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 ?