Berengaria Presents: Zombie Attack

Some Opening Grunts About Zombies

The History of Zombie Fiction

Think zombie stories are new? Think again!

The first appearance of zombies in literature was in the Bible. In the book of Ezekiel, a vision is described in which the prophet (Ezekiel) is in a boneyard. The bones begin to shake and develop muscles and flesh, but it says 'there was no breath in them', meaning they were not technically alive. Other biblical tales of resurrection in the flesh, such as in the Last Days, might be a reason why zombie are associated with apocalyptic fiction.

More recently, zombies first appeared in non-religious stories all the way back in 1697, but were more like ghosts than the zombies we know today. Those only appeared on screen in 1932 (White Zombie) and finally lurched their way, once and for all, into our the collective conscious in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead.

Why has zombie fiction become so popular? One explanation might be the history of the 20th century, "The Century of Warfare." The perception of violence became one of a large-scale disaster after the world wars and led to an arms race fuelled by a survival of the fittest mentality. A theme which is often found in zombie stories.

African roots

In Haitian folklore only a necromancer or sorcerer can create a zombie, who is reanimated to serve as a slave. There is also a non-corporeal version, the "zombie astral" which is a part of the soul. A necromancer can use these zombie astrals to strengthen their own power, or to be sold as good luck charms to the sorcerer's clients. These two types illustrate a concept of Haitian voodoo called "soul dualism." A zombie is missing one half of their 'soul', either the corporeal or incorporeal.

The roots of zombie beliefs in Haiti are closely tied to the experience of slavery. Slave drivers on plantations, who were often slaves themselves, used the fear of zombification by a necromancer to stop slaves from committing suicide. A voodoo god, Baron Samedi, was thought to collect up deceased slaves from their graves and return them to an afterlife in Africa, unless they offended him in some fashion, in which case he would allow them to become a zombie. In other words, a slave forever.

Possible Scientific and Social Explanations for Real Life Zombies

In 1983, Wade Davis, an ethnobotanist, claimed that a living person could be turned into a zombie by two specific powders entering the blood stream through a wound: coup de poudre (contains the lethal neurotoxin tetrodotoxin) and a mixture of hallucinogenic drugs, such as datura. Combined, these two powders induce a slavish, death-like state which a necromancer could then manipulate.

The process Davis described was a state of suspended animation mimicking death, followed by a re-awakening (typically after burial) into a delusional state influenced strongly by the experience of 'dying' and being buried. The victim is convinced they are dead and culturally speaking, the only explanation for their current situation is that they are a zombie. These cultural beliefs cause the victim to understand themselves as exactly what the necromancer convinces them they are and must do. Or in the absence of a necromancer to frequent graveyards and behave like a zombie, although they are perfectly healthy.

These claims have been heavily criticised, because "symptoms of range from numbness and nausea to paralysis — particularly of the muscles of the diaphragm — unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance" and cannot be upheld for years.

In 1997, a study was published supporting a social explanation of the zombie phenomenon. In Haiti, there is a practice of adoption by grieving families of the homeless or mentally ill people who identify them as their "returned" loved ones. The author, Dr Littlewood, also postulated in his study that people with chronic schizophrenia, brain damage or other mental handicaps are not uncommon in rural Haiti, making low intelligence, slow movements, and singular preoccupation with eating the standard "zombie" traits.

Source: various Wikipedia articles