History of Zombies Notes PDF

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Summary

margaret hoyt, zombie lecture 1...

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Zombies ● Increasing popularity since 2001 in the US ● Countless movies, video games, TV series, books ● In the US, date back to about 1932

The Epic of Gilgamesh ● ● ● ● ●

The oldest written story on earth Somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE Comes from ancient sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets It is about the adventure of the historical king of uruk Main character warns of a time when “the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living

The Bride of Corinth ● A ghost story from the 2nd century CE ● A young, beautiful woman named Phillinnion, dies and comes back to life, returning to her parents' home ● She meets Machates, who is betrothed to Philinnion’s sister ● Machetes didn’t know this wasn’t his bride to be. He assumed she was ● They shared a meal in the bedroom and they had sex over the course of 3 nights

Philinnion and Machates ● She is caught by her parents and confronted as to why she defiled her sister’s future husband ● "How dare you defile your sister's marriage bed?" Charito shrieked. "You have no right even to be here.“ ● "Mother and Father," she said, calmly. "You are both cruel and unjust, that you begrudge me just three nights of love, here beneath my father's roof. ● Now, because of your busy curiosity, you shall be made once again to mourn. But for me, I return to my appointed place, for you cannot think that I came here without the assistance of the gods." ● Philinnon, having spoken, collapsed onto the bed. Machates felt for her pulse, found none, realized that her flesh was cold. He stared up at her parents. "What have you done?" he cried. "You have killed your daughter with your words.“ ● "Words cannot kill," Demostratus insisted. "And you saw for yourself that neither I nor her mother laid hands on her. In any case, how could we kill her, when we ourselves have buried her these six months since?“ ● Machates ran from the house and through the streets of Corinth until he came to a steep wooded slope. He climbed it, and there looked down on the city. He watched as the body of Philinnion was carried to be cremated outside the walls of Corinth. ○ This implies that zombies have to be killed a special way, which is why she wasn

just burried but was cremated ○ Zombification it shows she was alive but zombies “have to be stopped in a specific way” ● As the smoke rose from the pyre of her second funeral, he heard her voice call to him. Unwilling to live without her, he took his dagger from his belt and fell upon it.

Keys to the story ● ● ● ● ●

Not what we think of as a “ghost story” There is physical being not just a spirit or apparition They eat food, have sex Arose from the dead to die again with assistance from the “gods” Burned her this time ○ To keep her from rising again

Mary Shelley 1818 ● ● ● ●

Most famous zombie story of all time Dr. Frankenstein’s monster Reanimated the monster with lightning Many of the features of our modern zombie ○ Was once a person and rose from the dead ● Shelley personified the monster by giving it human emotion ● Rage based on rejection

Zombie Origins ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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Modern word zombie comes from haitian voodoo origins Actually originated in Africa Comes from the Kongo word for soul-nzambi When slaves were brought to Haiti, the voodoo religion grew amidst old african traditions Harsh conditions of slavery bore the idea of a zonbi Estimated that 80-90% of Haitians “serve the spirit” or practice vodou In vodou everyone dies in one of two ways ○ Naturally (sickness, god’s will) ○ Unnaturally (murder, before their time) Those that die unnaturally linger at their grave Unable to join their ancestors who preceded them in death Waiting for the god’s to approve Souls are vulnerable when they linger at the grave Could be captured by a powerful sorcerer (Boko) and locked in a bottle Or the use of coup padre on a living being ○ Chemical given orally to turn a living person into a zombie The primary ingredient was a tetrodotoxin A poisonous substance derived from the puffer/porcupine fish

