Of all the strange fads and trends that have been growing over the years, zombies have recently become a popular topic in today's culture. Ever since the 2004 remake of George A. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" the theme of zombies has exploded into society. With movies such as "Land of the Dead" and "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", video games releases like "Stubbs the Zombies" and "Dead Rising", and even zombie-themed bands like Eau Claire's The Dead Romance, it is obvious that the popularity of zombies has drastically increased over the years. But what are the origins of these re-animated corpses? Where do the stories come from? What exactly is a zombie and what causes a person to become one? In this essay I plan to research the cause of zombies.

Before I go any further, I will have to explain the difference between real zombies and the ones popularized today. Zombies and the undead have existed in many different religions and folklores but it wasn't until the 1968 thriller "Night of the Living Dead" that they were revealed to the general public. Although this movie was a big hit considering its low budget, the theme of zombies in most other movies at this time was often restricted to b-movie and underground cult films like "Astro Zombies" in 1969 and "Dead Alive" in 1993. In recent years, however, zombie-themed movies have become increasingly successful. Since then, zombies have managed to create their very own subculture.

In 2003, author Max Brooks published The Zombie Survival Guide, a survival manual that supposedly would be useful in the event of an actual zombie uprising. On September 9th, 2006, over 300 people, including several of my friends, gathered in South Minneapolis dressed in torn clothes and fake blood for Minnesota's first annual "Zombie Pub Crawl". Although this was the first large zombie-related gathering in Minnesota, there have been many others similar to this all over the country including Boston, Massachusetts and Madison, Wisconsin. Video clips of these Zombie Walks have become available for viewing on the website YouTube.com.

The rise of zombie popularity is no big secret but what many people don't realize is that there are real zombies that exist in the world today. Stories of the undead have existed in many worldwide cultures. The ancient Sumerian story The Epic of Gilgamesh makes mention to the dead returning to life. An excerpt from the text reads:

"Father, give me the Bull of Heaven,
So he can kill Gilgamesh in his dwelling.
If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven,
I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the doorposts, and leave the doors flat down,
And will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living!"

There are even parts of the Bible that refer to undead souls rising from their graves. In Mathew 27: 51-53 it reads "At that moment the curtain of the temples was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people." A simple dictionary definition of a zombie is "the body of a dead person given the semblance of life but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose." An undead corpse that eats human flesh has become the accepted definition of a zombie, but I want to define what a "real" zombie actually is. I don't know much about them except that they are originally related to voodoo.

Zombies originate from the religion called Voodoo (also known as Vodoun). Although Vodoun first began in Africa, it came into the Caribbean during the transatlantic slave trade. Vodoun is a spiritual belief structure that involves one supreme god and a host of spirits called the Loa. These spirits are divided into two main groups called the Rada and the Petro. The Rada are usually very mild and helping spirits while the Petro tend to be more dangerous and often harmful. These spirits also represent the two sides of Vodoun. A voodoo priest who would use his magic for healing or bringing good fortune would be called a Mambo. A Bokor, however, is a priest who performs "left-handed Vodoun" which involves black magic and evil spells. This is the side of Vodoun where zombies come from. A "zombie" by Haitian definition means "spirit of the dead".

Perhaps the biggest Hollywood misconception about zombies is that they are dead bodies that have returned to life. In reality, zombies are not dead but merely mindless automatons. In Haitian folklore, zombies are human beings who have had their soul stolen by a Bokor and are forced to work as will-less slaves. They are usually placed under a spell or given a special potion which causes them to enter a death-like state. In this state, the victim's heart rate would drop to a near stop, their breathing pattern would decrease severely, and their body temperature would be greatly reduced. Thinking that they had actually died, the public would bury them. They would then later be dug up by the Bokor and reawakened as a mindless drone without any memory of their past. Because of the death-like state induced by the Bokor, it was often thought that the victim had risen from the grave when they were seen after the zombification process. While most people refuse to believe it, zombies are not uncommon in Haiti. It has even considered a crime to turn people into zombies.

In article 249 of the Haitian Penal Code, it reads "it shall also be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made against any person of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the person had been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows." While the practice of Bokors turning people into zombies is considered to be magic, zombie-ism is actually caused by several powerful drugs.

One account of an actual zombie can be traced back to Haiti to a man named Clairvius Narcisse. The story says that in 1962, Narcisse was sold to a zombie master by his brothers. After his apparent "death" of poisoning, Narcisse was buried and later dug up by his zombie master and given a drug that turned him into a zombie. He was forced to work on his master's sugar plantation with other zombies. In 1964, his master died and Narcisse mindlessly wandered the island for 16 years until around 1980 when the drug began to finally wear off. He eventually made his way back to his village where his family and members of his community identified him immediately as Clairvius Narcisse.

