James Goodridge
Word count :1,158
Real Zombies
By
James Goodridge
Zombies. The living dead are a sub genre of
horror that has been reworked over the decades to
remarkable success in various entertainment mediums.The
rework started with the British movie 28DaysLater(2002)
and its (2007)sequel,comics and graphic novels.Resident
Evil(2002) with its graphic games and later movies,AMC
channels radical hit The Walking Dead(2011)and SYFY
network Z Nation have us all hyped for the coming
zombie apocalypse.And we can not forget World
WarZ(2013) with the spilling of zombie humanity all
over the place.Night of The Living Dead original movies
and subequent remakes have long maintained the
popularity of the genre.The various movie adaptations
of master writer Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend are
this writer’s favorites, Last Man on Earth(Lu’ltimo
uomo della Terra) (1964)with Vincent Price, Omega
Man(1971) with Charlton Heston and Rosalind Cash, the
most recent version I Am Legend(2007) starring Will
Smith are a three way tie for this writer.Whether
sitting in a movie theater,on a couch watching
cable,gaming or reading our favorite author in the
genre,we get a rush and at the end of the
day , we are on the outside looking in to
mythos.But what about the phenomena of REAL ZOMBIES ?
Different cultures of the world and its regions
have their own myths or legends of zombies but for this
piece we will confine and focus on Haiti a historically
proud yet unstable country, the western half of what
was once Hispaniola (President U.S.Grant tried to
purchase the island during his first term for
colonizaion of ex-slaves).Originally called Saint
Domigue the island was ceded over from Spain to
France.Importing slaves from west Africa the French
from 1697to the 1790’s were able to export 100 million
tons of sugar per year. Tactics used subjugate the
slave population from any ideas of revolt consisted
of,nailing a slave to a tree by he or shes
ears,covering slave bodies with molasses to attract
ants and the “blasting of black ass” which consisted
of shoving gun powder up a slaves anus and igniting
it.During the 1740’s slave revolts were especially
horrific to the French because of a method ,by run
away slaves or Maroons hidden up in the mountains ( a
plantation owner would never venture up alone
into the mountain regions of the island)which was to
poison livestock, people and soldiers by adding Datura
stramonium or zombie cucumber (in the United States it
is named jimsonweed). Add the pufferfish( Tetraodonite)
with the zombie cucumber and you have a lethal
combination, that could also be used for mind
control,if administered in small amounts.
(2)
After the French were driven out of Haiti and the
island self partitioned along race (Haiti /Dominican
Republic) Haiti was ruled during the 19th century by a
series of Emperors and Presidents.Secret societies
established themselves practicing voodoun or voodoo led
by houngan or voodoun priests. It is said that Baron
Samedi the voodoo deity Himself ruled during these
times promising the living dead an ever lasting heaven
back in Africa.Noted Afro Occultist Rollo Ahmed (son of
a Egyptian father and British west Indian mother)
briefly mentions another African connection to voodoun
in his book the Black Art(1936)the Obeah or Obeah-men
and their satanic rituals , wholesale poisoning and
sorcery. Mr. Ahmed’s book is a fascinating read along
with Unsolved (2000) by the brothers Colin & Damon
Wilson. The U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934
(think of Iraq but less intense)by marines made this
country aware of zombies or zombification.An icon of
the Harlem renaissance movement,writer, folklorist and
ethnographer Zora Neale Hurston may have been the first
to document a zombie:October 1936 a naked woman is
walking aimlessly along a road in a section of Haiti
called the Artibonite valley.The woman is identified
as a Ms. Felicia Felix-Mentor who had passed away at
twenty nine.Doctors examining her a found a strange
disputatious issue in That an x-ray that should have
shown a broken bone in her leg from Ms. Mentor’s youth
showed nothing.Ms. Hurston stated that Ms.Mentor had “a
blank face with dead eyes and her eye lids white as if
burned by acid”. The Artbonite valley was yet again the
scene of another zombie incident:A young man by the
name of Clairvius Narcisse dies in an area hospital of
a fever the year 1962. In 1980 a man found wandering
the country side is identified as Clairvius by his
sister Angelina. According to Clarvius he had been
zombified by his brother as revenge over a land
dispute.Put to work , it was not until his master died
that he was able to escape, although Max Beauvoir
supreme vodoun of the Bizangos society stated most
likely Narcisse was turned into a zombie because of
his carousing and Casanova type ways. The leading
expert on zombies today is author Wade Davies who's
book the Serpent & The Rainbow (1985)is consider the
go to book on the subject.More recently you can view
Mr. Davies and his theories by going to You
Tube and put in search for Hamilton’s Pharmacopia from
November 2012. Hamilton Morris is best explained as a
gonzo journalist second coming of Hunter S. Thompson.He
has a six part show about zombies (WARNING IF YOU DO
NOT LIKE VIOLENCE AGAINST ANIMALS SKIP THE FIRST PART)
the zombie in the locked room is classic.
(3)
Its September 2010 morning rush hour in mid- town
Manhattan,me and my co-workers from the over night
shift at the Jacob Javits Convention Center( to use an
old phrase the JJCC is a hot bed of paranormal
activity in its own right but thats another story for
I guess ghost month) we turn on to 7th avenue and 34th
st.and run into a stroke of genius of marketing. About
twenty zombies of different sizes, shapes and colors
are zombie Walking up and down the block and standing
on top of prop cars and by the way handing out goodies
to herald the premier of AMC’s The Walking Dead next
month , in front of Madison Square Garden/ Penn Station
to the delight, derision and indifference of
commuters.Even in broad day light and rush hour you
could see the unease on some people’s faces when
encountering the faux zombies, I myself was being
zombie walked/followed by one who resembled the lead
singer of The Spin Doctors which was fun until we got
to 31st street which is a little past MSG/Penn
station,which started the little voice of unease in
my mind."The joke has went too" far voice all we have.
but the faux zombie,faux spin doctor finally gave up
and ambled back to his zombie work area. This writer
feels,real zombies are what I theorize as “stand alone
events”, in that some incident based in fact that
happened ions ago, gets plied on wilh debatable events
as time goes on and becomes muddled.This is life's
mystery.
Yes ?