Zombies: A Practical Guide to the Undead

Zombies...they certainly capture the imagination of the masses. Most have heard about the practice of Zombiism by the bokors of Haiti, who create zombies at the request of folks seeking revenge or cheap slave labor. Some people believe wholeheartedly in zombies and fear an imminent zombi apocalypse. But skeptics persist despite anthropological evidence by the likes of Wade Davis. Yet, are they real?

Read about the origin of zombies, types of zombies, how to survive a zombie attack, zombi symbolism, Hollywood zombies, great zombie books, zombie movies, zombie games, zombie powers, how to become a zombie, the pharmacology of zombiism, edible zombies, how to fight a zombie hoard, zombi lexicon, photos of real zombies and real zombie cases, Violette - the Zombie Child of New Orleans and much more!

Both real and imagined, this Zombie lens has it all!

Mapping zombies via Oxford Internet Institute

New Orleans is a city with a long lurid history of death, decadence and debauchery. it has no shortage of haunted stories and is truly one of the most haunted cities in America.

Purloined Stories and Early Tales of Old New Orleans is written for the true lover of the supernatural history of this famous city known the world over for its haunted locations and legends of werewolves, ghosts, and of course, ZOMBIES. Pustanio tells the stories as someone who has witnessed much of the phenomenon, and has interviewed eyewitness accounts of unexplainable events.

According to Pustanio, "There are hundreds of fascinating and frightening tales that come down to us from the days of Old New Orleans and though they all puzzle us, only a few of them actually reach out and touch our present-day lives in a real way. Among these tales, one of the most tragically gruesome, is that of Little Violette (pronounced Vee-oh-lay), whose name is forever associated with the epithet “The Zombie Child.”

And then, there's the story, The Death Mask of the Zombi King. "As soon as they knew for certain that the body of Squire John had been buried, the two opportunistic hoodoo men had put their plan in motion, a plan with but one purpose - to retrieve the body of the great Zombi King.

After allowing a week to pass for the sensation of the event and the gossip about it to die down, the hoodoo men at last determined the perfect night for their nefarious deed and assembling the simple tools of the grave robber, they went out into the humid darkness in search of their prize.

The criminal’s burying ground was a dark and gloomy place; even at high noon on the brightest New Orleans day, a pall hung over the place, mixing with the miasma of swamp rot and decomposing bodies. Its location, so near the promenade of the Esplanade, offended many people, but since the earliest days it had been there, a repository for criminals, miscreants, excommunicates, and the unsanctified dead.

A zombie or zombi is an animated human body devoid of a soul. In contemporary versions these are generally reanimated or undead corpses, which were traditionally called "ghouls." Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodoun.

According to the tenets of Voodoo, a dead person can be revived by a bokor or Voodoo sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Voodoo snake god Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kongo word nzambi, which means "god." There also exists within the voudon tradition the zombi astral which is a human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie

1.Philosophical: Found in literature on philosophy and consciousness, these zombies appear to be normal human beings, yet they are completely devoid of subjective consciousness. They sort of shuffle around like they are on a heavy dose of Thorazine.

2. Haitian zombies were once normal people, but underwent zombification by a "bokor" or voodoo sorcerer, through spell or potion. The victim then dies and becomes a mindless automaton, incapable of remembering the past, unable to recognize loved ones and doomed to a life of miserable toil under the will of the zombie master. Voodoo zombies are of three varieties:

# ZOMBI ASTRAL - an aspect of the soul that can be transmogrified at the discretion of its possessor

# ZOMBI CADAVRE - a flesh zombie, which can be made to work

# ZOMBI SAVANE - a former zombie, someone who has gone to ground, became a zombie and later returned to life.

3. Chemical: empowered by some sort of toxic waste/chemical.

4. Radioactive: brought to life through the clever or accidental use of nuclear energy.

5. TechnoZombie: Dead corpse animated by means of some sort of technology that usually goes haywire.

6. ElectroZombie: a freak electrical storm/accident causes the dead to rise.

7. The Infected: a rogue microorganism/virus that causes the living to act a lot like Chemical zombies.

8. OCD zombies: These undead come back for a very specific reason. To finish something they started. Once the task is completed, they usually R.I.P.

