cessesation of breathing, maintaining the peripheral circulation of blood. Another account tells us the case where hospital staffs could not detect pulsation in the patient, but the patient obviously maintained rapid, shallow breathing. Ibid., 158. According to the medical authorities, the symptoms occur within an hour upon ingestion of tetradotoxin, culminating a crisis in no more than six hours, and death normally occurs between three to eight hours after the ingestion of the poison. Ibid., 164. The victim would recover naturally if he survives this period. This explains a lot about zombification, since a victim is killed by the posion, buried alive while retaining consciousness, and the bokor comes to the grave to dig him up. Zombies, in this sense, are indeed not dead, but rather rightly called living dead or undead. The use of buga toad is then rather supplementary. Even though the skin of the toad contains crucial dose of toxic cardiosteroids capable of inducing hypersalivation as well as vocalization and difficulty in breathing, its primary use is probably as a hallucinogenic agent. Since when the victim is in comatose, he still retains his consciousness clearly. Even though being buried alive in a coffin creates a sense of panick as well as psychological confusion, it would not be enough to make him believe that he is actually dead. With this hallucinogenic substance, as he wakes up from his apparent death, his mind is still confused and remains disrupted. When in such psychological states, if he is dug up and severely beaten without warnings, his mind becomes completely ‘messed up’ so as not to be able to make sense of any degree of reality. This happens at night in the country whose folk belief about the existence of zombies is deeply rooted in their mind from the earliest years of their life, and naturally, the victim himself begins to believe that he has been dead and zombified. This is why upon resurrection of zombies, the bokor force-feed the zombie the paste containing Datura stramonium, zombi’s cucumber, which also induces a severe degree of hallucination. What becomes of the irritable plants? What role does it have? It may not play a significant role as a toxin that kills or hallucinates the intended victim, but it plays a pivotal role in the poison’s application to the victim. As Davis found out, any of the zombie powders are normally placed under the victim’s feet or by topical application to the body, and the poison is said to work most effectively when applied to an open wound. Ibid., 131. For this reason, the irritants contained in the plant preparation in making the zombie powder pave the way for the poison to get into the body. This is an effective way, since some of the pharmacologically active poison employed in the making of the powder do not work when taken orally, but only when it is applied directly into the blood. This also explains why some preparation for the powder includes ground glass, and why it is suggested that the toxic powder to be applied after “pricking the victim’s skin with a thorn.” Ibid. All these precedures presuppose that the victim is in the same mindset as the Vodoun culture, as psychological beliefs such as the existence of zombies and what happens to them play a significant role in creating a zombie. The victim is not just a passive recipient of the violence, but also gives a psychological framework in order for the zombie to be made. This is precisely why there is no record or report as to the existence of zombies in Japan, where fugu consumption as well as the number of death or premature burial by fugu poisonings is great. Zombification, indeed, is a socially sanctioned cultural tradition, and where there is no belief whatsoever of the Vodoun religion, there cannot be a zombie, even if there are plenty of materials available to turn people into zombies. Such may be the origin of the folk belief in Haiti that “the power of zombis [is] limited… [and] that if someone does not believe in them, they can do no harm.” Ackermann and Gauthier, 466-494. This is so precisely because if someone believes in no zombies there is no such a thing as a zombie, hence a ‘zombie’ becomes nothing but an empty concept, and such a concept can neither physically nor psychologically harm that person. Incidentally, the fact that tetradotoxin is involved in the zombie-making also explains why salt is believed to be the cure for zombie phenomenon, since tetradotoxin “prevents the generation of action potentials by blocking the voltage-sensitive sodium channels of the excitable membrane of nerve and muscle,” and the laboratory research shows that “an increased concentration of sodium ions (Na+) might offer protection against tetradotoxication.” Davis, 180. Indeed, folk belief that zombies are vulnerable to salt, or sodium content, seems to have some basis in neurochemistry after all. Now that we have seen how zombies are made, let us take a further step