Zombie Mythology: Walking With the Dead

A more traditional rendition of zombies

Where does the zombie myth originate? Where did we come from to this point in time and the modern day zombie? The last two months we’ve looked at the origins and werewolves and vampires (part of my larger series on mythical creatures - previous posts  can be found here - dragons, fantastical horses, mythical creatures of the sky, saltwater spirits - Part 1 and Part 2,  freshwater spirits, and spirits of the desert), and today we do the third installment in the origins series. The origin of the zombie myth appears to be far more recent, and therefore also less complicated. 

Zombies are linked with Afro-Caribbean lore and Voodoo. Without going into the origins of voodoo itself, suffice to say there are many variants, and it came out of Africa with the peoples carried away by European slavers. Voodoo as a religion therefore flourished in the plantations where the slaves were sold, in the Caribbean, the West Indies, South America, and parts of North America. 

Zombies had a role in many voodoo-related ideas. It was illegal under Haitian law to use zombies, which were understood as men without wills rather than dead men, in the cane fields, or to exploit them as cheap labour. There were constant whispers about blood sacrifice, usually cockerels and the like, and tales of other strange practices. However, in 1863 a riot threatened when a dismembered human torso was found in the house of an alleged voodoo practitioner, at which point talk of human sacrifice flared up. 

Tales of dark voodoo practices had circulated for about 8 years prior to this incident. One ‘voodoo queen’ was put on trial for, among other things, attempting to raise a corpse. Another was accused of murdering a prostitute by means of a zombie – although in this context it was less clear if the traditional ‘man without will’ was meant, or if it was a reference to reanimated dead. Another tale involved ‘voodoo dolls’ made of human skin and bone.

One of the most important voodoo practitioners of the time was Dr. John Croix. While he conducted his voodoo dealings far more privately than some, it was believed he had a legion of zombies to do all the house and yard work, and to dig up corpses for parts. Similar rumours abounded about other ‘doctors’ of the time. 

Zombies as depicted in I Am Legend

Although the zombie as a shambling dead man controlled by a voodoo practitioner is a recognised symbol of voodoo, it actually does not exist in this form in traditional voodoo – instead, a ‘zombie’ was only a mindless servant. In one form of voodoo, the ‘Le Grand Zombi’ is one of the incarnations of Damballa-wedo, one of the voodoo pantheon, but as it is the most dangerous and unpredictable form, it is rarely summoned. In the Petro variant of voodoo, the meaning changes slightly, and refers to someone possessed by the Damballa-wedo. The spirit is controlled by the practitioner, which in turn controls the possessed person. From this may have grown the traditional idea of the zombie.

The modern notion of the zombie may also have been influenced by various African and Caribbean folk terrors – the Ghanaian Dodo, a shambling creature hiding in trees to drop on unwary travellers; the Modulo, a humanoid blood-drinking creature of Zulu lore; and other living dead creatures that would attack slave encampments. 

Thus, the voodoo origin of the zombie supposes the reanimation of the dead via magical means. This has evolved, more recently, into less sorcerous and more scientific means of creation of zombies, in particular the notion that ‘zombies’ could be the victim of a transmissible disease which creates shambling creatures of horrific strength and near-indestructibility which, while not dead, and not resurrected, are no longer ‘human’ in any meaningful sense of the word. This has given rise to the latest craze of moves: 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, Zombieland and others.

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Source Material: A Field Guide to the Creatures That Cannot Rest In Peace - Encyclopedia of the Undead by Dr. Bob Curran 

The Night Circus: A Review

For September, Club Fantasci will be reviewing The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks. Our Google+ Hangout, which was the unfortunate victim of technical difficulties last month, will be airing on September 28 at 7pm CST time. 

For those who missed it, I've reposted my review of The Night Circus for August's meeting here. It truly is a shame we weren't able to bring you the Hangout to watch as there were some rather interesting things said about the book. My song for the book is Miranda Lambert's I Wanna Die. I had a hard time picking a song because I couldn't come up with anything that captured the feel of the book. This song, at least, captured the theme of the climax.

And here's what I thought of the book....

 ~

Le Cirque de Reve – the Night Circus, an exotic circus open only during the hours of nightfall, a place of beauty, and wonder, and dreams made flesh. Here, the circus-goer can wander the mysterious paths between black and white striped tents, venturing into each tent as they please. Within each tent, a wonder – an illusionist, a fortune-teller, and sights even more wondrous and exotic, a garden of ice, a tree of wishes, a labyrinth of spectacular rooms, each even more fantastic and unbelievable than the last. And above all, the smell of caramel and popcorn. The Night Circus – the arena for a magical challenge. 

Celia and Marco - unwilling antagonists in a battle of wits between their near-immortal mentors to prove one school of thought better than another. Bound to the challenge by magic, compelled to strive against one another, yet drawn to one another like moths to the flame. 

