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| These structures are in a cemetery Haitian seeking to turn the graves in a safe place for the bodies. Even the poorest use large sums of money to fortify their graves. |
"Next to her, the black host of a silent fingers tightly gripping the bottom of a glass of wine that, leaning, was spilling its contents. The horror that gripped overflowed. He took a candle, went to the head that was tilted and fall, and found that the man was dead. She was sitting at the banquet table in the company of four bodies ... "
This completes the story of a voodoo wedding held in the twenties, as I told the American journalist William Seabrook his Haitian friends. The purpose was to convert the corpses into zombies by magic. These zombies were semianimados bodies carrying a twilight life as slaves to the witch who had organized the banquet. (In fact, according to Seabrook account, the wizard could not achieve his goal, so he left, disappearing with him the bodies.)
Only one country in the Western world which can take place so horrible conclusion: Haiti, the birthplace of voodoo.
Does voodoo sorcerers really have the power to reanimate the bodies that have just died? Or is the notion of zombie does not respond to an auto rather than the practitioners of voodoo?
zumbi The word appears in many African languages. In the Congo means "fetish", in Dahomey specifically refers to God Python. Apparently, in modern voodoo uses a snake-goddess to the zombie life according to the wishes of the sorcerer, become owner of the corpse. The rites that are practiced combine aspects of magic and religion in Africa, along with occult elements derived from both western and popular Catholicism.
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| The first black Rulers of Haiti, Toussaint L'Ouverture. |
played Voodoo an important role in the expulsion of the French by Haitians. In August 1791, France was shaken by the revolutionary wave that had begun two years earlier. At first it seemed that things would change much in Santo Domingo, the western third of the Caribbean island of English, the brightest jewel of the French colonial crown. There, 40,000 French controlled half a million black slaves and 30,000 mulattoes and harvesting cotton, sugar, coffee and indigo. The first effect of the riots in France was to improve the plight of Cubans. So dark-skinned Haitians began to scream, with the help of a mysterious priest, warlock named Boukman who had come to Santo Domingo from the British colony of Jamaica.
On August 14, 1791 Boukman met those who would follow him in a remote part of the forest. According to contemporary accounts, thousands of slaves took to the secret paths of the jungle to the meeting place under a huge tropical storm that had to add even more horror to acts that followed. Boukman
held a blood ritual, sacrificing a pig and calling on all who would be free that they drank the warm blood. The ceremony ended with a wild dance of "divine intoxication", which participants completed disappeared back into the jungle. The ritual, as a whole, had a close resemblance to the activities of the Mau Mau war for independence in Kenya in the fifties of this century, and the result was similar. During the following days most of the large plantations were razed, and the owners murdered. Although most courageous French settlers remained there for 12 years, the final outcome of the evening meeting was the complete defeat of the French and the establishment, under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture President , the independent black republic Haiti, the birthplace of voodoo. According to the beliefs of the peasantry Haiti and parts of the educated elite, it was also the land of the zombies.
The zombie is a slave to an evil sorcerer, known by the name of Bokor, that is who draws from his tomb and buried the body just a shadow who gives life by certain spells. However, it is an incomplete existence: the zombie eats, breathes, excretes, hears and even speaks, but he remembers nothing of his past life and does not understand anything about their own present condition. In other words, a zombie is a robot from flesh and blood, a biological machine.
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| A suit and a black hat, placed on the cross of a grave, burial garments represent the Baron Samedi, a voodoo god of death. |
The Haitian peasant, always alert for any evil or dangerous aspect of voodoo, is able to discover a zombie for several signs. The lurching zombie walk normally, perform physical actions in a mechanical way, has a frosted look and focus, and speaks in a nasal voice. This last feature, particular, is associated with death in the folklore of Haiti, probably due to the habit of plugging the nostrils with cotton bodies. The guedé (claims and lascivious gods of death of the voodoo pantheon) are characterized by speaking in this way. When a voodoo cult devotee is possessed by a guedé , always talks with nasal intonation. Another relationship between the zombies and the gods of death is given by the fact that one of the most famous gods, Captain Guedé , sometimes also known as the man of Captain Zombie.
Almost all Haitians fear the possibility that their deceased relatives can be transformed into walking corpses. In Haiti today can easily see more of the preventive measures taken to prevent it. For example, even the most humble peasants into debt to cover the graves with heavy slabs of their closest relatives. In rural areas, the graves are dug so close to a highway or road, for witches, for fear of prying eyes, unable to carry out their nefarious task.
In other cases, the deceased's family will watch the tomb during nights in a row until they are convinced that the body is sufficiently broken and no longer useful to Bokor. Occasionally, the dead are buried directly in the backyards of farmers.
who fear a special way to witchcraft more extreme precautions taken to prevent the dead from entering the misty semimundo zombies. Inject venom into the body, mutilated with a knife, or shoot him to "finish him off." A less drastic precaution is to place the tomb needles and spools of thread, as well as thousands of tiny sesame seeds. The belief is that the spirit of the dead will be so busy with the task of threading the needle and count the seeds, you will not hear the voice that tells you to leave the tomb. Another measure is to put a knife in the hands of the dead, so you can defend.