and explore the reasons for why zombies are made. For what purpose does it serve? What do we do with the body supposedly deprived of will, memory or ability to communicate? And can they function during the day or are they available for employment only at night? Can they run, or do they move or stop only with the permission and acknowledgment of the bokor? This last question now sounds even silly to ask, for zombies are nothing but people who have undergone apparent death with their minds perpetually confused due to the hallucinogenic substance. Of course they can run. And of course they can move or stop without the permission or acknowledgment of the bokor. In fact, their status can better described as a perpetual enslavement. It is the worst kind of enslavement because no one supposedly knows that the zombified victims are still alive. Upon the burial, the victims have lost all status enjoyed by living persons in a legal society. And when they come back to life as zombies, they have no social status, hence “do not speak, cannot fend for themselves, do not even know their names.” Ibid., 207. It is also gathered from the fact that a “second dose of this hallucinogenic paste is given to the victim the morning after the resurrection,” that they can function during the daytime, and not just at night. Ibid., 124. What remains as a crucial question is that why such corpses without will or memory are needed. To answer this question, we must first take a recourse to the ‘two types of zombies’ that the Haitians speak of, for only then does it become apparent why zombification is not just a ‘pastime’ of some individual bokors with lots of time to waste, goofing around making surplus zombies, but is in fact a necessary element in the Haitian society to maintain justice rather than simply to spread fear. In the Haitian Vodoun tradition, there believed to be five basic components that make up human. Incidentally, Vodoun religion means nothing but a collection of diverse rites that originate in various parts of Africa, and the word ‘voodoo’ simply means “god” or “spirit” in Fon language of Dahomey and Tago. See also 273, Davis. These are the z’étoile, the gros bon ange, the ti bon ange the n’âme, and the corps cadavre. These are respectively translated as the spiritual component in the sky that determines one’s life and destiny (z’étoile), the ‘big good angel’ is the energy that animates the body and is undifferentiated. Upon clinical death, “it returns immediately to God and once again becomes part of the great reservoir of energy that supports all life.” Ibid., 186. The ‘little good angel’ is the source of individuals’ willpower and personality; it is what gives the gros bon ange a characteristic content in which it can perform. If the gros bon ange is the source of animation, the ti bon ange is the source of individuality. The n’âme is spirit of the flesh; it is with n’âme that a body can have a definite shape. It gradually leaves the body into the organisms of the soil upon the dealth of corps cadavre, the corpse. This explains the gradual decomposition of the corpse, which is nothing but a slow transferral of this energy, taking eighteen months to complete. Ibid. The bokor’s job is to take away and capture the personal spirit, the ti bon ange, so that the created zombies are deprived of willpower and left only with the material body. This happens at the graveyard ceremony at night when the victim wakes up from coma. During the initiation, the ti bon ange is extracted from the body by the bokor calling the victim by name at the graveyard site But the much of the work or preparation for the extraction of the ti bon ange has already been done when the toxic powder has been spread onto the victim’s feet before the death. Also there are other ways to capture ti bon ange while the victim is still alive according to the findings of Wade Davis: “the coup l’aire (a magical spell that breaks the victim’s equilibrium, causing misfortune and illness), the coup nam (a soul spell and a magical means of capturing the ti bon ange), the coup poudre (a powerful spell, a magical powder that may cause illness and/or death), and the l’envoi morts (the sending of the death spirits). To administer these spells, the ‘executioner’ sets ‘traps’ in places the accused is known to frequent.” These powders can either be directly or indirectly administered to the victim. See Davis, 280. and then it is housed in a clay jar, which is placed at the inner sanctum of the temple. During this ceremony, the bokor must make sure that the ti bon ange would not reenter the victim’s body, and one way to do so is by excessive beating. Deprived of the willpower and personality, but still possessing the gros bon ange, the body continues to animate. In this way, two types of zombie are created – a zombie of the spirit and a zombie of the flesh. Ibid., 183, 187. A zombie of the spirit is called zombi astral or zombi ti bon ange, and that