Even now, the day after I finished the book, this is all I can tell you about the book. The story is easily summarised to a line or two, indicating a simplicity of storyline that is rare and not necessarily desirable. The scenes and individual events already blur and fade because they were part of a gradual build to the ending, rather than important events in their own right. 

I enjoyed the destination of this book, but the journey often left me flat. Did I like Celia and Marco? In a vague, distant kind of way, yes. Do I feel I know the characters intimately, that I could tell you how they might respond in any given situation? No, not at all – in fact, if I were to describe the characters, I could only do so in vague terms. Was I invested in the outcome? Again, only in a slightly hopeful way.

The book is written in a peculiar fashion, utilising both second person point of view (use of ‘you’ instead of ‘I’, ‘he’, or ‘she’) and omniscient third POV (use of ‘he’ and ‘she’ in a remote fashion, where we feel the story is narrated to us and we are kept at arm’s length from the characters).

I detest the use of second person point of view in this book. It is used, I think, to create the sense the reader is in the circus. It irritated me, and distracted me from the story – not a good thing when I was already hardly invested in the story. Although I concede that the ending, the culmination of the use of second POV, was clever, it was not enough to compensate for its annoyances during the book. Third omniscient POV is what largely kept me from connecting with the characters. Never allowed inside the character’s heads, I never felt I got to know them, never got the chance to live and breathe their lives, their desires, and their fears.

The book uses present tense to compensate for the remote POV (he walks instead of he walked) but this, too is unconventional, as it often distracts the reader or creates a sense of discomfort – we are, by nature, accustomed to telling stories in past tense, even our own stories of each passing day, and use of other tenses can be an uncomfortable experience. I found it distracting and it didn’t sufficiently compensate for the POV.

The book also lacked conflict in my opinion. The main conflict turned out to be Celia’s and Marco’s desire to be rid of the challenge – the tension between what they must do by the rules of the game, and what they want to do. But the rules are so vague, each ‘move’ in the game so abstract (consisting mostly of each of them contributing to the circus by means of magic, adding a new tent or ‘act’ only made possible by magic), that the book is more than half over before the reader starts to gain a sense of this conflict. Other conflicts that might exist between the characters (for example, Celia and Marco’s blossoming romance, or the potential love triangle with Isobel) is negated by the use of omniscient third – we never wonder if Celia’s feelings for Marco are reciprocated because the narrator has already told us they are.

As a result, I found I had nothing to keep me reading except a vague curiosity in where the book was going. If I hadn’t been reading this for Club Fantasci, I may well have stopped in the first 10%. As it was, I was well past halfway before I felt I needed to read to the end. In my opinion, that is far too late.

My strongest reaction was early in the book to Prospero the Enchanter when he slices Celia’s fingers open in a cruel fashion to teach her to heal herself – but the impact of this, even, could have been made more immediate, and a stronger basis for the reader to identify with Celia if another POV had been used. Later, in the story, the emotional impact of this event in her life is played down.

The Black Moment (the moment of crisis, when the reader should catch their breath in fear and anticipation, waiting to see how terribly wrong everything has gone, and if all will be well) had me curious, but hardly emotionally invested to the point I should have been. I did foresee Celia’s plan for ending the game, and although it wasn’t what I wanted to happen, I found the most I could muster at the prospect of an unhappy ending was a mild annoyance.

While the story was different, novel, unique, and had a fabulous atmosphere and mood, I can only say I feel every opportunity for passion, for strong emotion, for the things readers hunger for, was missed. While I was not unhappy with the ending, this is not a story that will stay with me for years to come – or even perhaps past the week. 

~

You can also check out the reviews by co-hosts Dionne Lister and David Lowry. 

 
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Club Fantasci Reviews The Night Circus

Club Fantasci had its first meeting ever 12 hours ago. As soon it's available, the link to the video of the Google+ Hangout will be available on our website and Facebook page for everyone who missed viewing the live Hangout. 

In the meantime, check out my review of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern here on Club Fantasci's website - you'll also find reviews by co-hosts Dionne Lister and David Lowry. 

Feel free to contribute to the discussions about The Night Circus starting on our Goodreads page, or start your own if there's something about the book you want to discuss! If you want to comment on more than one of the co-hosts' reviews, it may be easier to start a discussion thread on Goodreads instead.

The date for the next meeting is yet to be confirmed, but will be at the end of September, and September's Book of the Month is The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks.

If you missed it, check out my review of The First Confessor.

 

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to check out my previous posts if you haven't already. If you're finding yourself here often, you might as well join as a member, sign up to the blog through RSS or email, or sign up for the newsletter.

Don't forget to share the love and spread the word on Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon (or other social networking site of your choice) if you know other people who might also enjoy this. 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with us!