Zombie
Well, hello there.
Surprise! We’re back.
It’s been months and months since our last episode, and— I’ll be honest— I wasn’t sure if there’d be another one.
A lot has happened since I dropped off the face of the earth. I’ve changed cities and jobs. I bought a new fixer-upper, and I’ve taught myself how to plaster walls and repair drywall. Impressive, right? It’s been a year of changes for me to say the least.
I moved from DC to New Orleans in January, and I landed in my new home city with every intention of continuing the show. But life got in the way. And then, of course, 2020 reared its ugly head, and like everyone else in the world I was caught off guard by the general craziness and shutdown of life as I knew it. I felt stagnated. Stifled… and things just got away from me.
But I never forgot about my beloved figmentals, and more and more I found myself missing the show.
So, here we are.
I’m relaunching the show effective immediately, albeit with some changes to the release schedule. Moving forward, episodes will be released every other Wednesday. And I will do my most very best not to ghost you all again. For that, please accept my deepest apologies.
*INTRO*
This is Fab Figmentals, the podcast that explores the realm of curious creatures, magical monsters, and beautiful beasts.
I’m your host, Lindsey Morse.
Each episode, we dive into the folklore and history of a different legendary creature and share a story about it. And today, in honor of Halloween, and our show being resurrected from the dead, we’ll be looking at zombies.
It seems to me like we’re living in the midst of a sort of zombie renaissance. Right after the turn of the century, all sorts of movies about zombies burst onto the scene, and audiences were bombarded with seemingly endless undead offerings like: Resident Evil, Shaun of the Dead, and 28 Days later, which were followed shortly thereafter by Zombieland, The Corpse Bride, Warm Bodies, World War Z, and The Walking Dead.
Most of these modern imaginings envision zombies in more or less the same way: undead corpses, reanimated dead bodies that now wander the earth in search of… BRAINS. Or, perhaps, simply blood and flesh.
But the concept of zombies has been around for far longer than Hollywood has been making movies, and for today’s episode I’d like to go back in time to look at the zombies of folklore.
The first mention of a zombie-like creature can be traced all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia.
The Mesopotamians were polytheistic, and their world was ruled by a number of powerful gods and goddesses who appeared in various myths and legends. Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love, beauty, sex, war, and power, is featured in a famous story that tells of her descent into and out of the underworld. While on her journey, she gets t.o.’ed and issues this sensational warning:
If you do not open the gate for me to come in,
I shall smash the door and shatter the bolt,
I shall smash the doorpost and overturn the doors,
I shall raise up the dead and they shall eat the living:
And the dead shall outnumber the living!
Definitely sounds like she’s threatening the zombie apocalypse, right? Don’t mess with Ishtar.
From ancient Mesopotamia, the idea of the ambulating undead pops up here and there throughout history, but it lays down roots in Haiti.
According to Haitian folklore, zombies are most often created by a Voodoo sorcerer or witch, known as a bokor. The bokor serves both good and evil, and uses black magic necromancy to revive the dead. Once life has been breathed back into a corpse, the zombie is under the bokor’s spell and becomes his personal slave.
Interestingly, the Haitian tradition also includes a different kind of zombie. Instead of the first kind, where a body exists without a governing soul, the second type, a “zombie astral,” is best described as a soul without a body. In this case, the bokor might coax out part of the human soul and trap it in a bottle. The “zombie astral” might then be sold to a client as a sort of good luck charm, or kept by the bokor to enhance his power.
During the United States Occupation of Haiti that took place from 1915-1934, whispers of purported zombies began to emerge, and they captured widespread international attention.
The first person to publish a book about this fascinating phenomenon was William Seabrook.
Originally from Maryland, Seabrook's life and travels took him all over the world, and he can be described as an explorer, writer, occultist, and cannibal. No, you don’t need to adjust your listening device: I said cannibal. And I suppose that deserves a followup story. Well, I promise we’ll circle back later.
For now, let’s let Seabrook share a tale of his travels in Haiti. Today’s story is an excerpt from his 1929 novel, The Magic Island. We’re going to hear Seabrook’s account of a conversation with a local named Polynice, who has some remarkable things to say about happenings around the island. Please note that I’ve made some edits for length, content, and clarity.
Please remember that the stories we share on this program are often more Brothers Grimm than Mother Goose; they may not be appropriate fro little ears.
Now, let’s head to Haiti.
*****
Polynice was a Haitian farmer, but he was no common jungle peasant.
