Zombies have become a significant part of pop culture. They are a popular choice of bad guys in movies and television series. Hollywood has depicted these creatures as flesh-eating villains that raise fear among the people. Most people do not realize that this description of zombies is inaccurate and rather an extreme exaggeration of their origin. The roots of the zombie come from the Vodou religion and Afro-Haitian culture. The practice of the Vodou religion originates in Africa. The name comes from Vodun, the God of the Yoruba people, who occupied the African kingdom of Dahomey in the 18th and 19th centuries. Vodou spread west in the early 19th century, when African slaves were forcefully shipped to Haiti and other islands of the West Indies. When the slaves arrived, they were baptized into Roman Catholicism, but it was difficult to maintain their faith due to the lack of Christian infrastructure at the time. The slaves reverted to their roots and secretly practiced Vodou while still attending mass. The Roman Catholic influence still remains present today and it is not uncommon for a person who practices Vodou to worship the Christian God. The Vodou religion has managed to gain a bad reputation through inaccurate publications and various media sources. These sources portray it as an evil religion that engages in human sacrifice, cannibalism, and torture. However, these descriptions are actually false. Vodou is considered a cult religion, which simply refers to their system of ritual worship and possession. “Rituals of animal sacrifice as well as trance dances forge and maintain a bond with the gods” (Van Voorst, 2013, p. 55). These rituals are performed are performed by current members as well as initiates who are first being introduced. It is estimated that 80-90% of Haitians practice Vodou. Vodou also has a dark side which involves their beliefs about death. According to Vodou belief, people die in one of two ways, naturally or unnaturally. A natural death is a result of sickness or God’s will. Unnatural death refers to an early death, generally caused by murder or suicide. The slaves often succombed to this type of death. The fate of an unnatural death stems heavily from Haitian culture. “Haitian culture—like many African cultures—is heavily steeped in belief in magic and witchcraft” (Radford, 2012). When a person dies of unnatural causes, they linger in the grave and are unable to join their ancestors until they receive approval from the gods. “Souls are vulnerable during this time: their will may be snatched up by a powerful sorcerer (boko) and locked in a bottle which the boko uses to control their un-dead but un-living body” (“Haiti and the Truth About Zombies”, n.d.). Bokos do not always use their body and sometimes just uses their soul. The reanimated body has become known as a zombie. African scholars believe that the word zombie came from the word nzambi, the Kongo word meaning “soul” and later became zonbi as the Vodou religion grew in Haiti. The Haitian attitude towards the Vodou zombie is also different than the attitude towards the media created zombie. The media’s version of a zombie feeds on human flesh and is feared by the living. Haitians do not fear zombies as they do not attack other people. Instead, they are afraid of becoming zombies against their will. While an unnatural death may occur due to varying circumstances, bokos will sometimes kill a man to make a zombie. They fear this unnatural death and being forced into slavery, which is the worst possible life for Afro-Haitian people. When a person becomes a zombie, they lose their soul to a boko. They become mindless and under the boko’s complete control. The zombie is often forced to perform manual labor and sometimes black magic or other evil intentions. Not all Vodou practicing Haitians believe in zombies. “Most see zombies as a metaphor for hard life without reward, a loss of control, or worse—a loss of faith” (“Haiti and the Truth About Zombies”n.d.). Some see it as simply a folktale, while others see it as a strong possibility. There is little evidence to support the actual existence of zombies, but a few strong believers claim their existence to be real and some have even claimed to have been a zombie. In 1980, a man named Clarivius Narcisse, claimed that he died in 1962 and became a zombie who was forced to work as a slave on a sugarcane plantation in Haiti. On April 30, 1962, Narcisse checked himself into a Haitian hospital with various symptoms including tingling sensations, blue lips, fever, body aches, and coughing up blood. A few days later, he was pronounced dead by two attending physicians and his body was confirmed by his older sister. Narcisse was buried the next day. Eighteen years later, one of his other sisters, Angelina, was approached by a man at the marketplace claiming to be Clarivius Narcisse. He had identified himself with a childhood nickname that was only known among immediate family members. Narcisse began to tell a strange story of what happened after his death. “He said that shortly before he was pronounced dead, he felt as if his skin was on fire, with insects crawling beneath it. He heard his sister Angelina weeping as he was pronounced dead, felt the sheet being pulled up over his face” (Hahn, 2007). However, he could not move or speak and remained lucid as they nailed the coffin shut. He claimed that a boko opened his coffin, beat him into submission, and took him to a sugarcane plantation where he worked as a slave for the next two years. He talked about his experience on the plantation including his trance-like state, the other zombies and how the boko would beat them for insubordination. At one point, Narcisse claimed, one of the zombies killed the boko and all the zombies escaped. Narcisse wandered the Haitian countryside for the next 16 years. During this time he sent several letters to his family, but they were all unanswered. Psychologists have evaluated Narcisse to confirm his mental state in relation to his story. They determined that he had no motive to be a fraud as zombies are considered to be outcasts. They also managed to confirm his identity by successfully answering a series of questions about his family. According to Vodou, people become zombies when they die of unnatural causes, but Narcisse supposedly died of sickness which was a natural cause. In reality, he didn’t die at all. His story led to the belief that there was some sort of material explanation. In 1982, a Harvard ethno botanist student, named Wade Davis, took a trip to Haiti in search of a zombie potion. He obtained a zombie powder from several different bokos from different locations. He tested the composition of these powders. Each contained strange ingredients such as human bones, frogs, and sea worms. There was one ingredient that stood out and that was the puffer fish. This “main active ingredient was said to be a neurotoxin which could be used to poison victims into a zombie-like state” (Radford, 2012). The symptoms that Narcisse had suffered in the hospital are all symptoms that can be caused by the neurotoxin in the puffer fish. However, some scientists will argue that the amount of neurotoxin in the powder was not enough to induce a zombie-like state. The powder also contained materials that could produce the itchy, burning sensation Narcisse experienced after being pronounced dead. Davis was also informed by the bokos about the process that the victims go through. They claimed that the victim is beaten into submission and fed Datura which is also known as the zombie cucumber. Datura causes is a hallucinogen that causes delirium, confusion, psychosis, and complete amnesia. The story told to Davis completely paralleled Narcisse’s story of what he experienced.
Every religion has beliefs that are positive and beliefs that they fear. In Vodou, believers fear that a boko will turn them into a zombie. The mystery remains if zombies are real or whether they are folktale. The story described by Narcisse describes the Vodou description of a zombie except for not actually being dead. Davis’s findings provide a more scientific answer. Perhaps the bokos used the Vodou religion as inspiration to create real-life zombies or perhaps the Vodou belief of zombies was inspired by real-life occurrences. Whatever the truth may be, believers have a true reason for their fear. “The Haitian people suffered a long and particularly gruesome history of oppression before overthrowing their French slave masters, and the zombie is the embodiment of their worst fears of depersonalization and loss of liberty” (Hahn, 2007).

References
Brundige, E. (2010). What is Haitian Vodou (Voodoo)? Retrieved from Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/haitian-vodou
Hahn, P. D. (2007, September 4). Dead man walking. Retrieved from Biology Online: http://www.biology-online.org/articles/dead_man_walking.html
Haiti and the truth about zombies. (n.d.). Retrieved from University of Michigan: http://www.umich.edu/~uncanny/zombies.html
Radford, B. (2012, June 4). A history of 'real' zombies. Retrieved from Discovery News: http://news.discovery.com/history/history-zombies-12-6-4.htm
Van Voorst, R. E. (2013). RELG. Mason: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Vodun. (2010). Retrieved from Religious Tolerance: http://religioustolerance.org/voodoo.htm