Zombies. That’s the historic event I was supposed to live through; Covid-19 was the epidemic we all got instead. I remember distinctly being about 12-years old and having a panic attack over a possible zombie outbreak taking place and now after many playthrough’s of Resident Evil, the Last of Us and the Walking Dead games and many re-watches of Return of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, I feel completely ready for whatever the apocalypse may bring.

So, without further ado, lets delve into the legend that is Zombies.

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Zombies are everywhere in pop-culture and we can thank George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead for bringing the undead to life; videogames, movies, TV shows, comics, you name it and there is most-likely a reference to the living dead. Sometimes they are known as walkers, the undead, biters and my personal favourite simply because it sounds so cool, Los Muertos (or the dead) and they’re often shown as rotting, decaying corpses. Infection from a zombie is usually due to a virus and is transmitted often from a bite or blood; for example, the T-virus in Resident Evil or the Cordyceps Brain infection in the Last of Us, but in some cases they just rise from the graves and they can only be killed by destroying the brain.

The Undead have always been a popular topic throughout folklore and myths as well. It’s believed that the Greeks were the first to be concerned about the undead due to the forms in which the dead were buried, some skeletons being found pinned down by rocks or other heavy objects; but, if we talk about the zombies we know and love today it was mainly influenced by Haitian culture and voodoo. However, it does have a much more sinister history than some may believe…

Most people believe that the concept of zombies came from those who were slaves to their masters. In the 17^th and 18^th century slavery was rife throughout the world and many slaves came from the Caribbean Islands or Africa. It is no secret that slaves were treat dreadfully, with horrible living conditions, terrible working environments and monstrous masters who subjected them to dreadful, inhumane treatment. Slaves began to believe that when they died they would return to their homeland, but this death had to be “pure” and couldn’t be done by their own hands, meaning suicide was out of the question. If a person had committed suicide, they would not be able to return to their homeland and would instead have to roam the plantations they had wished to be free from for eternity.

This led to the myth of zombies cementing itself throughout Haitian culture and then slowly creeping into the religion of Voodoo. It is now widely believed throughout the religion that shamans and priests bring los muertos back to life and that sorcerers would use the walkers as free labor or forbidden tasks; others believe that the dead are brought back as zombies for punishment to strike fear in those believing that their deaths would release them from their earthly values.

Then we find ourselves travelling to 1915 Haiti when America occupied their lands. Americans were introduced to the world of voodoo for the first time while trying to destroy the religion, but this only strengthened the religion. When Americans returned to their country after failing to ‘modernise’ the country that they believed to be backwards, the zombie and voodoo myths still haunted them in forms of superstitions.

Now, we have a very Americanized version of zombies that still strike as much fear into modern culture as the voodoo religion did and still does today. People still choose to prepare for a zombie attack, citing its arrival for many a reason; most believe that it will be administered through an Umbrella type corporation, others pin it down to infected animals.

Who knows if zombies are real or, if they will ever exist. My only question to you the reader is, are you prepared?

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Thank you for reading this short entry and I apologies for my lack of historical content recently. I will endeavor to write weekly blogs, if you have any suggestions for longer articles or any other myths you are interested in, then please feel free to suggest them in the comments. Stay safe everyone, Cait