Zombies

I am beginning to gather information about the Haitian Lwa, or dieties of Vodou, but I want to get a more complete picture before I transmit too much to you. My translator, Peter, comes from a family of Vodou priests and priestesses. He is an intelligent and motivated young man but a very deep believer inthe powers of Vodou, and fulll of fears and superstitions, as is probably everyone else here. Just one little example of this is that people here are not to greet one another in the morning before they have brushed their teeth, or it is very bad luck.  Maybe that is why their teeth are so nice, I wish my patients in Amenia would have the same fears!!! One should never go out after 8 pm wearing white or shining a flashlight upwards, or you might be mistaken for one of the evil night dieties. Basically Peter doesn´t go out after 8 pm anyway. They also have a book they sell in the places where you play the lottery that gives the corresponding numbers to play according to the content of your dream the night before, for instance, if you dreamed of a dog, you would find that number and play it.

So in drilling Peter for his knowledge of the pantheon of Vodou, we started talking about zombies. He has seen quite a few, he says one works in a pharmacy!! He has heard them walk around at night, they make a continuous nasal humm, they shuffle as they walk with their head bowed. His relatives apparently have the power to contribute to the making of a zombie, which I don´t understand very well, but somehow these people can facilitate someones death and then get by Baron Samedi, the Vodou god who guards the cemetary and controls the ebb and flow of zombies. Zombies come back as slaves, so I guess they are useful.....there is a great book by Wade Davis, ¨´The Serpent and the Rainbow´¨ that talks about a potential scientific explanation. Here´s something from Wikipedia

In 1983, Davis first advanced his hypothesis that tetrodotoxin (TTX) poisoning could explain the existence of Haitian zombies.[2] This idea has been controversial and his popular 1985 follow up book (The Serpent and the Rainbow) elaborating upon this claim has been criticized for a number of scientific inaccuracies.[3] One of these is the suggestion that Haitian witchdoctors can keep “zombies” in a state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years.[4] As part of his Haitian investigations, Davis commissioned a grave robbery of a recently buried child.[5][6] (Dead human tissue is supposed to be a part of the “zombie powder” used by witchdoctors to produce zombies.) This has been criticized in the professional literature as a breach of ethics.[7][8]

The strictly scientific criticism of Davis’ zombie project has focused on the claims about the chemical composition of the “zombie powder”. Several samples of the powder were analyzed for TTX levels by experts in 1986. They reported[9] that only “insignificant traces of tetrodotoxin [were found] in the samples of ‘zombie powder’ which were supplied for analysis by Davis” and that “it can be concluded that the widely circulated claim in the lay press to the effect that tetrodotoxin is the causal agent in the initial zombification process is without factual foundation”. Davis’ claims were subsequently defended by other scientists doing further analyses[10] and these findings were criticized in turn for poor methodology and technique by the original skeptics.[11] Aside from the question of whether or not “zombie powder” contains significant amounts of TTX, the underlying concept of “tetrodotoxin zombification” has also been questioned more directly on a physiological basis.[12] TTX, which blocks sodium channels on the neural membrane, produces numbness, slurred speech, and possibly paralysis or even respiratory failure and death in severe cases. As an isolated pharmacological agent, it is not known to produce the trance-like or “mental slave” state typical of zombies in Haitian mythology, or Davis’ descriptions, although one might consider the effects of set and setting in combination with the drug. However, Wade Davis did not suggest that the zombie powder containing tetrodotoxin was used for maintaining "mental slaves" but for producing the initial death and resurrection that convinced the victim and those who knew them that they had become zombies. The effects of Fugu tetrodotoxin poisoning in Japan agree with the reports of zombification. The zombies, such as Clairvius Narcisse, were kept biddable by regular doses of the poisonous zombi cucumber, Datura stramonium which produces amnesia, delirium and suggestibility.[13]


To finish, here are a few more of my favorite medical terms in kreyol
Gaga sluggish
Piki injection
Zo bisket sternum
bouda buttocks
toudi dizzy
emowoyid hemmorrhoid