Zombies

I am someone who has been in love with…. probably borderline obsessed with the paranormal…although some may argue it’s a total obsession but either way I have loved the strange and unusual for as long as I can remember.

 So, I thought it would be fun for the first podcast episode …to talk about the subject of my first introduction to the strange and unusual…. I’m Magan and welcome to The Haunted Grove Podcast …and I’m glad you’re here because tonight we are talking zombies.

Since this is the first episode of the Haunted Grove Podcast, I wanted to start it off with my earliest memory of being introduced to the paranormal….and that was zombies…via the 1968 cult classic film night of the living dead directed by George Romero.

Let me set the scene.

I, a young and impressionable child, was caught in the crossfire of a heated debate between my older sister and our grandfather ..the debate was over the fact that she was convinced the he could not scare her.  Well, gramps a big tough Navy veteran was not one to back away from a challenge, apparently even if that challenge was from his 10-year-old granddaughter ……

So, what was his completely normal response? Well, he had us watch Night of the Living Dead…. and then took us to a cemetery….at night…in the dark. Now was this appropriate, probably not…. did it become a core memory for me…it definitely did. But did it really do any permanent psychological damage…..i’m sure it’s fine….

Anyway

The night of the living dead is one of, if not the first, modern zombie film. After its release the genre took off… sparking Romero and his production company to create a successful franchise including 6 more films all night of the living dead spin offs.

Because of its popularity…..The Night of the living dead franchise opened the door for other more terrifying and intense zombie films like House of the Dead, 28 days later and world war Z with those super-fast moving zombies, Shaun of the Dead, …..and well of course The Walking Dead.

And let’s not forget the zombie video games like Resident evil, left for dead, and zombie land..there are a ton more..

But I think you get my point.

The Zombie is one of the most iconic and long lasting monsters in pop culture…but did you know that the zombie that most of us think of, the image of the slow moving ,flesh eating, undead, rotting monster actually came from Romero’s Night of the living Dead film…which is sort of ironic because they never actually called them zombies in the film nor did they ever make any reference to the word zombie even, they were called ghouls.

So where did zombies actually come from?

Here’s the deal, human beings have been scared of the dead coming back to life for a loooooong time…You could go all the way back to ancient Greece to find evidence of a civilization wanting their dead loved ones to stay dead. Archaeologists have excavated quite a few grave sites containing skeletons with very heavy objects like boulders placed on top of them ..now we obviously don’t know exactly why they did this but the assumption is to make sure that body stayed right there!

However, in the interest of keeping this episode to a reasonable length…we are going to focus on most common and widely agreed upon belief that the zombie folklore we associate with the most is the Haitian zombie folklore.

In the 17th century when West African slaves were brought to the Caribbean country Haiti, to work in the sugar cane plantations and with them came zombies…well more accurately the stories of zombies past down through the generations. There are some accounts that the “Zombie” or rather the reanimated undead body of the zombie represented the horrors endured by the slaves…. which makes sense that these totally horrific situations the slaves were forced into could only be represented by something as equally terrifying and uncontrollable.

So now that we have a general idea of where the legend of the zombie most likely originated from…..let’s talk about the Zombie of Haitian folklore….The African slaves couldn’t bring much , if anything, with them from Africa …but what they could bring with them was their religion….. voodoo. To be clear, there are a lot of un true and really just ridiculous stereotypes surrounding voodoo… a majority of people who practice voodoo don’t believe in zombies and for them the zombie is just a myth that gets told from generation to generation….If you are interested in learning more about voodoo I highly suggest that you do some research and not believe what you see in the movies……

That being said, there are some that do believe zombies are real and are created by the hands of a voodoo practitioner known as a Bokor.

The stories say that by using different combinations of herbs, bones, animal bits, and a toxin found in puffer fish, a bokor can create zombie powders. The powder would then be given to the victim without them knowing….and there is like a variety of different ways this could happen like ingestion, inhaling it ..or even through injection like from a needle or a blow dart…

 The key ingredient in the zombie powder to make it make a zombie is the puffer fish toxin called tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin that in small doses can cause symptoms like, stumbling around, appearing dazed and confused, as well as respiratory or breathing problems….sounds a little zombie like to me.

In high doses however the toxin is fatal…but if you were a master at the technique and could get the dose just right ... it would cause the person to become paralyzed and fall into a coma…that person would appear dead to everyone around them and the result would end in being buried alive…which I’m just going to add would be one of the most awful things that could happen…..That is one of the irrational fears I have…..I will do a whole other episode on the being buried alive hysteria that swept Europe in the 1800’s but ..yeah its crazy.

Any who, why would someone do this, why would a bokor put someone in a coma to then ultimately be buried alive and eventually die of asphyxiation…right….because you can’t breathe underground… Seems like a lot of work…aaaand not very zombie like..

Ahh but death is not the true intention of the bokor…see the mixing and creation of the powder administering it to the victim, the coma, the burial…. that’s all just part of the zombification process…we can call it phase 1 of operation how to make a zombie….

After the burial, like very shortly after…so the person doesn’t actually die…the bokor will slip back into the cemetery and dig up the victim, and after filling back in the hole to not arouse any suspicion, will take the victim to a location know only to the Bokor where they will begin phase 2 of operation how to make a zombie which is separating the soul from the physical body.

