Among the evil spirits that have terrified people from time immemorial, the most popular are the images of werewolves, vampires and their derivatives. However, if these nightmarish creatures appear before people as bloodthirsty monsters, nevertheless their behavior is governed by their own thoughts and instincts.
At the same time, some peoples from time immemorial believe in the existence of undead, which is only capable of following the orders of the magician who bewitched her. Such entities are called zombies.
The term zombie was first mentioned in 1810 in a book entitled "A History of Brazil" by Robert Southey. However, it said nothing about the living dead, and the name of the zombie belonged to one of the deities worshiped by the inhabitants of West Africa.
It is not fully understood how the concept of zombies came to be associated with the rebellious dead. According to one guess of linguists, the word "jambi" is translated from Indian as "ghost", and another version refers to the African language Bantu, where "nzambi" means "soul of a dead man." The inhabitants of the Antilles and western Africa believe that some sorcerers are able to revive a deceased person in some way, after which he becomes the obedient slave of the sorcerer.
Although voodoo magic is immediately associated with zombies, it is known that this word got into the use of Haitians in the early 18th century after black slaves began to be exported from the territory of modern Benin and Nigeria to Haiti.
The revived weak-willed dead interested the public after the publication in 1929 of William Seabrook's book "The Island of Magic". The author himself worked as a reporter for the well-known newspaper "New York Times", and for some time personally lived in Haiti with the voodoo witch Maman Seli. Seabrook managed to attend many of the rites, and therefore one of the sections of the book is devoted to magic, namely zombie, which says that … the dead were used to work on the sugar cane plantations. The author of the book himself also saw a similar creature, and he was especially struck by the zombie eyes - empty and completely lifeless. According to Seabrook, it was a terrible sight.
Although Seabrook introduced European readers to a new concept of zombies for them, as it turned out, many peoples believed for thousands of years that dead people could come to life, and therefore in every possible way prevented their "resurrection".
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For example, in Ireland, archaeologists have found two male skeletons from a burial site around the 8th century. Experts have determined that one of them died at the age of about 40-60 years, and the second at 20-30 years. But a stone was placed in the mouth of each of these skeletons, which meant a wary attitude towards these, possibly even killed people. According to ancient beliefs, stones were placed in the mouths of those dead who could return to the living after death, and the stone in the mouth in this case played the role of a barrier through which the soul of the deceased or an evil spirit could not penetrate back into the body. Usually this was done with vampires, but legends about vampires appeared only seven centuries later, and most likely the people who buried these men were afraid that they could become zombies.
The shamans of the North and Central and East Asia also knew about the ways to turn people into their obedient slaves, and the Khanty, Nanai, Nenets and other northern peoples in their legends mentioned a certain terrible creature called "Khet", who was a man without a heart who rose from the grave.
In the North Mongolian chronicles of the X-XII centuries. it is mentioned that the tribes of the ancient Scythians used in battles "people without a soul", terrible in their appearance and knowing no pity. Such half-people were called a censer, and the attitude of the Scythians towards them was also very cruel.
And the tribes in the south of Tuva at the beginning of the last century took the heart out of the chest of their dead relatives so that they would not become servants of the "black shaman".
Mikhail Semyonovich Nekrasov, an ethnographer and researcher from Tomsk, described a strange-looking man he met in 1905. This man served the Tungus shaman Sazyrgel, and the servant understood his master by just one glance. The appearance of a man did not allow him to determine his age, and his face was wrinkled and covered with small cracks, like the skin that had crumbled on boots. When Nekrasov asked what kind of person he was, Sazyrgel answered him that this unworthy person had been given to the spirits of the great shaman …
An interesting fact was told by Dmitry Karavaev, a doctor from Irkutsk, who in 1924-1929 worked in the Kamchatka village of Pala-Na. Once, in gratitude for the healing, one of the elders of the clan told the doctor about the composition of the potion, with which you can resurrect a dead person.
Inhabitants of Haiti and in our time claim that they saw the reanimated dead, and even recognize them as their relatives or friends. However, in reality, these are "walking corpses", without emotions and desires.
The very process of turning a person into a zombie by voodoo sorcerers is kept in strict confidence, and only fresh corpses that have lain in the grave for no more than a few days are suitable for acquiring such a servant. Therefore, the relatives saving their dead from such a fate concretize the graves or stay on duty near it for several days so that the sorcerer cannot take the soul of the deceased.
The people of Haiti believe that strong magic and witchcraft are the cause of the causal revival of the dead. But experts studying the phenomenon of the appearance of zombies believe that the main role in the process of this transformation of a person into a weak-willed doll is the poison tetrodotoxin, which contains a ball fish (it is also found in fugo fish). A drug prepared by a sorcerer with this substance is poured into an unwanted person, or simply someone who, according to physical indicators, is suitable for working in the field. The paralysis caused by tetrodotoxin leads to a complete suppression of all functions of the human body, and even an experienced doctor is unable to distinguish a victim from a zombie dead. Apparently, if such a person is taken from the grave within a few days after the burial, then with the help of special potions and techniques, he can be brought back to life,but this will already be existence at the level of reflexes, since there are no known ways to return the "zombies" to a full life.
PS In addition to the above, I would like to add that at the moment, the potions of unknown composition used by African sorcerers have such a powerful effect on the nervous system that they can lead to its complete exhaustion and subsequent death of a person for unknown reasons. Therefore, people who come to work in Africa are warned that it is not recommended to enter into conflicts with the local population and to accept any treats from them.