 All right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming. I'm Ryan Lozano from the Department of Language, Philosophy, and Culture here at San Antonio College. And today is the fifth annual special edition Halloween lecture. Today we're looking at zombies separating back from fiction, hopefully a little bit of fun. Well, not that kind of zombie. I was originally going to hold this lecture a Monday morning at 8 a.m., but I figured that might be a little too thematic and scary for all of us. But zombies, especially on the super screen, have fascinated us as audiences for decades. And when I first started putting together this lecture, I wanted to find out why that was and how much of what makes it into the movies is actual factual zombie-type stuff. So that's what we're going to be taking a look at. Now, the first actual zombie movie was White Zombie. No, not that white zombie. That's Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie borrowed the name from White Zombie. This is from 1932, starring Bella Lugosi, the star of the previous year's smash hit Dracula as Murder Legendre, a white Haitian voodoo master who commands a horde of zombies. It was filmed in just 11 days with a budget of $50,000. I consider kind of a shoestring budget even then, and Lugosi commanded a staggering salary of $900. It was cast mostly with silent-era has-beens. It was one of the earliest talkies, and was then a critical failure, but has since become a cult classic. This is kind of the archetype and model of all of the zombie-flicks since. Now, the effects are not particularly scary, as you can tell. One reviewer noted at the time that the shambling masses that Lugosi's command looked more like an unorganized rehearsal of a chorus line from Gilbert and Sullivan. 36 years later, George Romero turned the genre on its head, Nighting of the Living Death, the first zombie movie to depict them as cannibalistic cadavers, something that seems to have stuck in the popular imagination. He would follow about that effort with Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, and Survival of the Dead, not to mention the extra canonical effort on his part, Creepshow, which does feature some zombie-like creatures, so we're going to go ahead and include that one. 1984's Surf 2, not necessarily the gold standard of quality and film, and 1993's Ozone would inject a little bit of realism into the genre, as a drink and a drug, respectively, are what turned folks into zombies. A little more on that later on. There have been comedic efforts put forth, like Shaun of the Dead and Juan of the Dead, Army of Darkness and Cabin in the Woods, where we're reminded especially that one must make a very careful distinction between zombies and a zombie-red neck torture family. You don't want to confuse the two things for one another. There have even been a few attempts to get the dumpsters in on it, with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and Paranormal, which was described at its release as a zombie movie for kids. Now, it goes without saying, so let's just say it anyway, that the popularity of the Walking Dead, both in the graphic novel and television format, has been remarkable. An interesting philosophical aside, I think, since this is the Department of Philosophy, is it also provides a handily familiar example of Hobbes' state of nature. It turns out in that post-apocalyptic zombie future, life really is nasty, solitary, brooded short. Now, the board gaming world has developed a similar fascination with zombies, almost all of them of the Romero variety, that is to say former humans now fixated on eating brains. With Zombie Side, Last Night on Earth, Dead of Winter, as featured on Wheeled Wheatens' Tabletop, and even a high school setting, the fantastic Student Bodies by Smirk and Dagger games. These are just the tip of the iceberg, as this theme is stretched to every imaginable product placement, all reasonably and conveniently free of intellectual property restrictions. But that's a separate philosophical issue. So, we all know the Lord, but where does all this zombie Lord come from? How did this whole thing get started? Are we really going to trace it to a 1932 movie that flopped, or is there something a little bit more behind it? Now, to get at its origins, we've got to talk a little bit, okay, a lot about Voodoo, and about not its origins necessarily in horror flick fodder, but as a world religion, still very much alive, still very presently practiced in parts of the world. Now, to begin with, Voodoo and Koodoo are not the same. Both do have their origins in West Africa, specifically in Benin, right next to Nigeria. Voodoo is a corruption of the word Bodol. It's a West African religion, still practiced there, but more familiar to us in its diasporic form as it came over with the slave trade. It was influenced by and created a syncretism with French Catholicism, primarily in Haiti, where it continues as an established and respected religion, liturgically practiced, usually in the Creole dialect of Haitian French. Koodoo, that which is known in Africa as Gokobol, and here more commonly called rootwork, or conjure, is not a religion. It is a form of folk magic that places more emphasis on personal magical power in both through the use of certain items, spells, formula, or methods, and it describes magical properties to roots, to animal parts, to minerals, to herbs, personal possessions. And the notion with Koodoo is generally one of harnessing the supernatural to improve life within the natural. Now, there is our Koodoo-gain practice. To further confuse things, we have Vodon. Vodon is a distinctly American southern form of Koodoo, and closer in practice to what we see depicted in most films and television series. When you see the Vodoo practitioners in supernatural or skeleton key and serpent in the rainbow and angel heart, they're bringing in not only practices of West African Vodoo, but also southern folk magic. That's the Vodoo. Aspects of hagiographical Catholicism, Native American practices, and it tends to have a less regimented liturgical life than proper Vodoo does, but it features a lot of what we might be culturally familiar with. Green Greaves, that's talismans or amulets, Wanga, those