A zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) is a fictional undead being created
through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found
in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in which a zombie is a
dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magic. Modern depictions of
the reanimation of the dead do not necessarily involve magic but often invoke science
fictional methods such as carriers, radiation, mental diseases, vectors, pathogens, parasites,
scientific accidents, etc.[1][2]
The English word "zombie" was first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert
Southey, in the form of "zombi".[3] The Oxford English Dictionary gives the word's origin as West
African, and compares it to the Kongo words nzambi (god) and zumbi (fetish). A Kimbundu-to-
Portuguese dictionary from 1903 defines the related word nzumbi as soul,[4] while a later
Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary defines it as being a "spirit that is supposed to wander the
earth to torment the living."[5]
One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was The
Magic Island (1929) by W. B. Seabrook. This is the sensationalized account of a narrator who
encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. Time commented that the book
"introduced 'zombi' into U.S. speech".[6] Zombies have a complex literary heritage, with
antecedents ranging from Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft to Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein drawing on European folklore of the undead. Victor
Halperin directed White Zombie (1932), a horror film starring Bela Lugosi. Here zombies are
depicted as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician. Zombies, often
still using this voodoo-inspired rationale, were initially uncommon in cinema, but their
appearances continued sporadically through the 1930s to the 1960s, with films including I
Walked with a Zombie (1943) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959).
A new version of the zombie, inspired by, but distinct from, that described in Haitian folklore,
emerged in popular culture during the latter half of the twentieth century. This interpretation of the
zombie is drawn largely from George A. Romero's film Night of the Living Dead (1968),[1] which
was in turn partly inspired by Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (1954).[7][8] The
word zombie is not used in Night of the Living Dead but was applied later by fans.[9] The
monsters in the film and its sequels, such as Dawn of the Dead (1979) and Day of the
Dead (1985), as well as its many inspired works, such as The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
and Zombi 2 (1979), are usually hungry for human flesh, although Return of the Living
Dead introduced the popular concept of zombies eating brains. The "zombie apocalypse"
concept, in which the civilized world is brought low by a global zombie infestation, has since
become a staple of modern popular art. After zombie films such as Dawn of the Dead (1978)
and Michael Jackson's music video Thriller (1983), the genre waned for some years.
In the Far East during the late 1990s, the Japanese zombie video games Resident Evil and The
House of the Dead led to a resurgence of zombies in popular culture. Additionally, The House of
the Dead introduced a new type of zombie distinct from Romero's slow zombies: the fast running
zombie. These games were followed by a wave of low-budget Asian zombie films such as
the zombie comedy Bio Zombie (1998) and action film Versus (2000), and then a new wave of
Western zombie films in the early 2000s, including films featuring fast running zombies such
as 28 Days Later (2002), the Resident Evil and House of the Dead films, and the 2004 Dawn of
the Dead remake, while the British film Shaun of the Dead (2004) was in the zombie comedy
subgenre.
The late 2000s and 2010s saw the humanization and romanticization of the zombie archetype,
with the zombies increasingly portrayed as friends and love interests for humans. Notable
examples of the latter include movies Warm Bodies and Zombies, novels American Gods by Neil
Gaiman, Generation Dead by Daniel Waters, and Bone Song by John Meaney, animated
movie Corpse Bride, TV series Pushing Daisies and iZombie, and manga/anime
series Sankarea: Undying Love. In this context, zombies are often seen as stand-ins for
discriminated groups struggling for equality, and the human-zombie romantic relationship is
interpreted as a metaphor for sexual liberation and taboo breaking (given that zombies are
subject to wild desires and free from social conventions).[10][11][12][13]
Contents
1Etymology
2Folk beliefs
o 2.1Haitian tradition
o 2.2African and related legends
o 2.3Origins of zombie beliefs
3Evolution of the zombie archetype
4Modern fiction
o 4.1In film and television
o 4.2In print and literature
o 4.3In anime and manga
o 4.4In art
o 4.5In video gaming
o 4.6In government media
o 4.7In music
o 4.8In social activism
o 4.9In theoretical academic papers
5See also
6References
o 6.1Cited texts
7Further reading
Etymology
The English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert
Southey, in the form of "zombi", actually referring to the Afro-Brazilian rebel leader
named Zumbi and the etymology of his name in "nzambi".[3] The Oxford English Dictionary gives
the origin of the word as Central African and compares it to the Kongo words "nzambi" (god) and
"zumbi" (fetish).