The bokor will perform a voodoo ritual that will separate the soul into two parts, 1 part controls the body the Bokor keeps this part…and the other part stays with the physical body essentially reanimating it …. but like resetting it back to factory settings…basically enough to slowly move around and do what it is told…..

 So the Bokor holds on to the control spirit and can now have their very own slave to do whatever the bokor wants like work in a plantation, construction, or I guess even odd jobs around the house…but you get the idea the bokor is on control, the victim powerless to stop him, and the family none the wiser as they are sure that their loved one is dead and buried.

Sounds pretty creepy right…I can totally see people telling and re telling these myths to their friends and families to give them a good scare or even mothers telling their kids to behave or the bokor will get you… right to make sure the kids listened ….. Zombies are scary man…it’s been literally decades (many decades) since I watched Night of the living dead, and I can still see them lumbering up to the house with the family trapped inside. But, unlike their younger modern pop culture siblings, Haitian zombies may actually be rooted in fact and not just stories made up to scare you...

 There are several verified cases of real zombies reported in Haiti the most notable being that of Clarvius Narcisse.

The story of Clarvius Narcisse is a wild ride…he was a Haitian man who claimed to have been abducted by a bokor, turned into a zombie, and then forced to work as a salve.

In the Spring of 1962….yep this was in 1962….. Clarvius was not feeling well at all, he was so bad off that he checked himself into the local hospital where he quickly developed a fever, fatigue, and began coughing up blood…..The doctors had no idea what was wrong with him so ultimately they didn’t know how to help him…everything they tried didn’t have any effect and eventually he passed away a few days after he was admitted.  He was pronounced dead, and his body taken down to the morgue where it was put in cold storage. And shortly after that there was a funeral where his family said their last goodbyes and his body was buried.

But that’s not the end of the story…18 years later…in 1980…a woman named Angelina was approached by a man claiming to be her dead brother Clarvius….naturally Angelina had some questions…so through a series of questions and  events Clarvius had managed to prove not only to Angela but to another family member that he was indeed her brother Clarvius who had not only died but was buried 18 years earlier. …imagine how wild that would be..

Clarvius claims that he was awake and conscious for the whole thing….them pronouncing him dead, being store in the morgue and yeah, ultimately listened to his funeral and burial…Shortly after the funeral had ended he claims that someone came and dug up his body, revived him…and then started feeding him this weird paste on a regular bases that kept Clarvius in this zombie like state where then he and many others were forced to work on a sugar cane plantation for the next 16 years…at some point around year 16 the bokor had died so now Clarvius was no longer receiving that paste and slowly stared to come out of his zombie like trance and regain his memory…thus allowing him to escape back to his family…

I don’t know, what do you guys think? Sounds like a zombie story to me and also I did read that like everyone knew him….they recognized him after he came back so this wasn’t like some random dude claiming to be Clarvius…so crazy story.

But a true story

Speaking of true stories...Because of the popularity of the video game and the new TV series, The Last of Us…I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about Cordyceps...

What is Cordyceps you ask….well it is a parasitic fungus that attacks bugs aaaannnd you guessed it turns them into Zombies... It is actually pretty gruesome how it works….The fungus finds a bug host, attacks and invades the hosts body eventually over time replacing the hosts tissue with umm itself….. and ultimately taking total control of the hosts body….

So zombie bugs are also a true and well documented thing …and while I may be into some pretty weird and spooky stuff. I am not into bugs so if you want more info, you can google zombie ants…

But could the zombie bug fungus…morph somehow and start seeking human hosts??? Can humans be infected by the fungus and ultimately lose control of their minds and bodies… Is that possible….well the long and the short of it is no…no humans cannot be infected by the cordyceps fungus mainly because out internal temperatures are too hot and would kill off the spore and also we are so much more complex than insects are..i mean how our bodies work anyway….so at this time…no need to worry about encountering Pedro Pascal or Lady Mormont …sorry Bella Ramsey will forever be Lady Mormont to me… I am also aware that both Bella and Pedro were in Game of Thrones, but her character was so much cooler than his…

Anyway

Ok so if we don’t have to worry about fungus…yet…how else might one become a zombie?

We are going to shift from operation how to make a zombie to operation how to become a zombie…

But Magan..why would I WANT to become a zombie??  Hey, I’m not here to judge, if you want to become a zombie then I’m here for it…I’ll be your resource… I guess, if you wanted to avoid becoming a zombie this is usefully information to you as well….again, I’m not here to tell you which side of the fence to be on..I support you all equally..

Ok so we covered VooDoo and fungus.

There is also radioactivity - If there was some kind of nuclear fallout or blast that left radioactive zones.

Viruses – like the T virus in resident evil

Biowarfare zombies – so caused by some weaponized biological agent – we don’t know cuz it’s top secret.

Hazard zombies – so stay away from hazardous chemicals or jump on in depending on what you want.

Tech or cyber zombies – so like humans taken over by technology ...which honestly, I feel like is the most likely scenario

And my least favorite because I would totally fall for it …animal zombies…zombie pets…. they infect you by biting you…sad …I would still pet though.

So, we have discussed the origin of zombie folklore, Haitian zombies and how to make a zombie, some real zombie stories….and some more how to or how not to zombie…. I want to close this episode with a question… If there was a zombie apocalypse …. Would you rather be a zombie or a survivor?