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| |  Zombis May Not Be What They’re Reputed To Be LONDON, ENGLAND -- October 10, 1997 -- According to Haitian folk belief, zombis are people whose will, awareness and memory have been stolen by a sorcerer. It is believed the sorcerer -- called a boko -- accomplishes this either by casting a spell over a person or by giving them a magical potion. Once the boko has captured a person's spirit, the victim appears dead and is usually buried in an above-ground tomb common in Haiti. The boko then steals and reanimates the body and sets it to work as a slave. According to tradition, a boko can also obtain power over a person who dies of natural causes by snatching the person's spirit shortly after a death before the spirit has wandered away. Belief in zombis is widespread in Haiti and in many communities there are individuals who are considered to be zombis not only by their neighbours but even their families. Indeed the phenomenon is taken so seriously the Haitian Penal Code considers making someone into a zombi as a form of murder. But in a paper in this week's The Lancet, two researchers, professor Roland Littlewood of the department of anthropology and psychiatry at London's University College and Dr. Chavannes Douyon of the Polyclinique Medica in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, conclude many so-called zombies may in fact be individuals with psychiatric disorders or brain damage. In their study, the researchers report on three individuals who were considered to be zombis by their families and neighbours. They found the first individual appeared to have a severe psychiatric condition called catatonic schizophrenia, which can make a person mute and immobile; the second to have brain damage and epilepsy, perhaps due to an episode of oxygen starvation of the brain; and the third individual, a severe learning disability, perhaps due to fetal-alcohol syndrome. Such people are commonly seen wandering in Haiti and it is possible that belief in zombis became part of Haitian culture as a way to explain the medical condition of these mentally ill individuals and to integrate them into society, the researchers write.
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