would be famous or infamous Vodoo dolls, Mojo bags, and other things. So, back to zombies. In Haitian Vodoo superstition, a zombie is a dead body, usually reanimated by magical means to act as a soulless robot under the control of a Oongan, a Wudu priest. Here, by the way, is Bella Lagosiaz, Werner Legendre, and white zombie. Here are a couple Oongans that have made their way into comic books and a few other places. Now, you would become a zombie at the hands of one of these Oongans in a couple of different ways. Either they would dig up the corpse and reanimate them through a magic ritual, or more likely, they would feed their victim a special preparation that would stupefied the soul, leaving the body a living corpse and subject to their suggestion and direction, more on that momentarily. As is common across both Hudu and Vodoo, where there is a curse, there is usually a reciprocal here, or sometimes there are several. Now, the simplest one seems to have been giving the zombie saltwater to drink. Sometimes it would have to do with their burial methodology. The corpse would be buried face down or have its mouth filled with consecrated earth, as in from a cemetery. Graveyard dirt is one of those frequently encountered Hudu ingredients. Sometimes a knife would be placed in the hand, so it could defend itself against the evil witch doctor wanting to zombify it. Sometimes, handfuls of sesame seeds would be strewn on the ground over the grave, so the zombie would be too preoccupied counting them to bother anyone. This is something that they share with Eastern European vampire folklore, and that's why we have count vod count. Two, three, ah, ah, ah. Now, that is some of the prevention techniques. The accounts of zombies, zombies are fairly common in Haiti, and some of the stories are just really great. In 1939, we have the first appearance of a now classic and frequently adapted and adopted account of a young girl from a wealthy family who was discovered four years after her natural death working as a slave in a shop. This is not at all uncommon. This is what the philosophy department looks like one day about it. Rescued and revived by French nuns and placed in a convent to live out her unnatural life. By 1915, the story was still popular, but it had adapted a little bit. By this point, we have four or five different towns named as the place for discovery. Her rescuers have in some cases become Baptist missionaries, and my favorite twist, unintended, on the story is that she was identified due to her bent neck, the result of having been buried in a coffin that was too small for her. And she had a scar on her foot from where the candle had overturned during her wake. One account relates a whole horde of zombies maintained by a hungan named Joseph, whose wife ignorantly fed them salted biscuits. In Haiti, most of the salt that they use is evaporated from seawater, and they awoke, and they make strength for the cemetery, hurling themselves upon their graves, and trying to dig themselves back into the earth, turning into corpses, even as they did so. The famous caged graves of the Victorian era are one example of preventing them from getting out to the first place or leaving them in peace. But how do you keep them from getting back in if they encounter salted biscuits or salt water? Now, the greatest fear of the zombie owner, and yes, there actually were manuals for zombie ownership, seems to have been that a zombie, once freed from their bondage, would revenge themselves physically and magically upon their captor. Because of this, zombie owners treated them very harshly, something borrowed over from the Haitian practice of beating lunatics to keep them frightened. Philosophical sidebar, Foucault would have had a field day with this. So, back to how one makes a zombie, as a caveat, the San Antonio College, the Elba College, did not convey the making of zombies at home, so please do not try this at home. Remember, zombies are made either by enchantment or by poison. The formers have been mysterious. I have no enchantments to impart to you today, known only to the Hungans, such as they are. So, we'll stick to the latter. The plants, usually cited as poison, are mencherniel and apple-like fruit up there, used by slaves to kill plantation owners in their livestock, and datura, the thorn apple, which contains, nobody be writing the statement screen, which contains atropine or sometimes velodana, deadly ice-shade. Of course, the most powerful poison, known to the gods, is that which is made from the legendary three drops that escape from the nose of the corpse when he's hung upside down. I have no pictures of the serum. There are also preparations of powders containing pepperwood, which stimulates the mucous membranes when inhaled, and it triggers a sort of disassociation, which renders the subject highly suggestible, as they might be during a ritual or ceremony. Initiates into the ranks of the Hungan Guru priesthood undergo something very similar, but with proper safeguards in place. Their souls get transferred into a head pot, safe from attacks by evil magicians and under protection of the Guru gods. At their death, a rite called a desuin sends their spirits into the waters of death and their souls back into the head pot to await spiritual resurrection. The deceased initiates are therefore a sort of purified zombie whose activity, when possessed, is controlled not by a Hungan but by one of the Voodoo gods, apparently a safer proposition. Now, in 1984, a bit of the mystery was removed, and by extension a bit of the fun. BBC Television, presented a program by John Tusa, featured in an interview with a Hungan, who admitted to using the poison of the puffer fish. Diadone histories carefully prepared and administered to their victim, who would then appear to be dead, apparently and appropriately buried, only to be exhumed by the Hungan and used as a zombie. Now, neurobiologists have analyzed the puffer fish poison and identified it as a terror of the toxin, exactly what is found in Japanese Voodoo, requiring a skilled sushi chef to prepare in order to avoid poisoning diners. When eaten raw, that is, sashimi, the flesh is relatively safe, with the mortality rate significantly less