• The word zombie is linked to folk tales of a small country, Haiti, located on a Caribbean island, according to our partner The Conversation.

  • When these tales began to reach the United States, American scholars and journalists traveled to Haiti in search of real zombies!

  • This analysis was conducted by Marguerite Johnson, professor of Classics at the University of Newcastle (Australia).

There are many series and movies about zombies.

Most of them are aimed at adults and are pretty scary.

Some people believe zombies are real, but they don't really look like the zombies you see in movies or on TV.

The word

zombie

is linked to popular tales from Haiti.

Haiti is a country located on an island called Hispaniola, in the Caribbean.

Folk tales have been told around the world for thousands of years.

They are usually made up stories, which resemble fairy tales.

But some people think there is some truth to these stories.

Hundreds of years ago, slaves from Africa were taken to Haiti and forced to work very hard on farms.

They were treated very badly, were not paid and were not allowed to return home.

These slaves would tell each other a tale about what would happen to them after they died.

In this tale, they said that a voodoo god would raise them from their graves and bring them back to Africa.

But if they had done bad things in their lives, they believed they would be turned into zombies instead.

Voodoo is a religion practiced in certain regions of the world, notably in Haiti.

It is believed that slaves brought to Haiti brought their beliefs in this religion.

People who believe in voodoo think there are many spirits in the world, many gods, and one main god.

The frightening myth of Baron Samedi

One of these voodoo spirits is called Baron Samedi.

If people antagonized him while they were alive, they risked being turned into zombies.

Baron Samedi looks quite scary, he wears a top hat, a large black coat and sometimes has a skull instead of a face.

In other Haitian legends, zombies are created by wizards.

They were supposed to be able to create zombies by making poisons.

When drunk, they would make the person look and behave like a dead person.

The wizard then uses the zombie as a slave.

Just over 100 years ago, these Haitian tales began to reach the United States.

Zombie stories were told to people and they were also printed in collections of stories about Haiti.

There were also reports of zombies living in Haiti, and it didn't take long for American scholars and journalists to start visiting Haiti in search of real zombies.

These zombie tales and reports have been turned into comic books and horror stories.

Some people like to be scared off by these monsters.

They are everywhere… but only in pop culture!

So here is the story of the zombies.

Whether it's religious beliefs, folktales, reports of real-life zombies, comic books, horror movies, or television, zombies are everywhere on our screens now.

Our "ZOMBIES" file

In today's TV shows, there are many different reasons why zombies are created.

Sometimes it is explained that people are turned into zombies by breathing in dangerous chemicals or catching mysterious diseases.

To make these TV zombies even scarier, they are often violent and even eat human flesh.

But don't forget that in these modern tales, designed to scare us, there is also a hero or heroine to save the world.

Planet

Children's questions: "Why does the rabbit eat its droppings?"

asks Rose (8 years old)

Science

Children's questions: "What is inside and at the bottom of a black hole?"

asks Gabriel (9 years old)

This analysis was written by Marguerite Johnson, professor of Classics at the University of Newcastle (Australia).


The original article was published on

The Conversation website

.

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