● Once given the coup padre they were prepared for their descent into zombidom and appear to die ● Their heart rate would slow to a near stop ○ Because of toxin and it would make them seem like they didn’t have pulse ● Breathing would become subdued, body temperature would drop ● Thought that the person was dead and would be buried ● The Boko would exhume them and would remain under the Boko’s power until the Boko died ○ Boko uses this to control their undead/un-living body ○ May let their body rest and just use their soul ● Not always seen as unpleasant for the victim ● A hard working person may rather continue working rather than laying in their grave waiting ● May be used by the Boko for good, such as healing ● The unsavory side is that the Boko kill a person just to create a zonbi ● Black magic or evil intentions ● For the slave under french rule in Haiti in the 17th and 18th centuries, life was brutal ○ Hunger, extremely overworked and cruel discipline ● Slaves often could not consume enough calories to allow for normal rates of reproduction; what children they did have might easily starve ● The only escape from the sugar plantations was death, which was seen as a return to Africa, or lan guinée (literally Guinea, or West Africa). ● This is the phrase in Haitian Creole that even now means heaven. ● The plantation meant a life in servitude; lan guinée meant freedom making death feared but also wished for ● Not surprisingly, suicide was a frequent recourse of the slaves. ● The plantation masters thought of suicide as the worst kind of thievery ● It deprived the master not only of a slave’s service, but also of his or her person, which was the master’s property. ● Suicide was the slave’s only way to take control over his or her own body. ● The fear of becoming a zombie stopped many from committing suicide. ● The zombie is a dead person who cannot get across to lan guinée. ● To become a zombie was the slave’s worst nightmare: to be dead and still a slave, an eternal field hand. ● It is thought that slave drivers on the plantations, who were usually slaves themselves and sometimes Voodoo priests, ● Used this fear of zombification to keep recalcitrant slaves in order and to warn others ● In traditional Voodoo belief, in order to get to lan guinée, one must be transported there by the Baron Samedi, the lord of the cemetery. ● One of Baron’s spiritual functions is to dig a person’s grave and welcome him/her to the other side.

● If for some reason a person has offended Baron, he will not allow that person to reach lan guinée. ● Then you’re stuck between life and death! ● After the Haitian Revolution in 1804 (End of French colonialism) ● Zombie became part of the Haitian folklore ● It was subsequently folded in the Voodoo religion ● It symbolized a nation haunted by the legacy of slavery and fear of its reinstitution ● There were several instances in Haitian history that slavery was on the brink of being reinstituted after the revolution ● Haitians do believe that the dead rise to either be helpers or at worst slaves again ● To most the znobi are folklore ● Most see the znobi as a metaphor for a hard life ○ Loss of control (don’t control your own destiny) ○ Without reward (slave away) ○ A loss of faith ● Haitians do not fear znobi, rather they fear becoming a znobi against their will ● Znobi are found more at the fringes of the voodoo religion and not the mainstream religion ● Although its meaning has changed slightly over the years, it refers to a human corpse mysteriously reanimated to serve the living. ● Zombies are the monsters that get stuck in death, ● Unable to move on to the afterworld, they wander the Earth killing as many victims as they can ● Like the spread of an infectious disease == spread of zombism

Summary ● ● ● ●

Zombie origins are deeply rooted in African slavery Increasing popularity in the past decade The Hollywood zombie is very different than the zombie origins Zombies are ancient concept

Discussion Post Question: Tell us about your idea of a zombie (characteristics, how does it spread, how could you stop it, where did it come from in the first place) Answer: My idea of a zombie is very similar to the zombies in the TV show The Walking Dead. It is my favorite TV show, and it is really the only prior knowledge I have of zombies. Some characteristics of a zombie include: rotting flesh, slow moving ( yet they can walk, swim, crawl, etc.), they don’t speak in English, but they mumble and growl. I believe that somehow a person had created a virus and

infected one person with it and this person was now a carrier who was infecting others without even realizing they were. I think that it would be an airborne virus that people contracted just from being around someone who was a carrier. I believe that everyone then had this virus living inside them after being infected, yet they were asymptomatic so they didn’t know they were carrying this virus until they died. So then people were dying and then they would start to come back to life a few hours later as a zombie. The only way for the zombie to die is to destroy their head, whether it is smashing it or stabbing it. I don’t think that there would ever be a way to truly stop the spread of the infection once it started, because there would be hundreds of thousands of people infected. No one would truly be prepared for this start, so I don’t think that there wouldn’t be any sort of antibiotic that could be made to cure an entire population in that short amount of time....