9. HellSpawn: the dead are usually controlled by a spirit/demon/evil entity.

10. AlienControl: ET's use the legions of the dead to do something dastardly to the living.

11. Cursed: The afflicted are undead until the curse is broken.

12. Hollywood zombies: Originate in Hollywood B movies; they are dead, but "reanimated". One can recognize them by the slow and clumsy walk and the dull expression of their eyes. Totally absent, they seem to follow the sole quest of of human flesh.

Source:

http://www.squidoo.com/zombie

http://zombies.monstrous.com/hollywood_zombies.htm

Photo: http://zombies.monstrous.com/zombie_tales.htm

• LOUP GAROU - werewolf; the bizango roaming queen is supposed to be a loup garou.
• DJAB - Devil, evil force, baka
• MANG� MOUN - "to eat people", and euphemism for killing someone
• PWIN - the magic force invoked to carry out the wishes of a witch or of the bizango society
• REINE VOLTIGE - the roaming queen, known to be a werewolf; the four reines voltiges carry the sacred coffin during bizango processions.
• SHANPWEL - a term used in reference to secret societies; misused as a synonym for bizango, but more properly applied to the bizango's members
• TETRADOXIN - a neurotoxin found in blowfish and other animals, whose effect is to block nerve signals by stopping the transportation of sodium ions at cells
• ZOMBI ASTRAL - an aspect of the soul that can be transmogrified at the discretion of its possessor
• ZOMBI CADAVRE - a flesh zombie, which can be made to work
• ZOMBI SAVANE - a former zombie, someone who has gone to ground, became a zombie and later returned to life.
• CIANOSE - blue skin tone caused by oxygen deprivation

Canadian ethnobotanist, Wade Davis, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), induced a 'death-like' state because of tetrodotoxin (TTX), its key ingredient. Tetrodotoxin is the same lethal toxin found in the Japanese delicacy fugu, or pufferfish. At near-lethal doses (LD50= 5-8g/kg)[2], it can leave a person in a state of near-death for several days, while the person continues to be conscious. The second powder, composed of dissociatives like datura, put the person in a zombie-like state where they seem to have no will of their own. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. There remains considerable skepticism about Davis's claims,[3] and opinions remain divided as to the veracity of his work,[citation needed] although there is wide recognition among the Haitian people of the existence of the "zombie drug". The Voodoon religion being somewhat secretive in its practices and codes, it can be very difficult for a foreign scientist to validate or invalidate such claims.

Photo by Mila Zinkova. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

A discussion of zombie symbolism could require the writing of a thesis. However, there are four main themes present with the zombie archetype:

1. Death. To be confronted with a zombie is to be confronted with our own mortality. Humans go to great lengths to obscure the remains of our dead, especially our loved ones. Our dead are made up and dressed up to hide the ugliness of decomposition. Zombies remind us that no one will escape the inevitable death experience.

2. The Unknown Familiar. In many zombie movies, we see the transformation of a friend, brother, sister, mother, or father into a decayed, rotten walking death that attacks and devours. All familiarity is lost when the loved one dies and comes back to life; all morality vanishes and is replaced by taboos such as cannibalism and incest.

3. Monster of Modern times. The Night of the Living Dead was one film that provided an existential mockery of the horror and utter lack of regard for human life apparent in the Viet Nam war in the 1960s. Zombies reflected the same motiveless and absurd gruesome behavior and carried on in the same nihilistic fashion as was perpetuated by this senseless war.

3. Power and Exploitation. Zombies are easily worked by their owners for long hours and are often seen exploited in this fashion in zombie movies. Zombies of the Haitian variety illustrate a loss of conscious control and free will, and thus, a reduction to the level of animal. Deprived of their humanity by their master, they are forced into slavery through exploitation.

