What is all this zombie business? That would depend where you live. If you live in the United States, it may mean no more to you than a cheesy "B movie" or your favorite comic but in other parts of the world, namely Haiti, zombies are believed to be a reality.
The word zombie comes from the Kongo word Nzambi which means "spirit of a dead person." Haitians believe bokors or witch doctors poison their victims using a special compound which strips that person of all memory and free will. The result of the poisoning is a person who in no uncertain terms is "out of it," ready to be swept away to work as a slave. This belief was dismissed as a myth until the well documented case of Clairvius Narcisse was reported.
In 1962, Narcisse (funny this is his name being he was reported to be a selfish and opportunistic person by his neighbors before his misfortune) checked into a hospital suffering from fever, blue/cyanotic lips, tingling sensations throughout his body, digestive problems, pulmonary edema, hypothermia, hypotension, body aches, malaise and coughing up blood. His condition worsened and he was eventually pronounced dead. His body was identified by his sister Marie Claire and he was buried the next day.
Eighteen years later, Marie Claire was shopping in the marketplace as a man approached her claiming to be Clairvius Narcisse. He actually called himself by the childhood name his family gave him. This name was not known to anyone outside the immediate family. Narcisse proclaimed that shortly after being pronounced dead he felt as if his skin was on fire. He was unable to move or speak but was aware of everything going on in his immediate surroundings; his sister crying, being placed in his coffin (lucky for him embalming wasn't practiced back then) and he even showed Marie Claire the scar on his cheek where one of the coffin nails penetrated his face. Later a bokor and some of his men dug up the coffin, removed Narcisse, beat him into submission and took him to the bokor's farm where he worked in a dream-like state, malnourished and ill treated for the next two years. He only managed to escape when another "zombie" found the will to kill the bokor, allowing for escape.
In 1982 this case came to the attention of two researchers who were determined to find out what the zombie poison consisted of. Off to Haiti the researchers went, where they met with several bokors and bought samples of their powders. When analyzed it was found that each compound varied: centipedes, lizards, toads, tree frogs, etc. were found in some but not all mixtures. There were just three components that were consistent in each sample: ground human bones, plants with prickly spines (in some cases, actual tarantula legs) and puffer fish. It is not certain why the bones were used being they are chemically inert but the prickly plant or tarantula legs served as a way to irritate the skin through scratching, causing an abrasion to enable the puffer fish poison, tetrodotoxin, to enter the bloodstream. This would be the reason why each bokor insisted to the researchers that the zombie poison must not be ingested but put in a potential victim's shoe or dropped down their back.
Tetrodotoxin is five hundred times more powerful than cyanide and the cause of all the symptoms Narcisse displayed in the hospital. Puffer fish (fugu) is eaten in Japan. Expert chefs carefully remove the reproductive organs of the fish, where most of the poison is found. Even with the careful considerations of the chefs, some tetrodotoxin mishaps have been reported.
There has been no evidence of "brain eating" or the ability to master Micheal Jackson's choreography by victims of the powder to date.