of the flesh is called zombie corpse cadavre. This zombie of the flesh is the one often portrayed in the popular culture – a zombie that is robotic and moves without purpose. The gros bon ange, separated from the ti bon ange, animates the body, but without the ti bon ange, “the body is but an empty vessel, subject to the direction of the bokor or whoever maintains control of the zombi ti bon ange.” Ibid., 191. What controls the zombie of the flesh is this spirit zombie, carefully stored in a jar in the temple. In this way, the bokor not only gains control over the zombie of the flesh but also he can magically transmute the ti bon ange into insects, animals or humans to freely direct the body. The reason why zombies are said to be the ‘living dead’ is now evident. It is because they have no individual character but solely controled the by the massive undifferentiated energy whose job is only to animate the body. This duality of zombie also tells us that there is a lot one can do with the spirit zombies. If all one gets is the zombie of the flesh, there is not much use, since these zombies do not have willpower and it is hard to imagine how they could be of any use. But with the possession of the zombi ti bon ange, the spirit zombie, the benefit of making zombies becomes enormously expanded. In this way, the zombies are said to be “dispatched to kill, to inflict disease on people or livestock, or to destroy harvests,” and the ones that trasmit disaese are called zombi toussé, or “coughing zombi” who are said to have died of tuberculosis. Ackermann and Gauthier, 466-494. The spirit zombies can also be tranformed into inanimate objects such as stones, or into “cows, pigs or sheep that are sold on the market for meat, [and t]hese animals may cry out to reveal their human nature, and their meat may foam in the pot or contain gold teeth, human fingernails, even hands or feet.” Ibid. Although it is dubious whether spirit zombies transformed into a stone can be of any use and rather incomprehensible for what purpose the bokor would turn the otherwise useful spirit zombie into an inanimate object except to exercise his magical power to his own satisfaction, spirit zombies turned into humans or animals such as horses are said to be put to work in a sugar mill as well as in the field. Further, these zombies may be used to “attract customers to a shop, or even correct a poor student’s homework… [and they] can also act as messengers, returning runaway women to their homes.” Ibid. Again, these claims are somewhat unsubstantiated, coming from folk beliefs themselves, but even so, it is hard to imagine how zombies can attract costumers to a shop or even correct student’s homework, especially since they are deprived of any willpower. But perhaps, the real worry is not whether zombies can correctly do homework, but rather why anyone would want zombies who do not even know their names to correct his or her school assignments. Here it may be beneficial to speak of the ways and nature of zombies so as to gain better insight as to what they are like, and more importantly, so that we can compare the traditional beliefs about zombies with those dipicted in popular culture. In this way, we can at least shed some light on the accuracy of the representation of zombies in films. For questions are numerous concerning the nature of zombies. For instance, do they age at all? They should, if we are to believe in the claim that zombies can actually come to a natural death. Such may be the case with the zombie of the flesh, however, the spirit zombie is said to be “immortal and does not age… It is never ill (even if it was frequently during its life time), does not eat, and is able to move.” Ibid. The zombies of the flesh, on the other hand, walk with their heads down, and as has been suggested earlier, speak with a nasal voice. Raised in a comatose trance from their graves, they are usually recognizable by their docile natures, glassy, emptry empty eyes. Davis, 60. One striking difference of the popular depiction of zombies from the traditional folk beliefs of them is that in actuality zombies are afraid of living people and try to flee from them. Ackermann and Gauthier, 466-494. This may be due to the ceremonial beatings of the raised victim at the initiation, when his consciousness is deprived and is under delusion. For such initiation is reported to be one of the most traumatizing experiences by the victims who survived zombification. For more information on recent cases of zombifications, see Davis, 75-85. As has been previously dealt with, other physical as well as mental attributes of zombies such as lameness, the sensations of vertigo, nausea, falling, formication as well as disarticulation, too can be now well explained by the effects of tetradotoxication which interfers with the functionings of nerves and muscles, whose effect is further sustained after the zombification by means of malnutrition and the