User:Silvereyes2010/Vodou: An Entrance into American Popular Culture

Vodou: Entering Popular American Culture

See also Haitian Vodou

Despite the fact that horror genre films date back to the late 1800's, Vodoun inspired themes would not appear on any stage or screen until 1932.

The Magic Island and Zombie
In the early 1900’s, Vodoun practices and beliefs were viewed by so-called civilized society as barbaric and strange. This idea, however, was challenged with the release of William Seabrook’s travel book, The Magic Island, in 1929. Seabrook painted Haiti as an exciting place where dark magics exist and zombies walk. His readers were intrigued, and they soon wanted more.

Enter Kenneth Webb. In 1932, Webb produced a Broadway play entitled Zombie. Webb drew heavily from Seabrook’s "magic island" as he created a story set in Haiti and revolving around a well-known Vodoun icon, the zombie. A 1932 Time Magazine review of the production summarizes the story as one of a Voodoo overlord who comes into contact with a family of planters, which encounter brings chaos into their lives. The play itself was not well received by critics and reviewers alike. However, the audience was fascinated by the horrific nature of the "living dead". “The creature [zombie] fell irrevocably under the auspices of the entertainment history”. Hollywood quickly recognized the zombie creature as a marketable character. Indeed, the first true zombie movie, White Zombie, was released also in 1932; the same year of Webb's play.

White Zombie (1932)
White Zombie uses its Haitian setting as the perfect cornerstone to the Vodoun themes throughout the film. Bela Lugosi, best known for his performance as Dracula, plays an evil Vodoun priest, a bokor named Murder Legendre. In the film, Madeleine Short and her fiancé Neil Parker arrive in Haiti to be married at the home of plantation owner Charles Beaumont. Only Charles falls in love with Madeleine and asks her to marry him. When she declines, he enlists the help of Vodoun bokor, Murder Legendre. Murder, with Beaumont’s help, kills Madeleine and then brings her forth from the dead as a zombie.

Vodou presents itself at the very beginning of the film. Madeleine and Neil have just arrived in Haiti and drive by coach to the plantation of Charles Beaumont. They see dark figures rising over the peak of a mountainside. Their driver becomes afraid, and tells his passengers the dark figures are zombies. The idea of a zombie is new to film audiences, so it was important to introduce the concept to its viewers. The driver goes on to explain that zombies are the living dead, creatures taken from their graves by powerful Vodoun sorcerers.

When Charles Beaumont goes to enlist the aid of Murder Legendre in stopping Madeleine’s marriage, he enters a sugar cane mill completely run by lifeless drones. We watch as they work slowly, their faces lifeless. They have no feeling except to obey their master’s commands. This is illustrated even more when one loses his balance and falls to his death, something anyone with a vestige of brain power could have prevented.

Murder Legendre seems to use three kinds of power throughout the film. The first is the vial he gives to Charles. This vial contains the potion that kills Madeleine, but that also allows her to be brought from the grave. The second power Murder uses is when he carves from candle wax figurines to represent his victims. When he burns said figurines, his victims begin the process of turning into a zombie. The third and last power illustrated is Murder’s ability to summon his zombies by pressing his hands together in front of him. And while it gives Lugosi the chance to show off his irregularly long fingers, it has no real place in Vodoun practices or culture.

While Hollywood embellished and imagined a great deal in White Zombie, the film did have redeeming qualities that made the Vodoun theme tangible and realistic. First is its setting in Haiti, where such zombie rituals would occur. Second is the potion that Murder gives to Charles. Many anthropologists believe that chemicals are responsible for the way in which Vodoun priests raise zombies from the grave. Lastly, when Murder dies, Madeleine is released of her zombie state. She returns to human form. Vodoun beliefs state that once the zombie’s bokor dies, the zombie is released from the powers that held them a slave to their master.

