The zonbi.
Not a monster. The Haitian fear is of being made into one — a person whose gwo bonanj has been taken and whose body is put to work in someone else's fields, which is a fear about slavery restarting after death. Article 246 of the Haitian penal code treats the making of a zonbi as murder. Clairvius Narcisse, certified dead in 1962, was identified alive in his village in 1980, and the case has never been satisfactorily explained.
The zonbi is not the Hollywood monster and the Haitian fear runs the other way: not of being attacked by one, but of being made into one. A zonbi kò kadav is a body without its gwo bonanj, which has been captured and detained, leaving something that can be set to work in a field and does not tire or refuse — which is to say, slavery resumed after death, in a country founded by people who ended slavery. Article 246 of the Haitian penal code addresses the use of substances that produce a lethargic coma indistinguishable from death, and treats it as murder. The best-known case is Clairvius Narcisse, pronounced dead and buried in 1962 and identified alive by his sister in 1980. Wade Davis proposed a pharmacological explanation involving tetrodotoxin in the 1980s; the chemistry has been substantially criticised and the case is unresolved, which is roughly where the matter stands.
Also to be qualified as attempted murder is the use of substances by which a person is not killed but reduced to a state of lethargy, more or less prolonged... if the person was buried, then the attempt shall be considered murder.
Haitian Penal Code, article 246 (rendered)The law addresses the making of a zonbi without using the word.
The same ground, other faiths
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