continuous application of the hallucinogenic paste to the victim. Some questions concerning rather enigmatic accounts still remain to be answered, such are the claims that zombies are invisible except at noon, they live and sleep in cemetaries and are at home between three o’clock and three-thirty in the morning, or they go to church in the evening and are afraid of red objects. Ackermann and Gauthier, 466-494. The claim that zombies are afraid of red objects appears in much literature, and red clothings are often worn to prevent spirit zombies from possessing the living. Some of these claims not only do not make much sense but also are internally inconsistent, for the same source tells us that zombies “may be put to work, but only after sunset.” Ibid. How can invisible zombies ‘attract customers to a shop’? What does the two claims tell us that zombies are put to work after sunset and they go to church in the evening? Further, the claim that they are at home at a particular time period seems particularly unconvincing, for they have no home. The only time they may go back to their grave is when their spell has been broken either by the bokor’s death or by ingesting enough salt, thereby regaining their consciousness. In any case, these claims are ‘anomalies’, or what I may call the enigmas, sole folk beliefs originated without substantial theoretical background. Having spoken of how zombies are made and what they are like, we may proceed to discuss about how to prevent one from becoming a zombie. For this marks an essential importance in the Haitian tradition of zombie phenomenon, since without the existence of preventions or antidote to the zombification, people are left without defense. Naturally, the preventive measures can be taken to counteract the application of the poison or by preventing the bokor from successfully ‘reviving’ the dead. To ensure that the deceased would not be zombified, some locals cut off the limbs and head of the corpse and even blade through the victim’s heart or put a bullet in the temple before burial, so that such a body would be no use to the bokor. According to the tradition, because “a corpse may only be raised if it answers the call of the bokor, the lips of the dead are sometimes sewn up with brass wire.” Davis, 64-65. Unfortunately, there is no known medical antidote for tetradotoxication. Datura stramonium, or zombie’s cucumber, supposedly acts as a partial antidote to tetradotoxin, but it is, as has been said, what the bokor uses after the resurrection of the dead body from the ground because, although it is said to restore the body to activity, it leaves the mind only to semiconsciousness. In other words, Datura stramonium may relieve some of the symptoms of tetradotoxication, as it is highly psychoactive, it is primarily used to induce and maintain zombie state rather than to ‘unzombify’ the victim. Not surprisingly, however, there have been a number of recipes of locally prepared antidote for the Zombie Powder by the bokor and his assistants. These antidotes are made before the actual poison is made for the poisoners’ own protection. For it is highly possible that any of the poisoners could ingest highly toxic powders during the preparation, and it is for this reason that any of the poisons are always prepared some distance from human habituation. Ibid., 166. Whereas the posion had consistency in its ingredients, the antidotes differed vastly both in its ingredients and in its composition from region to region. Below are some of the recipes for the antidote; for a comparison, I think it best to cite excerpts from Wade Davis’ findings. Antidote 1: (at Saint Marc) The houngan began by placing in a mortar several handful of the dried or fresh leaves of six plants: aloe (Aloe vera L.); guaiac (Guaiacum officinale L.); cedre (Cedrela odorata L.); bois chandelle (Amyris maritima Jacq.); and cadavre gaté (cf. Capparis sp.). This plant material was ground with a quarter-ounce of rock salt, then added to an enamel basin containing ten crushed mothballs, a cup of seawater, several ounces of clairin or cane alcohol, a bottle of perfume, and a quarter-litre of a solution purchased from the local apothecary and known as magic noire, “black magic.” Additional ingredients included ground human bones, shavings from a mule’s tibia and a dog’s skull, various coloured and magically named talc powders, ground match heads, and sulphur powder… The end product was a green liquid with a strong ammonia scent. Ibid., 166-167. Antidote 2: (at Petite Rivière de Nippes) The representative antidote [in this region] included clairin, rum, sugar, basil leaves (Ocimum basilicum L.), ground human bones, cadavre gaté (cf. Capparis sp.), and corn (Zea mays L.). Integral to this… preparation was the ritual paraphernalia – a candle composed of wax into which magic powders had been kneaded, a cross of feathers plucked from the sacrificed rooster – that promised to guard the