The Real Vodou behind White Zombie
According to anthropologist Wade Davis, the word zombie originates from the Kimbundu term, nzumbe. Translated, nzumbe means “ghost” or “spirit of a dead person”. This entire concept originated in Africa and traveled to Haiti with the slave trade. The belief in zombies, in the living dead, is an integral part of the Haitian Vodoun culture. Bokors, dark Vodoun priests, give a powder to their victims, which anthropologist Wade Davis in his book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, labels poud zombi. Soon after this, the victim dies, is mourned, and is buried. It is then that the bokor returns, brings the victim from their grave, and transforms them into a zombie. Zombies are then forced to mindlessly serve their masters, the bokors that created them.

Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston, a critically acclaimed author and beloved voice for African Americans everywhere, became fascinated with Vodoun culture during her writing career. After receiving a highly prestigious Guggenheim fellowship, she was able to travel to Haiti in 1937 to study in-depth the Vodoun religion for her next book, Tell my Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.

During her anthropological studies, Hurston wrote a letter to the Guggenheim detailing her own encounter with a zombie. She was allowed to take a picture of the woman, the first photograph ever taken of one of “the living dead”. The woman had been wandering around a farm outside of town. The man who owned the farm identified her as his sister, a woman who had died and been buried nearly thirty years earlier.

Hurston’s interest was piqued by this encounter. She began looking into Vodoun zombies, trying to uncover the secret to the drug that possessed the ability to render its victims dead and the antidote that allowed them to rise again as mindless drones. However, Hurston received many warnings, including one from a renowned Haitian physician. He cautioned, “Perhaps it will cost you more than you are willing to pay. Perhaps things will be required of you that you cannot stand”. At his words, Hurston gave up her persistent search for the secret behind the “zombie potion”, and turned her focus to other facets of the religion.

Wade Davis
In 1985 and with the release of his book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, anthropologist Wade Davis claimed to have discovered the secret to the zombie potion he called poud zombi. While in Haiti, Davis studied the Haitian people and their Vodoun practices. He met and spoke with bokors, Vodoun priests who perform dark magic. It was through this that Davis became acquainted with Vodoun zombies and the beliefs connected to them. Davis observed that the bokor mixed several marine fishes into the poud zombi before administering the mixture to his victim.

At certain times of the year, such fish may contain lethal levels of a nerve agent capable of mimicking death called Tetradotoxin. Davis goes on to say that once ingested, the poison sends the body into paralysis and shuts down the heart and other necessary life functions completely.

There are very real consequences to using such a potent and powerful chemical. If administered too strongly or in any way improperly, the victim could die instantly. The risk of suffocation while inside the coffin is also very great. Davis warns, “The drug induces a state of profound paralysis, marked by complete immobility during which time the border between life and death is not at all certain, even to trained physicians”.

The sad truth is that even those lucky enough to be rescued from their coffin suffer severe brain damage from the lack of oxygen. This may help to explain the sluggishness and dimwitted behavior associated with Vodoun zombies.

Many, however, remain skeptical at to Davis’ results. Botanist James D. Skean argues in his review of Davis’ The Serpent and the Rainbow, that Davis’ methods of coming to his conclusions fall short of scientific. He details how Davis arrived in Haiti with money to buy his information. Skean suggests that discovering the secret ways of the Vodoun religion must be sought through trust, not money. Others claim there is not enough evidence to support the theory of the tetradotoxin in the poud zombi mixture, as the laboratory Davis sent the samples to found the chemical in some and only benign traces in others (Davis, Zombification 1715).

Weird Woman (1944)
Weird Woman revolves around highly logical college professor Norman Reid, played by Lon Chaney Jr., and his new bride Paula. While doing research on some unnamed tropical island, Professor Reid falls in love with Paula, a young woman raised by a Vodoun priestess. They marry and he brings her home to the U.S. and a small collegiate town.