4. Apocalypse. Movies reflect the consciousness of the culture in which they are produced. Japan had Godzilla in the wake of nuclear attack; we had zombies that appeared at the height of the Cold War paranoia. Due to the decadence of humankind, zombies struck a society spiritually void and consumed by violence. Unlike the Godzilla archetype of a great strange "other" bringing death and destruction to the innocent, zombies are the manifestation of the personal and collective shadow of a society that is capable of perpetuating such devastation. One by one, friends and loved ones are zombified, and their numbers increase exponentially until we are all consumed by a psychic, spiritual, and physical plague of our own making.

http://zombies.monstrous.com/symbolism.htm#exploit...

Other more macabre versions of zombies have become a staple of modern horror fiction, where they are brought back from the dead by supernatural or scientific means, and eat the flesh (or the cerebral matter) of the living. They have very limited intelligence, and may not be under anyone's direct control. This type of zombie, often referred to as a Romero zombie for the filmmaker that defined the concept, is archetypal in modern media and culture.

Zombies are very popular in horror- and fantasy-themed entertainment. They are typically depicted as mindless, shambling, decaying corpses with a hunger for human flesh, usually created or re-animated through scientific means. Fictional zombies have a long history in Western culture, dating back to the 1600s, with many evolutions of the concept from literature to films and beyond. Zombies have appeared in countless films and media.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie

1. Zombies never sleep, and they are incapable of fatigue.
2. Zombies are impervious to pain and require no air to breathe.
3. As the undead, they have an insatiable desire to consume life.
4. They are immune to drugs, poisons, gases, extremes of temperature and pressure, high voltage electricity, suffocation, and drowning.
5. Zombies can suffer great damage to their bodies (including dismemberment) without being adversely affected. Dismembering the legs will render the zombie immobile, but the creature will still continue to subsist. Likewise, decapitation will incapacitate the body, but the head will still "live".
6. Zombies don’t possess any superhuman strength, nor do they have a night vision, a characteristic usually common to undead monsters.
7. Zombies come in disguise and brutally tear you to pieces (Yikes!)
8. Some zombies are also vampires (double yikes!)
9. Zombies can quickly spread their undead scourge through contamination.
10. Zombies are the greatest threat when they present in numbers.

Haitian Penal Code:

Article 249. 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.

The methods of creating and controlling zombies vary among bokors. Some bokors use blood and hair from their victims in conjunction with voodoo dolls to zombify their victims. Others methods of zombification involve a specially prepared concoction of mystical herbs, in addition to human and animal parts (sometimes called "coup padre").

Ingestion, injection, or even a blow dart may be used to administer the potion variety. When these substances come into contact with the victim's skin, bloodstream or mucous membranes, the victim is rendered immobile within minutes, succumbing to a comatose-like state resembling death. The victim retains full awareness as he is taken to the hospital, then perhaps to the morgue and finally buried in a grave.

The bokor then performs an ancient voodoo rite; taking possession of the victim's soul, and replacing it with the loa that he or she controls. The victim's "trapped" soul is usually placed within a small clay jar or some other unremarkable container. The container is wrapped in a fragment of the victim's clothing, a piece of jewelry, or some other personal possession owned by the victim in life, and then hidden in a place of secrecy known only to the bokor.

The bokor raises the victim after a day or two and administers a hallucinogenic concoction, called the "zombi's cucumber," that revives the victim. Once the zombi has been revived, it has no power of speech, its past human personality is entirely absent, and the memory is gone. Zombis are thus easy to control and are used by bokors as slaves for farm labor and construction work. One case in 1918 involved a voodoo priest named Ti Joseph who ran a gang of laborers for the American Sugar Corporation, took the money they received & fed the workers only unsalted porridge. Indeed, giving a zombi salt is supposed to restore its personality, and send it back to its grave and out of the bokor's influence.

Source: http://zombies.monstrous.com/becoming_a_zombie.htm

A team of pathologists examines the corpse of a "zombie" alligator to discover why they die so frequently.

I don't know the source of this list, but if it is yours and you let me know I will gladly credit you.