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| A voodoo priestess, staring, possessed by a mystical frenzy. Just bite the head of a chicken, his shirt is stained with blood. |
Sometimes witches
control large groups of zombies, and on occasion have gone so far as to rent them as workers. One such case was recorded by William Seabrook.
In 1918 sugar harvest was extraordinary. The Hasco ( Haitian-American Sugar Corporation , Haitian-American Company of sugar) offered new jobs in large plantations. Soon came to the employment offices of the company small groups of villagers, sometimes entire families. It was customary for the inhabitants of one village collective work more representative the person receiving the wages of all, who then distributed back home.
One morning, an old village chief named Ti Joseph and his wife Croyance taken to the offices of Hasco a group consisting of nine men and tattered rags. Joseph explained that this was a backward and ignorant farmers from a remote mountainous area near the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. They spoke an odd dialect of rural, and did not understand or Creole or French. Despite this disadvantage, he said, were excellent workers, strong and healthy.
The job responsibilities of the Hasco signed the group, and Joseph accepted the suggestion that workers away from other groups: the old man explained that they were so primitive, that in the presence of others would become timid and frightened. However, the real reason for insisting that the group work in isolation was the fear that some of them were recognized by a family member or old friend, all employees of Ti Joseph were zombies.
Strangers Joseph Ti men worked diligently during the hours of the day, and only stopped at dusk to eat their millet porridge without salt. Voodoo tradition holds that if a zombie test or salt meat becomes aware of his true condition and returned to its rightful place, the grave, shedding bitter tears.
One Sunday morning Ti Joseph left his wife to care Croyance zombies all day. Croyance, surprisingly, thought maybe they would like to attend a religious procession. However, zombies are not moved either by the show or anything about what was going on around them. Silent and absent, continued to stare into space.
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| Haitian In this temple, the altar is adorned with drums, swords and ritual vessels (objects used in voodoo ceremonies), along with Christian imagery. |
Croyance, taking pity on them, decided that perhaps they would like some candy, so he bought some pastries made with brown sugar, peanuts and coriander, putting one at the mouth of each zombie. However, the peanuts had been seasoned with salt. By eating the candy, the zombies they realized they were dead. With a terrible cry rose up and fled the village, heading towards the forest their home in the mountains.
When they finally reached their destination, were recognized by relatives and friends who had been buried months ago. On reaching the cemetery each They went to his own grave, threw back the stones and earth that covered it and fell in, converted into a rotting mass. The power of Ti Joseph, who had kept their bodies were decomposed, had vanished.
The villagers retaliated by Joseph Ti. Paid a local witch to curse him. But before the curse could take effect, some men ambushed and cut off his head. A story told Seabrook Polynice Constant, a Haitian farmer who claimed not to believe in superstitions of his countrymen. However, he added, the zombies themselves were a reality. Shortly after to tell this story, Seabrook showed a group of three alleged zombies. They were digging the ground with machetes, under the supervision of a young woman. Seabrook
looked at the face of one of these men
and then I saw, along with what I had heard (or perhaps in spite of it), gave me a tremendous shock. The worst were the eyes. It was not my imagination. Were really like the eyes of a dead man: they were not blind eyes, but they were fixed, unfocused, without vision. All face ... seemed not only expressionless, but incapable of taking even expression.
A Seabrook
reassured him the idea that these men "were nothing more than poor humans insane, idiots, forced to work in the fields." However, his Haitian friend insisted that it was zombies. In the fifties, the French anthropologist Alfred Metraux collected abundant evidence both for and against the existence of zombies. However, when shown a decided that it was a "lunatic." Indeed, the day after the person had been identified as a mental patient who had escaped from the room in which he kept locked.
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| According to the photographer, this woman had been a zombie for 29 years. At least two people had been identified as a relative of hers: Felicia Felix-Mentor who died in 1907. |
Another writer, perhaps less gullible than Seabrook voodoo in Haiti, Zora Hurston was , also American. He found a girl (which photographed) that had apparently been a zombie for 29 years. In 1907 Felicia Felix-Mentor died from a sudden illness and was buried by her husband and his brother. In 1936, a girl wearing only a light cotton shirt and threadbare, was found wandering along a road near the farm of his brother. Had apparently lost the power of speech. Both Felicia's father and his brother recognized the girl, who died years ago. Once at the hospital, whenever anyone approached, the girl crouched trembling, as if waiting for abuse. Zora Hurston was there photographed and tried to speak. After wrote:
The view was tremendous. The face was expressionless, his eyes were dead. The eyelashes were white, as if they had been burned with acid. You could not say anything or get anything from her, could only be contemplated. And the contemplation of human deprivation that was impossible to endure for long.
Could the father and Felicia's brother had been identified with such certainty after all these years? Does the girl was not just a simple wandering crazy? The firm belief of Haitians in the sense that they have relatives and friends been seen after his death as a zombie, cast a shadow of doubt on this comforting theory.
Source: World Paranormal
