The zombie in Haiti is very unlike the version of the zombie we see in most of the world. We, as Americans at least, normally see the zombie as something of horror stories, something that can be terrifying, but not very plausible. They are used in our modern culture as many things, such as social commentary, cheap thrills, or even a good laugh. In Haiti, the zombie is a different thing entirely according to Zora Neale Hurston.

The book Tell My Horse by Hurston, or at least the two chapters I read, gives a lot of first hand information about zombies in Haiti and the Voodoo religion in general. And though the book gets a lot of criticism for being more a travelogue than a legitimate scientific work, I think it still creates a pretty clear picture of the way Haitian’s view the world, and in my opinion their view of the zombie is more chilling than ours. For them, the fear lies not in the zombie apocalypse or being attacked by zombies. Like Hurston says, “the fear is real and deep” (189) Zombies are created by a bocor, or an evil voodoo priest, in contrast to the houngan, normally seen as the real or true voodoo priest. To put it simply, once a victim is chosen to be a zombie, they bocor visits the house and basically steals the victim’s soul, and soon after they die. After the burial ceremony, the bocor and his associates dig up the body and the bocor calls the victim and basically becomes his slave, or a zombie. From then on the zombie will no longer recognize family or friends. There was a feeling of helplessness I got when I read this, that all of your loved ones have no idea of what happened to you, and even if they did there would be no rescue. Because whether you believe that the zombies are real, there is still a lot of mental damage happening to you in this process, making you unable to be rescued or saved. You would basically be trapped in a body that you have no will over and only true death, or death of your bocor, would be your release.

I think Hurston does a great job of making the zombie and voodoo more real than I ever thought they were. She immerses herself in the culture, giving her a lot of rich stories full of details. It seemed to me that she got scared and I even got the feeling that she withheld some information for either her own safety or the safety of others.