Zombies
Zombies : are a very real phenomenon typically associated with the
voodoo practicing, West Indian country of Haiti on the island of
Hispaniola. Zombies are persons who have died but are not really
dead, they are alive in a state of being, referred to as the
undead. Evil sorcerers called bokors bring their victims back to a
zombie state of life. This life is not a full life but a weird
half-life where the zombie is incapable of thinking for itself, and
it has no prior knowledge as to who it was. The bokors take their
victims to remote areas where they are put to work as slaves. The
whole idea of zombies is so ingrained in the psyche of the locals,
that even the poorest of peasants are willing to pay quite large
amounts of money to have heavy slabs placed on the coffins of their
loved ones. This is thought to deter the bokors.
An American biologist Wade Davis suspected that some mysterious
substances were used in zombification and he set about to find
them. He discovered two noteworthy constituents:
- tetrodotoxin obtained from puffer fish an effective nerve
poison, inducing deep paralysis.
- A fluid secreted by the skin glands of the highly poisonous
cane toad Bufo marinus an effective hallucinogen and strong
anaesthetic.
Other drugs such as zombie cucumber Datura stramonium were
thought to aid in the resuscitation and mind control of the
victim.
It was also found that if persons that had been paralysed using the
above drugs and left in their coffins too long, the effects of the
mind controlling drug Datura stramonium were enhanced due to oxygen
starvation, also adding to irreversible brain damage.
The idea of a rotting corpse brought back to life possibly has more
to do with the work of novels and movies. However the idea of
zombies as drugged individuals, pronounced dead and then buried
alive in a coffin awaiting complete brainwashing appears to hold
more truth