He was interested in helping me toward an understanding of the tangled Haitian folklore, and he and I sat late in his doorway, talking of fire-hags, demons, werewolves, and vampires, while a full moon, rising slowly, flooded his sloping cotton fields and the dark rolling hills beyond. We came presently to a subject which-though I refused for a long time to admit it-lies in a baffling category on the ragged edge of things which are beyond either superstition or reason -the zombie.
It seemed that while the zombie came from the grave, it was neither a ghost, nor yet a person who had been raised like Lazarus from the dead. The zombie, they say, is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of life-it is a dead body which is made to walk and act and move as if it were alive. People who have the power to do this go to a fresh grave, dig up the body before it has had time to rot, galvanize it into movement, and then make of it a servant or slave, occasionally for the commission of some crime, more often simply as a drudge around the habitation or the farm, setting it dull heavy tasks, and beating it like a dumb beast if it slackens.
Polynice assured me: “At this very moment, in the moonlight, there are zombies working on this island. We know about them, but we do not dare to interfere so long as our own dead are left un molested. If you will ride with me tomorrow night, I will show you dead men working in the cane fields.
The Haitian-American Sugar Company is an immense factory plant, dominated by a huge chimney, with clanging machinery, steam whistles, freight cars. It lies in the eastern suburbs of Port-au-Prince, and beyond it stretch the cane fields. The company makes rum when the sugar market is off, pays low wages, twenty or thirty cents a day, and gives steady work. It is modern big business, and it sounds it, looks it, smells it.
Such, then, was the background for the weird tale Polvnice told me:
The spring of 1918 was a big cane season, and the factory, which had its own plantations, offered a bonus on the wages of new workers. Soon, heads of families and villages from the mountain and the plain came trailing their ragtag little armies, men, women, children, trooping to the registration bureau and thence into the fields.
One morning an old black headman, Ti Joseph, appeared leading a band of ragged creatures who shuffled along behind him, staring dumbly, like people walking in a daze. As Joseph lined them up for registration, they still stared, vacant-eyed like cattle, and made no reply when asked to give their names.
Joseph said they were ignorant people from the slopes of Morne-au-Diable, a roadless mountain district near the Dominican border, and that they did not understand the creole of the plains. They were frightened, he said, by the din and smoke of the great factory, but under his direction they would work hard in the fields. The farther they were sent away from the factory, from the noise and bustle of the railroad yards, the better it would be.
Better indeed, for these were not living men and women but poor unhappy zombies whom Joseph and his wife Croyance had dragged from their peaceful graves to slave for
him in the sun-and if by chance a brother or father of the dead should see and recognize them, Joseph knew that it would be a very bad affair for him...
So they were assigned to distant fields beyond the cross roads, and camped there, keeping to themselves like any proper family or village group; but in the evening when other little companies, encamped apart as they were, gathered each around its one big common pot of savory millet or plantains, generously seasoned with dried fish and garlic, Croyance would tend two pots upon the fire, for as everyone knows, the zombies must never be permitted to taste salt or meat. So the food prepared for them was tasteless and unseasoned.
As the zombies toiled day after day dumbly in the sun, Joseph sometimes beat them to make them move faster, but Croyance began to pity the poor dead creatures- especially in the evenings when she dished out their flat, tasteless dinner.
Each Saturday afternoon, Joseph went to collect the wages for them all, and what division he made was of no concern to the company, so long as the work went forward.
Through February this continued, until Fête-Dieu approached, which meant a Saturday-Sunday-Monday holiday for all the workers. Joseph, with his pockets full of money, went to Port-au-Prince, while Croyance agreed to remain and tend the zombies.
But when Sunday morning dawned, it was lonely in the fields, and her kind old woman's heart was filled with pity for the zombies, and she thought, "Perhaps it will cheer them a little to see the gay crowds and the parades at Croix de Bouquet, and since all the Morne-au-Diable people will have gone back to the mountain to celebrate Fête-Dieu at home, no one will recognize them, and no harm can come of it."
Of course, Croyance also wished to see the festivities. So she tied a new bright-colored handkerchief around her head, aroused the zombies from the sleep that was scarcely different from their waking, gave them their morning bowl of cold, unsalted plantains boiled in water, which they ate dumbly uncomplaining, and set out with them for the town, single file.
They followed her to the market square, and she led the zombies to a spot in the shade, and they sat like people asleep with their eyes open, staring, but seeing nothing, as the bells in the church began to ring, and the parade headed their way.
Croyance knelt with the throng as the procession passed, and wished she might follow it across the square to the church steps, but the zombies just sat and stared, seeing nothing.
As Croyance sat with her savory dried herring and biscuit baked with salt and soda, she pitied the zombies who had worked so faithfully for Joseph in the cane fields, and who now had nothing, while everyone else was feasting.
