Last week, I had covered a subject that most people find intriguing: the zombie. Several points were brought up about the metaphorical significance that a zombie has in popular culture. Today, I’m going to go in a different direction and talk about cases of people who claim that they could produce or claim that they were at one point a zombie. So how does one produce a zombie? That is the biggest question in today’s post. We recognized in the previous post that the condition to create a zombie is that a person must be dead and then brought back to life. Is that it? With that kind of definition, Jesus Christ is a kind of zombie. Several competing sources add a person who is responsible for this change, typically a voodoo priest who is able to somehow bring the victim to death (or the appearance of death) and then revive them. But there are other instances, biological diseases, that can also give a person the appearance of being a zombie. Further, there are even animals that adopt this technique of apparent death and reanimation every year to cope with their harsh surroundings. To begin with, let us look at the zombie that is made by a voodoo priest.

Some people believe that the fear or belief in zombies is relegated to a very few in this modern world. But this article here, indicates that in Haiti, the belief in the brain-eating zombie is still practiced by some. The article essentially details a Voodoo priest who was concerned about the burial of masses of people who were killed during the 2009 earthquake. So are there any real cases of zombies being produced? There is man by the name of Wade Davis who was able to track down the process of making a zombie. Rather than try to explain the discoveries that this man has made, there is a documentary that has detailed all the exploits of Dr. Davis. Here are a few clips of what he found.

It wasn’t too long before Dr. Davis found what he was looking for. A man by the name of Clairvius Narcisse underwent the process and recounts his experience. Listen to the process that Davis records from Narcisse.

One of my favorite lines from this video is the line, “You can quickly see how zombification becomes a fate worse than death.” The reason that this man is able to make this claim is the factor of physical labour. The story of Clairvius Narcisse is a stunning reminder of why anyone would want to make a zombie in the first place. Zombie masters are able to reap the benefits out of those that they zombify. So how does it work? How do these voodoo priests turn their victims into zombies, hollow shells of people who are highly receptive to suggestions and commands? Here’s a breakdown based on the research that Davis was able to find, and of course, don’t try this at home. No need to provoke a real zombie uprising … First, there are a combination of drugs that are derived from natural plant and wildlife sources. Specifically, the skin of a toad and the puffer fish. Both of these have toxins and neuro-toxins that are able to drastically reduce the amount of “lifeiness” a person has. Of course, too much of these toxins and the target victim will be dead. Too little of the toxin, and the victim will not go under enough. Then there is a burial in which the person is completely entombed. Finally, the zombie master comes with an herbal concotion that will rouse the victim as well as destroy the part of the brain that is in control of short-term memory. In other words, the zombie retains some of their long term memories, but they are completely malleable at this point. The final step is to make them mad, as in angry. It is unclear what the motivation for upsetting the zombie is, but I believe it probably has something to do with the mental condition necessary to keep the zombie forgetting who he is. Again, why do this? It turns out that zombies are actually a great labor source. Many of those that practice zombification are land owners that run sugar cane plants and the like. So there you have a zombie from the Haitian perspective. What about biology? Aren’t there diseases that have a similar effect?

Why yes there are! Some of these diseases are really pretty frightening. The first one (and probably the least disgusting) is sleeping sickness. In a BBC article found here, one of the surgeons explains the progression of the disease: “At first it will cause headaches, aching muscles and maybe itching. But in the late stages, when the parasites have invaded the brain, the signs become more obvious and ominous. Victims find it hard to concentrate. They become irritable, their speech is slurred and they stop eating. Their daily rhythm becomes disrupted to such an extent that they can’t sleep at night and find it almost impossible to stay awake during the day. It even becomes very hard for them to do simple mental tasks, such as drawing a straight line. This is an infection that carries nightmarish qualities, reducing many of its victims to a zombie-like state before they go into a coma and die. Those that do survive can be left with irreparable brain damage.” Sounds pretty terrible, doesn’t it? Here is a video that outlines some of the problems that doctors experience with this disease, but the symptoms that the doctor outlines are in line with the description of a zombie.

Another disease that everyone should recognize as a zombie-like disease is that of leprosy. Lepers are probably the most historically recognizable case of the “walking-dead.” They are experiencing necrosis of the dermal layer. Literally, lepers skin is falling off. What does it look like in its advanced stages? Prepare yourself for some true suffering. There is a reason people are terrified of leprosy and consider it a biblical disease. The modern zombie is often depicted more like a leper than they are the Haitian zombie that we have discussed from above. Look at this video and ponder why we make lepers more akin to our famous horror icon. On a personal note, I am in no way trying to spread fear about lepers; conversely, I am trying to make people aware of the diseases in our world that have been truly demonized.

