ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ𝖢𝖠𝖴𝖳𝖨𝖮𝖭ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ𝖹𝖮𝖬𝖡𝖨𝖤𝖲 𝖠𝖧𝖤𝖠𝖣

We all know about the Hollywood version of zombies, but have you ever asked yourself what happened that caused these monsters to exist? Let me explain...

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ𝖳𝗁𝖾 𝖮𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗂𝗇ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Let's go back to the old times when plantation slavery was happening. People from Africa had been subjected to forced labor, causing them to move from their homeland and work for others in exchange for nearly nothing. People from different African societies were forcibly brought together in Haiti, where the first spark ignited in the form of a religion named Vodou. Now, don't confuse this with those famous voodoo dolls, those don't have any place here. Back to it, the religion became a system that brought Africans together. It became a form of resistance and a culture against slavery. So within all these beliefs emerged a folklore figure named the zombi, which represented the horror of being forced to labor even after death. There were some practices and beliefs associated with zombification, but they varied greatly, so we'll ignore the details of them for now.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ𝖹𝗈𝗆𝖻𝗂𝖿𝗂𝖼𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇ㅤㅤㅤㅤ

So what was zombification? As I said, these rituals varied a lot, but the general idea was to deprive someone of their will and force them to continue working even after death. Can you see the horror? It wasn't that "OMG, a flesh-eating undead!" It was "You can't be free even after your death," which is a great paradox. Death is supposed to finally free you from everything, to let you rest in peace. The zombi reversed that, and that was the horror.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ𝖧𝗈𝗅𝗅𝗒𝗐𝗈𝗈𝖽'𝗌 𝖹𝗈𝗆𝖻𝗂𝖾𝗌ㅤ

So obviously, this folklore was taken up by Western writers and filmmakers and transformed into the zombie that you know now. One of the earliest major examples was White Zombie. Later, there was another major change that you can see in The Night of the Living Dead, where zombies were there to eat your flesh. Nowadays, there are many types of zombies, such as Walkers (The Walking Dead), Clickers (The Last of Us), etc. Now, the horror is "dead people are eating people," which is all fun and games. But personally, I think zombies deserve to be known for what they were meant to be, too.