He both as a social and religious phenomenon, still present in Haiti, is the reason for an exhibition in Paris that aims to take the visitor to the roots of the phenomenon, far from Hollywood and Western popular culture.
“Zombification” is a real phenomenon even in the Caribbean country, a punishment or revenge decided by an assembly of a secret voodoo society, mainly the one known as Bizango, explains in an interview with AFP Philippe Charlier, curator of the exhibition organized by the Quai Branly Museum.
“It still exists, it is a kind of parallel justice,” explains the expert.
The exhibition, which opens next Tuesday and will remain open until February 16, reconstructs for the visitor a peristyle or room for religious celebration of the voodoo rite.
Besides, There are nearly 200 works, including voodoo dolls, paintings, photographs and filmed testimonies of people who suffered this strange process, which involves the use of poisons that paralyze the victim..
One of the testimonies collected dates back to 2007.
“The confirmation of the death of Adeline D, 40 years old, was signed on July 26, 2007 in Limonade, near Cap Haitien,” explains the poster that accompanies the photograph of the victim.
“A year later her sister, a Catholic nun, bumps into her by chance, in a market, 30 km away,” the text adds.
Seven opportunities
In this hidden world, the result of the syncretism of indigenous beliefs, rites of African heritage and Catholicism, when a person is accused of a crime or a simple offense, from appropriating land that is not theirs to murder, they are summoned. before a secret assembly.
Forced or of his own free will, the accused person has up to seven occasions to defend his innocence.
It is during this process, very intimidating for the victims, that dolls with pins or objects appear in front of the defendant’s home that remind him that he may end up being a zombie.
If the person fails to convince the members of the voodoo secret society, they may end up being administered a poisonous potion, the main base of which is tetrodotoxin.
In the “Zombies” exhibition a stuffed specimen of puffer fish is shown, from which this toxin that can be fatal is extracted.
Each “boko” has its own recipe, experts explain.
The poisoned victim falls into a coma. “In Haiti, death is confirmed by two witnesses, not by the doctor,” says Charlier.
Hours after the funeral, The person is unearthed and becomes a slave to the “boko”, who gives him a new identity and takes him to another part of the country.
The victim has been zombified, “a penalty considered worse than death.”
This state, which is maintained through the forced ingestion of new concoctions, can last for years, adds Charlier: until the death of the “bokor” or the will of the bewitched person himself, who manages to escape his fate.
In the case of Adeline D, the woman rescued by her sister disappeared again, officially before justice could investigate the case.
The zombie of Greater Peru
The exhibition shows the first written work that mentions the word zombie. This is “Le Zombi du Grand Perou o la Comtesse de la Cocagne”, a novel published in 1697 in France by Pierre-Corneille Blessebois.
“In pop culture, the zombie symbolizes the fear of death. When a zombie bites you you become a zombie yourself. But that has nothing to do with Haiti”, precisa Charlier.
In the reconstructed peristyle at the entrance to the exhibition, Erol Josué, director of the Port-au-Prince Ethnology Office and voodoo priest, traces signs with ash on the dirt floor, as a final touch-up before the opening of the exhibition.
“I’m drawing a vevé. These symbols were entrusted by the Tainos to the Africans who arrived in the New World”, he explained to AFP.
Voodoo is a separate religion, “the real link of the entire Haitian society,” explains Charlier.