Norman Reid soon begins to wonder if his wife has truly given up her beliefs, customs he finds superstitious and nonsensical. His suspicions are confirmed when he follows Paula to a graveyard and watches as she uncovers a homemade altar and several sets of Vodou dolls. Enraged, Norman forces Paula to burn her figurines and medallions. But just as the good omen charms begin to catch a spark in the fireplace, things start to go terribly wrong for the happy couple.

Two people close to Norman are killed, and the good professor is implicated in their deaths; even sent to prison. Paula is harassed by mysterious phone calls that sing her native death chants over and over in her ear. A traumatized widow screams at Paula, telling her she should return to her island, where she belongs. She reiterates over and over how Paula is not welcome, and that her kind would never be welcome.

The interesting twist of the film is that every horrible event that tortures the newlywed couple occurs not because of mythical powers, but as the collateral of a woman’s scorn. An ex-girlfriend of Norman’s sets everything in motion, including driving a lost man to suicide and a young student to attempted murder. Inevitably, it is this woman’s own fear that results in her death, a death that was falsely foretold to her. Throughout the film, Paula’s belief’s, her Vodoun culture, is thrown aside as superstitious and naïve. Even at the conclusion of the film, the basic moral of the story is that such magic only has the power a person gives it. Norman realizes that the human emotions of fear and jealousy were the cause of the destruction around him, and makes his wife promise him to never turn to her island customs again.

Unlike White Zombie, Weird Woman is highly Americanized. Vodoun religion is brought into the film only as an added theme. In the end, every strange occurrence is organized and carried out by individuals. No real credence is given to Paula's "fantastical island superstitions”.

Voodoo Man
Women motorists keep disappearing from a certain stretch of lonely highway. But no one could ever suspect the ugly purpose behind such a crime. No one would ever suppose that in small town America, in secret passages beneath the ground, Dr. Richard Marlowe uses Vodoun rituals to turn these women into zombies.

Bela Lugosi stars as “the Voodoo man”, kidnapping young women in the hopes of using their energy to bring his wife back to life, a woman who has been dead for twenty-two years. This is all, of course, with the help of his three oafish henchmen. But complications arise when a young reporter and his soon-to-be bride get caught in the middle of their plot.

Despite its title, Voodoo Man has little to do with Vodou, Haitian or otherwise. The lifeless looking girls, which Lugosi claims to be his zombies, were never actually killed. So, in that respect, they could not be resurrected into zombies. The priest who conducts the rituals is neither a Houngan nor a Bokor, two types of Vodoun priests. He is merely a friend of the grieving widower, Dr. Richard Marlowe.

The rituals in the film show another inaccuracy. True Haitian Vodou rituals are held in a sacred part of their temple. During such rituals, there are beating drums and beautiful chanting. There is a great deal of dancing, all centering a pillar they believe connects them to their gods. During such ceremonies, it is said that Iwa, heavenly spirits, can posses one of the dancing bodies. When such occurs, Iwa must be catered to. They serve Iwa whatever food it may desire, and give Iwa whatever it wants. In return, Iwa will give holy counsel and advice.

Voodoo Man portrays its rituals as dark and sinister. However, such thematic elements exist only to add tension and suspense to the plot. Here, the Vodou only exists in the film to further the storyline. This becomes a common occurrence in later Vodou-inspired films. With the exception of a select few, the powers illustrated throughout these motion pictures are extremely Americanized and for the most part only exist to enhance the plot. Most certainly, it is a far cry from the things witnessed in Haiti by anthropologists such as Davis and Hurston.

Planetary Theory on a Postage Stamp
It is no surprise that filmmakers have failed to eloquently portray what is most definitely a complex religion and way of life. Like any religion, it is filled with deeply-rooted faiths and beliefs. However, something that makes it unique is its secrecy. What limited anthropological studies there are, most researchers remark on the intimacy of Vodoun rituals and the houngan priests' reluctance to share rituals and potions with outsiders.

Zora Neale Hurston said it up best when she proclaimed that explaining Vodou culture in the confines of a book would be like “explaining the planetary theory on a postage stamp”.