Magickal Realism

Zombies, in fact, are quite real. A practice originated in Haiti and now carried out in other parts of the Caribbean as one of the consequences of diaspora, zombification is quite arguably a fate worse than death. It is, in Bizango¹ society, a way of handling criminals. If we didn’t have that pesky “cruel and unusual punishment” clause in our Constitution, you can be sure government would look into its application to highly recidivistic criminals. I’m positive that more than one world military has actually looked into this possibility of a sort of processed zombification - it would be quite the diplomatic work around to zombify troublesome international leaders, rather than killing them outright.

A book review of Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie explores loosely the ethnobiological possibilities of zombification. Initially it was believed to come from a toxin inherent in puffer-fish. However, given the actual effects of scopolamine - watch this documentary on it - I suspect perhaps that Devil’s Weed was the drug actually used, possibly in combination with other drugs, but that hell was going to freeze over before it was handed off to someone researching and publishing a how-to on zombification.

Years ago I watched or read a National Geographic documentary about a village in Africa where zombification was a rampant problem; it belies the things I’m finding online about zombies being “rare.” There were several images of real live zombies - zombies that had been returned to families. All too often young girls were zombified to cover up a rape, and there was a neurologist in the US who had made a major breakthrough in getting the zombies to lift their heads and to respond to their own names. I can’t find that particular piece of information anywhere, unfortunately. If someone spots it, let me know.

1. Bizango is an underground Haitian cult. There is very little published on them. [↩]