The Secrets Of Haiti Living Dead Analysis

The article “The Secrets of Haiti’s Living Dead” by Gino Del Guercio is an attempt to explain the phenomenon of zombies appearing in Haiti. Guercio begins his article by describing one case of the suspected zombies where a woman named Angelina Narcisse was approached by her brother, Clairvius, who was thought to be dead for eighteen years, and how he used childhood memories to prove that he was actually her brother. Guercio then continues the account with Clairvius giving a detailed account of the night he was buried, and how a voodoo priest brought him back from the grave. Clairvius then added to his account of how he was beaten and forced into slavery until his zombie master died and he escaped. Guercio continues the article by explaining …show more content…
Lamarque Douyon had investigated the zombies since 1961, and that Douyon used the Narcisse case to further his investigation with help from Dr. Nathan Kline. They went to Harvard Botanical Museum and found ethnobiologist Wade Davis to also help with the investigation. Once Davis had arrived in Haiti he already had a hypothesis for how the zombie drug was created, and that most of the peasant population practiced voodoo. He also found out that the stereotypes of voodoo were not true and was a very sophisticated religion. Davis also had been given many contacts to aid his expedition and one was Marcel Pierre, who had provided a sample of unknown powder to the BBC. Once Davis got Pierre to make a sample of the zombification powder he began to investigate the substance. Davis observed the effects that the poison has on victims which gave the appearance the same as …show more content…
It includes good accounts of encounters with supposed zombies by Haitian people. This article can be applied to our discussion on religion because of the Haitian belief in zombies and it can be applied to politics as well where the secret societies exercise power by using the threat of zombification to control the population. The zombie masters also exercise power by using drugs to keep their zombies in line suppressing their free will. I learned from this article that political organization does not have to be formal with any leaders but fear also keeps populations under control and that religion is influenced by these fears. This knowledge, however, contradicts how we discussed that states need to have a centralized power to control its people, which in this case a state government exists, but is not discussed. The article does however support the need for formal leadership to prevent situation like the Haitian zombies from happening