Zombies | |
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![]() Zombies as portrayed in the movie Night of the Living Dead | |
Other Names |
Zombie, Zombi, Zonbi, Zumbi |
First Appearance |
Haitian Folklore |
Created by |
Unknown |
Origin[]
A zombie is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies are most commonly found in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like Voodoo. Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often do not involve magic but rather science fictional methods such as fungi, radiation, gases, diseases, plants, bacteria, viruses, etc.
he English word "zombie" was first recorded in 1819 in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey, in the form of "zombi". Dictionaries trace the word's origin to African languages, relating to words connected to gods, ghosts and souls. One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. Seabrook's The Magic Island (1929), the account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls.
A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter half of the 20th century. This interpretation of the zombie, as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh of living people, is drawn largely from George A. Romero's film Night of the Living Dead (1968), which was partly inspired by Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (1954).
The film Night of the Living Dead (1968) 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 A. 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), including once in dialog. According to 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.
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 (priest) and the mambo (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.
The two types of zombie reflect soul dualism, a belief of Bakongo religion and Haitian voodoo. Each type of legendary zombie is therefore missing one half of its soul (the flesh or the spirit).
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of Zombies from before January 1, 1930 are public domain in the US.
Some notable appearances include:
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Herbert West–Reanimator (1922)
- The Magic Island (1929)
Public Domain Film Appearances[]
- White Zombie (1932)
- Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
- King of the Zombies (1941)
- Revenge of the Zombies (1943)
- Teenage Zombies (1959)
- Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
- The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962)
- The Last Man on Earth (1964)
- Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Public Domain Comic Appearances[]
- Adventures Into Darkness #10
- Adventures into the Unknown #7,14,20,50
- Airboy Comics v9 #5
- Air Fighters Comics v2 #2
- Baffling Mysteries #9,17,20
- Black Cat #53
- Black Terror #6
- Captain Marvel Jr. #12
- Cat-Man Comics #29
- Chamber of Chills #29
- City of the Living Dead #1
- Dark Mysteries #13
- Eerie #1,14
- Feature Comics #32
- Fight Comics #46
- Forbidden Worlds #8
- Ghost Comics #8
- Great Action Comics #8
- Horror Monsters v1 #1
- Jackpot Comics #1
- Journey into Fear #20
- Jungle Comics #24
- Ken Shannon #3
- Mister Mystery #5
- Monster #2
- Moon Girl #5
- Mysteries Adventures #22
- Mystery Men Comics #12
- Nightmare #1
- Out of the Night #5
- Phantom Lady #15
- Planet Comics #36
- Police Comics #109
- Prize Comics #47
- Regu'lar Fellars Heroic Comics #1-12
- Skeleton Hand #1, 4
- Strange Fantasy #1
- Strange Mysteries #2,5,9,17
- Target Comics v1 #6
- Terrific #14
- The Beyond #1
- The Beyond #25
- The Flame #8
- The Hand of Fate #10,12,15,25b
- This Magazine is Haunted #4-6
- The Thing #4
- Tops Comics
- Voodoo #2
- Voodoo Annual #1
- Web of Evil #6
- Web of Mystery #8,18
- Weird Chills #1
- Weird Terror #6
- Witchcraft #5
- Witches Tales #22
Notes[]
Marvel Comics owned a "Marvel Zombies" trademark between 1973 and 1996, and owned a "zombie" trademark.