individual from the power of his own poison. In this sense, the antidote was believed not only to neutralize the effects of the poison on the actual victim, but also to protect the poisoner. Ibid., 167. These antidotes are said to be in effect for two to three weeks upon the exposure to the poison. After this, the houngan performs the standard Vodoun rituals to exorcise any death spirit that may be hovering around the victim. Ibid., 174. As you can see, one at Saint Marc is decorated with over thirty exotic ingredients, whereas the one prepared at Petite Rivière de Nippes has much fewer ingredients, which are rather simple compared to the first one. What catches our attention is not just dissimilarities in the ingredients in each potion but also the inclusion of ritual in the making of the second antidote, whereas the preparation is rather straightforward without rituals in the first antidote. Although many of the plants used in the either of the antidote are medicinally active, these rather non-universalized recipes for the poison suggest that there is no agreed effective antidote. Indeed, these antidotes take a ‘better than nothing’ approach, and do not guarantee the recovery of the poisoned. In other words, once the poison has been applied to the victim, there is no sure way of undoing the poison. This brings us back to the earlier notion that there is no known medical antidote to tetradotoxin, for what the powder ultimately is is tetradotoxication, and any antidotes prepared by the bokor are aimed at counter-effecting against the poison, i.e., tetradotoxin, so as not to cause the death in the first place. As has been explained previously, Datura stramonium, or zombie’s cucumber, is said to relieve some of the symptoms of tetradotoxication, but it cannot be applied as an antidote, since it too possesses a psychoactive power that induces in the consumed to a “psychotic delirium marked by disorientation, acute confusion, and complete amnesia.” Ibid., 179. This leaves us with only two other options to combat tetradotoxin: either to fall back on the folk belief of ingesting salt or disolve the poison in tetradotoxin before it is ingested. The first option has a very slim chance of succeeding it, if there is any chance at all. For, as Davis believes, for the ingestion of salt to have any influence at all on the poison, it has to be ingested almost immediately after the exposure to the poison. Otherwise “any administration of salt to the purported zombies” would be pointless as “the effects of their initial exposure to the zombie poison and to tetradotoxin would have [already] run their course.” Ibid., 180. Even if salt was ingested immediately after the exposure to the poison, there is no evidence that it would have much effect on stopping the poison from affecting the victim. There is simply no pharmacological basis to the widely held beliefs that “if imprudently [zombies] are given a plate containing even a grain of salt the fog that cloaks their minds instantly clear away and they become conscious of their terrible servitude,” Ibid., quoted Alfred Métraux in Davis, 179. or “a bar of candy containing salted peanuts [is] said to have released the fury of the zombies.” Ibid., quoted Seabrook in Davis, 179. Tetradotoxin, however, has this peculiar aspect that it is very sensitive to pH, and breaks down in basic solution. So “if the powders were put into a nonbuffered solvent (water, for example), the resulting solution would have a basicity that would denature the tetradotoxin.” Ibid., 194. This is why “the powder is never put into a solution; it is not administered orally or made into a salve or cream for topical administration.” Ibid. The way the Zombie Powder is applied to a victim is by putting directly into blood through abraded skin. Dry powders do not have pH, since they have no interacting hydrogen ions, and blood is a well-buffered solution. Ibid. It seems as though there is only one way to ensure that the poison does not get to you – disolve it in water before its administration. But this option is not possible for either fugu poison victims, who enjoy eating the very effect the poison induces in them, or zombie victims, who are totally unaware of the poison being administered to them. This, however, leaves us still yet another question – for how can the bokor ensure that the victim does not die from it but only causes them an apparent death so that the bokor can revive the victim? For the whole purpose of zombie powder is to cause an apparent death for six hours or so, and if the victim actually dies from the overdose of the poison, there is no point in going through all the troubles in making such an elaborate poison, taking over a week. Just like the fugu poisoning, the amount of tetradotoxin consumed plays a great role in determining whether the victim who has consumed the poison would survive or not. In order to have a precisely expected result, the bokor must have a highly