Okay, I have been informed of the source of this list: http://www.squidoo.com/zombie

Thank you!

• Fire works pretty well.
• Water does not work.
• Small electrical shocks do not work.
• Large electrical shocks work sometimes.
• Dismemberment works on some types (Voodoo, Hellspawn, AlienControl, TheInfected) but not on others.
• Gravity works, but not reliably
• Nuclear weapons almost always work, with a few notable exceptions (see Radioactive Zombie).
• The classic headshot works in every case.
• Punching, Kicking, Hitting, Martial Arts and Biting do not work against zombies.

The manner in which a zombie is destroyed depends on the type of zombie it is.

Hollywood Zombies

Fire. Extreme amounts of electric current. Direct and extreme trauma to the brain, such as driving a bullet, a drill, a long knife, a hammer, or some other blunt object into the creature's skull.

Source: http://www.squidoo.com/zombie

Voodoo Zombie

The proper incantation and treatment of a the zombie artifacts such as the voodoo doll can harm the zombie and even destroy it. He can also be put to final rest through the appropriate voodoo ceremony, which forces the loa from its body. When a zombie tastes either salt or meat, he recovers his past personality and becomes aware of his state, immediately returning to the grave.

Serves 8 to 10

Use a food processor to whip this up in a snap. Follow the steps below and you won't need to rinse the food processor bowl in between steps. After each step, empty the contents of the bowl out and set aside.

Preparation:

Process enough bread to make:

2 cups fresh breadcrumbs

Process until finely chopped then set aside:

1/4 cup parsley with

2 cloves garlic (more if expecting vampires)

Process each separately until coarsely chopped

(not too fine, mixed texture is good), then

place together in large mixing bowl:

3 stalks celery

3 carrots

1 onion

Melt in a large frying pan over medium flame:

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

Add the celery mixture and saut until soft and onions are translucent. Remove from heat to cool.

Method:

In the large mixing bowl, mix in the remaining ingredients below, adding the parsley and garlic and the breadcrumbs. When the vegetables have cooled, add them to the mixture. Note: The only way to really mix this up well is to use your hands-squoosh, squoosh!

1 lb. ground turkey

2 lbs. lean ground beef

1 lb. ground pork sausage

1/2 teaspoon thyme

3/4 teaspoon oregano

3 eggs

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce

3 teaspoons lemon juice

2-3 tablespoons heavy cream

Shape the meatloaf into a Zombie on a large baking sheet or pan with low sides; placing a sheet of aluminum foil in the bottom helps for easy clean up. Lightly grease the surface before adding the meatloaf.

Apply ketchup decoratively before baking.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree F. oven for 1 hour to 1 hour, 10 minutes. Let cool before decorating.

Decorate the Zombie with any of these materials:

* ketchup

* mustard

* fresh parsley

* red, orange, and/or yellow bell peppers

* other decorative foods like slivered blanched almonds, olives, cherry tomatoes, etc.

Hints:

The meatloaf will give off lots of juices as you cook it. For a crisper presentation, we used a separate, clean baking sheet, covered it with parchment paper, then carefully used a large spatula to transfer the cooked Zombie to the clean sheet. The appendages (legs and arms) broke at the joints, but that's not important and can either add effect, or be covered up with ketchup.

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/kgk/2000/1000/me...

The zombie powder formula is based on Wade Davis' report in the Serpent and the Rainbow. It is provided for entertainment value only and is NOT complete. The three main ingredients common to all zombie powders are the following:

Serves: 1

Of course I had to make a Zombie Art doll!

This zombie Voodoo art doll is crafted after the great Voodoo zombie archetype. He is constructed in the traditional New Orleans Voodoo manner out of Spanish moss and sticks, and his head, chest, and hands are handcrafted out of polymer clay and painted. He has an evil eye bead in his head, teeth, and a bit of straggly hair on top of his head. He is wearing a torn spider print shirt. He is self standing and measures 12 inches tall.

This particular zombie has been purchased. To purchase an equally creepy yet awesome zombie, you can contact me for a commission.