Zombi (Haitian)
The zombi of Haitian folklore is a dead or seemingly dead person taken from the grave by a sorcerer and kept as a slave without will. The word comes from Central African languages, and the belief was shaped by the plantation slavery of colonial Haiti, where death was supposed to be the one escape from forced labour. Researchers have proposed drugs, mental illness and mistaken identity to explain reported cases, and none of these accounts is settled. This figure, a body that works and obeys but is no longer a person, is the origin of the word and the concept behind every later zombie.12
- salt or salt water, which is said to wake it or release it
- preventive burial: laying the corpse face down, filling the mouth with earth or sewing the lips shut
- sesame seeds scattered on the grave to keep the spirit counting
When did it first appear?
1750The word is first recorded in English in the 18th century; the belief took shape in colonial Saint-Domingue under slavery
What the sources say
Could you outrun it?
Speed class from how the sources describe it (shambles), not a measurement.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from these sources, written in our own words. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at hello@zombiewiki.app.
Clairvius Narcisse
Felicia Felix-Mentor
The Lancet zombi cases (FI, WD and MM)
Jiangshi
Strigoi
Vampir (South Slavic)
Abhartach
Arnold Paole
Churel