The dark history of zombies - Christopher M. Moreman
Animated corpses appear
in stories all over the world
throughout recorded history.
But zombies have a distinct lineage—
one that traces back
to Equatorial and Central Africa.
The first clue is in the word
“zombie” itself.
Its exact etymological origins
are unknown,
but there are several candidates.
The Mitsogho people of Gabon, for example,
use the word “ndzumbi” for corpse.
The Kikongo word “nzambi” refers
variously to the supreme being,
an ancestor with superhuman abilities,
or another deity.
And, in certain languages spoken
in Angola and the Congo,
“zumbi” refers to an object inhabited
by a spirit,
or someone returned from the dead.
There are also similarities
in certain cultural beliefs.
For example, in Kongo tradition,
it’s thought that once someone dies,
their spirit can be housed
in a physical object
which might bring protection
and good luck.
Similar beliefs about what
might happen to someone’s soul
after death are held
in various parts of Africa.
Between 1517 and 1804,
France and Spain enslaved
hundreds of thousands of African people,
taking them to the Caribbean island
that now contains Haiti
and the Dominican Republic.
There, the religious beliefs
of enslaved African people
mixed with the Catholic traditions
of colonial authorities
and a religion known as “vodou” developed.
According to some vodou beliefs, a
person’s soul can be captured and stored,
becoming a body-less “zombi.”
Alternatively, if a body isn’t properly
attended to soon after death,
a sorcerer called a “bokor”
can capture a corpse
and turn it into a soulless zombi
that will perform their bidding.
Historically, these zombis were said
to be put to work as laborers
who needed neither food nor rest
and would enrich their captor’s fortune.
In other words, zombification seemed
to represent the horrors of enslavement
that many Haitian people experienced.
It was the worst possible fate:
a form of enslavement that not even
death could free you from.
The zombi was deprived of an afterlife
and trapped in eternal subjugation.
Because of this, in Haitian culture,
zombis are commonly seen as victims
deserving of sympathy and care.
The zombie underwent a transformation
after the US occupation
of Haiti began in 1915—
this time, through the lens
of Western pop culture.
During the occupation, US citizens
propagated many racist beliefs
about Black Haitian people.
Among false accounts
of devil worship and human sacrifice,
zombie stories captured
the American imagination.
And in 1932, zombies debuted
on the big screen
in a film called “White Zombie.”
Set in Haiti, the film’s protagonist
must rescue his fiancée
from an evil vodou master who runs
a sugar mill using zombi labor.
Notably, the film's main object of
sympathy isn't the enslaved workforce,
but the victimized white woman.
Over the following decades, zombies
appeared in many American films,
usually with loose references
to Haitian culture,
though some veered off to involve
aliens and Nazis.
Then came the wildly influential 1968 film
“Night of the Living Dead,”
in which a group of strangers tries
to survive an onslaught
of slow-moving, flesh-eating monsters.
The film’s director remarked that he never
envisioned his living dead as zombies.
Instead, it was the audience who
recognized them as such.
But from then on, zombies became linked
to an insatiable craving for flesh—
with a particular taste for brains added
in 1985′s “The Return of the Living Dead.”
In these and many subsequent films,
no sorcerer controls the zombies;
they’re the monsters.
And in many iterations,
later fueled by 2002′s “28 Days Later,”
zombification became
a contagious phenomenon.
For decades now, artists around the world
have used zombies
to shine a light on the social ills
and anxieties of their moment—
from consumer culture to the global lack
of disaster preparedness.
But, in effect, American pop culture also
initially erased the zombies origins—
cannibalizing its original significance
and transforming the victim
into the monster.