Finally, there are some cases of animals that pull off a zombie trick of apparent death and rebirth. Here is a final video that showcases the “overwintering” effects of monarch butterflies. Some insects are so proficient at this technique that they are speculated to be able to live for thousands of years if necessary. Here is a website that offers more information about overwintering and insect diapause. See you all next week, start believing and pretty soon, you’ll be seeing.

This week, I thought I would cover one of my favorite mythical creatures: zombies! Now, I know that zombies have become a pretty pop-culture phenomena, but I think that there are some interesting tidbits that warrant a bit of a discussion or further delving. For the sake of this post, I am just going to cover some of the origins of zombie myths and their usage in popular culture. Next week, I will take a closer look at the zombies of voodoo cultures and some of the surprising facts that this culture keeps hidden. First, we have to ask, “What is a zombie?” The first time that it appears in Western literature according to the OED is in 1819 by a Mr. Southey, “In the West Indies and southern states of America, a soulless corpse said to have been revived by witchcraft; formerly, the name of a snake-deity in voodoo cults of or deriving from West Africa and Haiti.” The original term in the Angolan as written by Mr. Southey is the word Nzambi which he translated as a deity. So, how did we get from an islander deity to a variety of other terms? As usual, language tends to borrow a term and use it as they see fit. As I mentioned, this post is going to focus on an overview of the zombie through mythology and popular culture, but you can see that the origins of the zombie come from voodoo traditions.

Moving beyond the origins of the term, we can start looking at other ways that the term zombie was used. Often, I have heard people say, “I feel like a zombie today.” The connotation that the word has means that they are feeling tired and under the weather. They are not feeling “undead,” nor (hopefully) do they have a hankering for human flesh. The original useage of the word comes closer to what we actually think of when we hear the word, “zombie.” But that’s not all that the word has been used to suggest. Many times in our own culture, zombies refer to apathetic people. Phrases have been uttered like, “Men can be made zombies or killed.” Any factory floor has its laborers that have sometimes been described as “zombies.” A repetitive un-thinking task has the ability to “zombify” a person. The key seems to be that though the person is living, they are unable to control their actions and they end up in a state where only the basic functions of life remain to them. They can move, they can work, but they can’t think and speak. One of the more interesting and intriguing artistic expressions of zombies has to be George A. Romero’s use of them. In his hands, the zombie gained an aura of complication. What better metaphor for a modern consumer than a zombie? In the film, Day of the Dead, there is a scene where a doctor is examining zombies and finds that they run on instinct and a will to consume. Even though they do not have the ability to retain what they have consumed, they continue to consume away. In the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004), the zombies seem to be driven by their materialistic lifestyles to the mall where they gather for no other reason that they just seem to want to consume. Whether alive or dead, these zombies are the ultimate symbol of affluenzic drive. They consume even when they don’t need to. Another angle that the zombie fits into artistically is for the unthinking masses. Unlike the consumer, the zombie in this case is one who represents the muscular part of the military-industrial complex. This usage of the term with this connotation was made explicit in Canada during the late 1930s to the mid 1940s when conscripted (drafted) soldiers were utilized for home defense. The term was used in a playfully lugubrious manner to indicate that these soldiers were already dead, they just didn’t know it. The zombie is more than a tool for horror writers and movie makers to entertain us; the symbol has general lasting power and can make a profound statement if viewed with the right attitude and mindset. Here’s a video from Day of the Dead (1985) that brings up some of the interesting possibilities of a zombie-filled world. Do the zombies deserve to be understood? Or should they just be shot and forgot? Take a look:

So what about zombies today? I’m not sure how much of the deep metaphor still survives in popular culture. There are several zombie-marches in which people dress up in major cities and simulate a zombie attack, but they seem to be a case for the zombie as a dress-up activity. Some zombie-marches have been organized around food drives, and I find this better fitted to the symbolism and connotations that go with it. Just as vampire-marches support blood drives, I find it fitting that zombie-marches should forward hunger causes or brain research. Some of the zombie marches have been nothing but a performance art piece, but it is (in this man’s humble opinion) preferable to have a cause at the bottom of the artistic endeavor. Here’s a video of a zombie march for those who have not yet seen such an event:

When the Semantink crew went to the Phoenix Comic-Convention, there was a zombie beauty pageant that judged zombies based on their appearance and behavior. Several spoof movies have been created with zombies as their chief antagonist. Far from being social commentaries, these films use the common horror symbol as a jumping off point for entertainment. Films like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead are perfect examples of zombies being used more for entertainment than as a metaphor for over-consumption or as a critique of war-time efforts. The zombie is clearly a recognizable symbol that will continue to be used in our society. Next week, I’ll look at some of the actual life cases of zombies in voodoo religion and cults. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite zombie quotes of all times; until next week, keep asking questions.