sophisticated knowledge as to how much poison is found in which types of puffer fish and what time of the year the fish should be caugh, etc… since the level of tetradotoxin found in puffer fish differ from species to species, from season to season, and even amongst the same species. For instance, female are said to possess more poison in general, and the poison is most abundantly found from May to July, which is their copulation period. But some male puffer fish are more toxic than female puffer within the same species, and the toxic level also depends on which region the particular puffer is found. It seems improbable that neither the bokors nor the fugu chefs could articulate the level of poison contained in any given puffer fish. So how do they do it? The question is legit enough, and the answer is as expected. They do not know the level of poison contained in each puffer fish; all they know is that fish are more toxic in summer. From the emic point of view, after all, it is not the poison that kills the victim, but is the highly sophisticated magic that the bokor possesses, and the rest depends on the god or the spirit. Just like people who have died of natural causes cannot made into zombies, Ibid., 194. because it is believed that those who have died naturally are called upon by the god, and nothing the bokor would do makes any difference, people who have died of overdose of the poison contrary to the bokor’s expectation are said to be called upon by the god. Davis indeed concurs with this point by stating that “the physical resurrection of a zombie is likely to be an exceedingly rare event… [and] the acknowledged variability of toxin levels in natural populations of the puffer fish – as well as the diversity of formulas concocted by the bokor – dosage is bound to be imprecise.” Ibid., 195. What maintains this belief in zombification so real is perhaps the fact that the failed attempts by the bokor are never recorded or counted, thus making the successes stand out, strengthening the cultural conviction that zombification is real and universal. If even the bokor knows there is a great chance that the intended victim might actually die in the process of zombification, why do they even bother going through such an elaborate process to raise the dead from the grave to begin with? If all zombies are worth is either for assasignation or enslavement, or less honourably for correcting students’ assignments or minding the shops, is it not too much a labour and risk to take to make zombies? After all, zombies may come back to their senses any moment, and in the event of it, they may kill their masters. It seems that there is much more work to be done in collecting all those ingredients to make zombies and performing ceremonial rituals than there is for these people involved to actually correct students’ assignments or work in the fields. Do these people even get paid? Is there a company that hires people who make zombies? These are some of the concerns occasionally raised by the sceptics. Wade Davis himself answers to these questions by explicitly denying that there is such a thing an assembly-line of mass production of zombies in Haiti, and that zombification still remains to be infrequent and highly unusual occurrence. Ibid., 196. So why is the tradition still maintained? To answer this question, one needs to delve into the Haitian cultural social justice system observed by the secret societies all over the island. I will not discuss here what these societies are or how they came about in detail, but for the purpose of this essay, I will breifly summarize their roles in the Haitian society. These secret societies have various names depending on the regions; and even though they are termed as ‘secret societies’ everyone knows of their existence, and the government seems to work in accordance with them. Zombification is a form of social justice in the Haitian societies, and the members of the secret societies serve somewhat as modulators of public morality. Not everyone is vulnerable to zombification, but only those who have been particularly obnoxious towards their family members or in the society they live in. There is a list of offenses one of the secret societies, Bizango, whom Wade Davis came in contact with told him. If a person transgresses these actions abanduntly, the members of the society may sunction the zombification of such a person and the targeted victim is duly ‘eaten’, i.e. the extraction of the ti bon ange. These seven actions are as follows: Ambition – excessive material advancement at the obvious expense of family and dependents. Displaying lack of respect for one’s fellows. Denigrating the Bizango society. Stealing another man’s woman. Spreading loose talk that slanders and affects the well-being of others. Harming members of one’s family. Land issues – any action that unjustly keeps another from working the land. Ibid., 278. The societies observe these