In Haitian folklore, a zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) is an animated
corpse raised by magical means, such as witchcraft.[14]
The concept has been popularly associated with the religion of voodoo, but it plays no part in that
faith's formal practices.
How the creatures in contemporary zombie films came to be called "zombies" is not fully clear.
The film Night of the Living Dead made no spoken reference to its undead antagonists as
"zombies", describing them instead as "ghouls" (though ghouls, which derive from Arabic
folklore, are demons, not undead). Although George Romero used the term "ghoul" in his original
scripts, in later interviews he used the term "zombie". The word "zombie" is used exclusively by
Romero in his script for his sequel Dawn of the Dead (1978),[15] including once in dialog.
According to George Romero, film critics were influential in associating the term "zombie" to his
creatures, and especially the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. He eventually accepted this
linkage, even though he remained convinced at the time that "zombies" corresponded to the
undead slaves of Haitian voodoo as depicted in White Zombie with Bela Lugosi.[16]
Folk beliefs
Haitian tradition
A depiction of a zombie, at twilight, in a field of sugar cane
Zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead persons physically revived by the
act of necromancy of a bokor, a sorcerer or witch. The bokor is opposed by the houngan or priest
and the mambo or priestess of the formal voodoo religion. A zombie remains under the control of
the bokor as a personal slave, having no will of its own.
The Haitian tradition also includes an incorporeal type of zombie, the "zombie astral", which is a
part of the human soul. A bokor can capture a zombie astral to enhance his spiritual power. A
zombie astral can also be sealed inside a specially decorated bottle by a bokor and sold to a
client to bring luck, healing, or business success. It is believed that God eventually will reclaim
the zombie's soul, so the zombie is a temporary spiritual entity.[17]
The two types of zombie reflect soul dualism, a belief of Haitian voodoo. Each type of legendary
zombie is therefore missing one half of its soul (the flesh or the spirit).[18]
The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans, and their
subsequent experiences in the New World. It was thought that the voodoo deity Baron
Samedi would gather them from their grave to bring them to a heavenly afterlife in Africa
("Guinea"), unless they had offended him in some way, in which case they would be forever a
slave after death, as a zombie. A zombie could also be saved by feeding them salt. English
professor Amy Wilentz has written that the modern concept of Zombies was strongly influenced
by Haitian slavery. Slave drivers on the plantations, who were usually slaves themselves and
sometimes Voodoo priests, used the fear of zombification to discourage slaves from committing
suicide.[19][20]
While most scholars have associated the Haitian zombie with African cultures, a connection has
also been suggested to the island's indigenous Taíno people, partly based on an early account of
native shamanist practices written by the Hieronymite monk Ramón Pané, a companion
of Christopher Columbus.[21][22][23]
The Haitian zombie phenomenon first attracted widespread international attention during
the United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), when a number of case histories of purported
"zombies" began to emerge. The first popular book covering the topic was William
Seabrook's The Magic Island (1929). Seabrooke cited Article 246 of the Haitian criminal
code which was passed in 1864, asserting that it was an official recognition of zombies. This
passage was later used in promotional materials for the 1932 film White Zombie.[24]
Also shall be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made by any person
of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less
prolonged. If, after the administering of such substances, the person has been buried, the act
shall be considered murder no matter what result follows.[25]
In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of a
woman who appeared in a village. A family claimed she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative who
had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. The woman was examined by a doctor; X-
rays indicated that she did not have a leg fracture that Felix-Mentor was known to have
had.[26] Hurston pursued rumors that affected persons were given a powerful psychoactive drug,
but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote, "What is
more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Vodou in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some
important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than
gestures of ceremony."[27]
African and related legends
A Central or West African origin for the Haitian zombie has been postul