A vendor approached:
“Tablettes! Tablettes pistaches!”
And Croyance thought, “These tablettes are not salted or seasoned, they are sweet, and can do no harm to the zombies just this once.”
So she untied the corner of her kerchief, took out a coin, and bought some of the tablettes and divided it among the zombies, who began sucking the pieces into their mouths.
But the baker had salted the nuts before stirring them in, and as the zombies tasted the salt, they knew that they were dead and made a dreadful outcry and arose and turned their faces toward the mountain.
Noone dared stop them, for they were corpses walking in the sunlight, and they themselves and all the people knew that they were corpses.
They disappeared toward the mountain.
When Polynice had finished this recital, I said to him, after a moment of silence, "You are a reasonable man, or at least it seems to me you are. Now how much of that story, honestly, do you believe’?"
He replied earnestly: "I did not see these things with my own eyes, but there were many witnesses, and why should I not believe them? For I have certainly seen other zombies. When you also have seen them, with their faces and their eyes in which there is no life, you will not only believe, you will pity them from the bottom of your heart.”
*****
Whew, that’s a creepy one, right? Especially when you consider that this- ostensibly- a work of non-fiction.
If you’d like to read more, I highly recommend picking up a copy of The Magic Island. There’s a recent printing that includes an introduction by George A. Romero, of Night of the Living Dead fame. Check it out.
So, after that story, I think we have to ask: is there any possible way that Polynice’s story is true?
In 1980, a Haitian woman named Angelina Narcisse was approached in the street by a man claiming to be her long deceased brother, Clairvius. She was, of course, initially incredulous, but the man knew things he shouldn’t: childhood nicknames, personal information about her, intimate family secrets… things only her true brother could know. It had to be him.
The story that followed is almost too wild to believe: Clairvius explained that after his burial, he was dug up by a bokor, who administered a potion that revived his body but enslaved his mind. For years, he existed in a zombie-like state and was forced to toil the cane fields alongside other drugged captives.
Crazy, right? But what’s even crazier is that subsequent research has found that it’s possible his story is true.
To begin with, Clairvius’s 1962 death was documented and verified by doctors who examined his body. If he wasn’t actually dead, he was certainly in a state that closely resembled it.
Interestingly, scientists have since identified a combination of psychoactive substances that could have been used to produce just such a near-death state. A voodoo cocktail of pufferfish venom and datura, a poisonous plant indigenous to Haiti that’s known by the locals as “zombie cucumber” could perhaps render a victim comatose and seemingly dead… then, once the person has been roused and awakened, the mix might be recalibrated to produce a zombie-like state. Especially when the intended victim has deeply-held cultural beliefs that zombification is possible. You know what they say about voodoo: it works best on those who believe in its magic.
Before we end today’s episode, let’s circle back to Seabrook, the author of today’s story.
After releasing The Magic Island in 1929, Seabrook decided to turn his attention on African Cannibals. While researching for his 1930 novel Jungle Ways, he traveled to West Africa and took up with a tribe known for eating human meat, and he claimed that he dined with them. Later, however, he confessed that his story was untrue— at least partially. It seems the distrustful tribesmen would not allow him to join their ritual, so instead Seabrook convinced a Parisian hospital to give him a sample of human flesh, which he took home and cooked up himself. Apparently, it tasted like veal.
I don’t know about you, but that story leaves me feeling kinda icky. I certainly do not share Seabrook’s culinary curiosity, and I hope I never get to find out if I agree with his flavor comparison. But who knows… maybe one day… long after I’m dead and gone… I’ll reawaken with an insatiable hunger for human brains.
*****
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fab Figmentals. It’s good to be back.
Research, writing, and sound editing are done by me, Lindsey Morse. Our theme music was created by Graeme Ronald.
Our next episode will be released in two weeks. Make sure to subscribe to the show to get new episodes as soon as they’re available.
Do you have a suggestion for a future episode? Want to say hi— or scold me for leaving you hanging for so long? You can get in touch via our website, FabFigmentals.com, or tweet me @figmentals. I’d love to hear from you.
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Thanks again for listening, and I hope you’ll join me next time, when we’ll be dropping another Halloween-themed episode.
I’ve been combing through my collection of stories to find just the right one, and I’m excited to share that the topic of our next episode will be witches. Scottish witches, bana-bhuidseach, to be exact. And I’m excited to share that Niall Cooper, the host of our sister-show Assassinations Podcast and proud Scot, will be joining us to read Robby Burns’ famous Tam O’Shanter.
We’ll see you next time.