rules, and when they are violated, the societies are informed of the events, and send members to judge whether the accused is in the wrong or not. Once found guilty, the accused becomes the target of zombification. It seems that many of the zombifications take place when these rules are severely ignored, that is to say, when almost all the rules are violated by the accused to the extent that the accused is hated by all the people around. Davis’ findings tell us that, by no means, zombification is not an arbitrary practice. These secret societies have been existent since long before the colonial period, and it has been done even before the government came in place, and these codes of morality are respected as a cultural heritage. See page 11 of this paper. I have now dealt with the essences or nature of zombies both according to the folk belief traditions and according to the religio-scientific basis. In the course of exposition, I have laid out some of the popular beliefs about zombies and what they are made for, and compared those beliefs to the ethnobiological findings of Wade Davis in the light of Vodoun religion. I have discussed how zombies are actually made and what the social implications of zombification are within the cultural settings of the Haitian tradition. In dealing with these issues, I have focused particularly on the pharmacological nature of Zombie Powder as well as the lack thereof in the ingredients used to make its antidote. The duality of the soul is also mentioned, and the theoretical ground for zombification has been explained with great emphasis. What remains for me now to discuss is the alleged cannibalistic nature of zombies, for it is of a particular importance to us whose lives are threatened by the fear of being eaten by zombies. It is imporant to note first that when the death spirit is sent by the bokor to extract the ti bon ange of the intended victim, the death spirit is said to ‘eat away’ its victim. In the same token, when illness or death takes hold of someone, the victim of illness or of death is viewed as being eaten by the evil spirit. In like manner, Bourguignon contends that “no basis exists for the statement that cannibalism and human sacrifice, as more commonly understood, actually do exist in Haiti.” Bourguignon, 36-46. The belief about cannibal zombies comes from the tradition that the bokor can turn people into animals. See pages 12-13 in this paper. This is done by the bokor who makes a rope of human intestines and throws it at the intended victim, who then turns into an animal. Bourguignon, 36-46. The victim thus turned into an animal is then sold at a distance market for meat, which is recognizable by its foams in the cook pot and falling to the floor when somebody tried to eat it, an obviously implying that a conscious human soul is housed in the cooked meat. Such victims who have been turned into animals too are called by the name of zombies, for they are in essence nothing but the captured spirit zombies, transferred into animal bodies. Davis discusses Elsie Clews Parsons’ claim that “a bokor who has a zombie, in this case a zombi astral, or zombie of the spirit, may transform him into a stone or any kind of animal… such a creature would be considered a person, and this its flesh, sold in the market, would quite properly be said to be human flesh.” Davis, 65. As a matter of fact, this belief is the one and only basis for the various reports and popular correlation of zombies and cannibalism. Ibid. This then answers the conundrum whether zombies can eat humans without being affected by the sodium content, for zombies do not eat humans, but by cannibalism is meant the meat of zombies eaten by the general public. This concludes my discussions about the zombies and the zombification according to the Haitian tradition. Bibliography Davis, Wade. Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie. USA: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988. Ackermann, Hans-W. and Gautheir, Jeanine. “The Ways and Nature of the Zombi” The Journal of American Folklore Vol.104:414 (Autumn, 1991): 466-494. http://www.jstor.org/stable/541551 (accessed September 29, 2010). Bourguignon, Erika. “The Persistence of Folk Belief: Some Notes on Cannibalism and Zombis in Haiti.” The Journal of American Folklore Vol. 72:283 (Jan. – Mar., 1959): 36-46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/538386 (accessed September 29, 2010). Métraux, Alfred. “The Concept of Soul in Haitian Vodu.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, vol. 2:1 (Spring, 1946): 84-92. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3628737 (accessed September 29, 2010). Huxley, F. J. H. “The Ritual of Voodoo and the Symbolism of the Body.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, vol. 251:772, A Discussion on Ritualization of Behavior in Animals and Man (Dec. 29, 1966): 423-427. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2416754. 22