Although most of the sources that I have researched have given a very vague description of this story, a book titled The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis investigates this story more thoroughly. Wade Davis is a noted anthropologist and ethnobotanist who had focused on the study of customs and beliefs of certain indigenous tribes in North and South Africa. When he had heard the story of Clairvius Narcisse, Davis traveled to Haiti to investigate. According to Davis's book, Clairvius Narcisse was having a dispute with his family around the time of his death. Narcisse had been doing well financially but refused to share any of the profit with his family. After many fights between Narcisse and his family, he was eventually sold to a Bokor by one of his brothers. Narcisse was somehow poisoned by the Bokor and began to suffer from tremendous physical illnesses. His oldest sister Angelina stated that he had been sick with nausea, malnutrition, and a high fever for nearly a year. When he was checked into the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, his condition worsened as he developed respiratory problems and eventually fell into a coma. On May 2nd, 1962, he was pronounced dead.

But the poison given to Narcisse by the Bokor had not actually killed him; rather, it put him in a near-death coma. After his "death", Narcisse entered a hallucinogenic state. He says that the last thing he remembers was floating above his coffin before hearing the voice of the Bokor call out to him. When he was exhumed, he was then severely beaten and force-fed a substance called "concombre zombi". This caused him to enter a state of delirium and also caused amnesia. It was then that Narcisse began his new life as a will-less zombie slave, without any memory of his past life.

This is just one of the many cases of zombie-ism in Haiti. Now that I have defined what an actual zombie is and separated fact from fiction, I will answer the main question of this research paper: What causes people to become zombies? Clairvius Narcisse was given a drug that caused him to enter a death-like state and after he was exhumed by his Bokor, he was given another drug which caused confusion, disorientation, and amnesia. Followers of the Vodoun religion say that "Zombie Powder" and the "Zombie Cucumber" are what cause people to become zombies.

The first drug given to Clairvius Narcisse was the substance called Zombie Powder and is known to contain a toxin called tetrodotoxin. According to the Food and Drug Administration, tetrodotoxin is an extremely potent poison found in puffer fish which works in three stages. The first stage begins as a slight numbness in the lips and mouth. Eventually the victim will experience sensations of lightness or floating along with symptoms of nausea, headache, epigastric pain, and high fevers. These were all symptoms that Clairvius Narcisse felt when he checked into the Albert Schweitzer Hospital. The second stage causes a person's body to go completely numb, although they will be able to hear and see what is happening around them very clearly. In the third stage, the victim dies of respiratory failure. If ingested, the toxin will surely kill the victim, but if it is applied to the skin there's at least a 50 percent chance of surviving. With this in mind, Narcisse was most likely poisoned by having the drug lightly brushed on his skin by the Bokor. This also explains how he could have been buried and dug up without having really died. Narcisse himself states that he actually heard himself pronounced dead by the physicians.

The second drug that Narcisse was given after he had been dug up was called "Concombre Zombi" which translates as "Zombie Cucumber". An article in the 1987 edition of ChemMatters says that the Zombie Cucumber is a paste made from datura stramonium. Also known as Loco Weed, Thorn Apple, and Angel's Trumpet, datura stramonium contains atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine. Atropine weakens the body's muscles and glands, hyoscyamine causes restlessness and dizziness, and scopolamine induces delirium and amnesia. All of these symptoms are congruent with how a Haitian zombie has been defined and how Narcisse had been described when he was under the power of the Bokor. Continued doses of the Zombie Cucumber would keep a zombie docile and under control during their new life as a slave.

With the knowledge gained about the ingredients and effects of Zombie Powder and the Zombie Cucumber, I have concluded that zombies are no miraculous phenomenon and that they are created by plausible and believable means. Although I have demonstrated the difference between a Hollywood zombie and a real Haitian zombie, there are still a few things I need to clear up about them.

In fiction, zombies are cannibalistic, have superior strength, and cannot die. The mistaken belief that zombies eat human flesh most likely comes from the fact that Vodoun zombies originate in Africa and certain indigenous African tribes are cannibals. Since a Vodoun zombie would be used as a slave, their zombie master would only feed them enough to keep them alive. Because of the lack of food, the zombies would be in a constant weakened state to prevent any uprisings. Since many people think that zombies are already dead, they assume that they cannot be killed but because real zombies are not actually dead, they can be killed by any conventional means (although the effects of the Zombie Cucumber will subdue most pain inflicted upon them).

In conclusion, this research paper was not so much based around actually proving zombies exist as much as it was simply separating fact from fiction. The idea of the walking dead has existed for centuries. Because of certain phobias about the uncertainty of what happens after death, zombies will always present an interesting and terrifying topic.