Haitian Zombies - is someone doing the voodoo?

[Ck]

In 1997, The Lancet published a study of three 'zombies', it was reported that the researchers found the first individual to have a severe psychiatric condition called catatonic schizophrenia, which can make a person mute and immobile, the second to have brain damage and epilepsy, and the third individual, a severe learning disability. They added that such people are commonly seen wandering in Haiti and it is possible that belief in zombies became part of Haitian culture as a way to explain the medical condition of these mentally ill individuals and to integrate them into society.

Wade Davis, an ethnobotanist who has studied zombie culture in Haiti tells us that zombies are in fact created by Voodoo priests who are members of the Bizango secret society, which he explains as an hidden other government beneath the surface of Haitian society. Zombification is not random nor for profit or personal vendetta but is the ultimate punishment to someone who has seriously violated the law of the Bizango society. Davis has controversially argued that the chemical tetrodotoxin, obtained from the puffer fish, is the primary active ingredient in "zombie powder". It is also his claim that the powder alone cannot adequately account for nor make a zombie. Davis describes the "set and setting" which is required for the powder to work. 'Set' is the individual's expectation of what the drug will do to him or her, 'setting' is the environment, both physical and social in which the drug is taken. Thus the poison in the powder, which is a psycho-active drug will have different effects depending on who one is and what one's expectations are. In the case of Haitian members of the Bizango sect, they have been socialised to recognise the possibility and process of zombification and are psychologically attuned to the appropriate effects of the drug, i.e. zombification. Zombies are created when a person first falls into a death like trance which is both drug and culturally induced then is revived and kept under the control of the houngan by the use of other drugs.

If Davis is correct in his findings then it is clear that the Bizango sect are somewhat reliant on the people of Haiti being open to suggestion. It reminds me of a time that two lads I know got another one pissed on Appletise by telling him it was cider, he believed so much that he was drunk that he left his car in the pub car park over night and called a taxi to get home. If that's possible on the spur of the moment, I can well believe that stories about zombies and zombie powder that have been passed down from generation to generation have indeed had a great deal of effect. It poses the question, what if someone where to go along and tell them they'd been brainwashed? Would they look upon us as we do those who hang around town centres shouting 'The end is nigh'? or would something more sinister happen?

If you fancy making your own zombie, try this

1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz coconut rum
1/2 oz blackberry schnapps
1/2 oz Blue Curacao
1 oz orange juice (lots of pulp)

It goes a really lurverly green colour!