than when the dish is partly cooked and includes the livers, set to be the tastiest part of the fish despite the risks, and the only food that the Emperor of Japan has forbidden from eating. Now, there are about a hundred deaths annually, worldwide. Now, there are 17 restaurants in the United States that are licensed to serve Voodoo, 12 of them are in New York City. This makes the likelihood of a zombie outbreak within the Big Apple much more likely and perhaps more believable than a zombie outbreak in Georgia, with apologies to the producers of The Walking Dead. What it does tell us is we here in Texas are relatively safe. Good news. And that's about it. Are there any questions that I can answer for you? How do you spell the name? You said TUSU, the BBC kind who was interviewed with Andrew Buford. Is that TUSU? TUSU, T-U-S-A. Is it always the case that they have to be dead or can it be somebody who is dry? I was just reading this book about tuberculosis and consumption in literature, and it said that sometimes people would have to make a moral decision about whether or not they would become infected by caring for somebody who has a fatal disease. Therefore, they're almost saying, like, then I agree to become part of this group of people who are going to die here too. Well, I don't know that I encountered anyone in the literature that voluntarily became zombie. I accept maybe in the Voodoo priests themselves undergoing that similar ritual. I guess the risk would be taken. But no, for the most part, they don't appear to have to be dead. They could be poisoned with the machinil or the drops from the corpse's nose or any of those other techniques. But sometimes they were already dead and then resurrected magically is what shows up in the writing. Yeah, so what is their purpose? What is a zombie's purpose? They love our diss and what is the purpose? Well, you'll note that that posture is about perfect for mowing a lawn. The purpose generally seems to have been just having someone at your back end call. And they're your personal slave servants. They don't necessarily want to kill you. No, now there were some stories that in some of the Haitian military foods that some of the soldiers were actually thought to possibly be zombies under control of the military leader. Other questions? So we get the 32 white zombie and then from arrow of 68. So we get almost 40 year gap and it seems like a white zombie haven't seen it, but it seems to be that they're essentially under the control of a particular doctor. So this shift from their at the back end call of some mischievous mastermind versus their these, you know, to whatever degrees of self, whatever, you know, brain-eating monsters. I mean, is there a either historical or whatever sort of explanation? There doesn't seem to be any interlocker either cinematic or otherwise. Romero just kind of went off the reservation with knowing facts, they're fleshing and eating cadavers and it makes for a better film, I suppose, of a white zombie. I encourage you all to see it. It's available on Netflix and it's a fairly slow hour and a half if you're used to contemporary horror films and the zombies are not particularly intimidating. They just kind of shuffle around and grunt a little bit there, but they're not interested near brains and they're not particularly terrifying and they all just kind of move together and abhorred. By the time we get updated to Romero, well now they're coming at you with a pretty good lip and now they're interested in eating you so it's a little more terrifying, but I couldn't find anything that, and obviously the literature on this is pretty limited, but there wasn't anything that indicated that that is canonical in any way. It's become very much something because now we don't think of a zombie that doesn't want brains we've been talking about, but it doesn't seem to have come from anywhere specific. In terms of the root work, the conjure, the hudu, as it's so called, there really is kind of a major work on that. He was compiled in the 1970s by Harry Middleton Hyatt. He was a Methodist minister that went into the American South and started interviewing witch doctors, for lack of a better word, and he records this in a 5,000 word, a word called hudu, root work, and conjure. I want to say it's available online in a couple different places. It's been out of print since the 70s, but you can still find reproductions of it, and a lot of the practices that I recorded here are recorded in that text there. I guess I can hit it for fun. The website for the CDC has a little sidebar of zombies. That's awesome. It's on a government website, so I thought that was funny. It's like new tracks that I post every year. Oh, what's wrong with that? I'll never show them down. Rob, you did a bike last year. Any other questions? Was the idea of the apocalypse in it, the apocalypse? The apocalypse. Oh, no, that seems to have come about kind of around another invention of George Romero. Almost all of what we now think of as zombies comes from 1968, comes from that one villain. They want to eat your brain. They are now dead. They're not really under control. They don't really have any thought at all. And as far as an apocalyptic kind of, post-apocalyptic future, that seems to have come about there. All from one movie? Well, from six movies, counting all of his various scenes. Are there any filmmakers in research? Sorry. Do you have any questions? They didn't for him to be in the truth. Well, we'll let you know. You told me that they were created as a personal slave, so how did they turn into bringing one to kill you? Well, as to Dr. Toon's question, it kind of he seems to have just gone off his own way and made that leap. It certainly makes for a more interesting film. Yeah, sure, certainly. Anything else? In your research, was there any correlation with frontal lobotomies and zombies from the... Only to the extent of the treatment of the patients, you know, the sideline to Foucault, you know, madness and civilization, which is definitely there in terms of, in the era of the prefrontal lobotomy, we do start to see the just horrific treatment of patients, especially within Victorian England, the sanatoriums and sanitariums that are there. As far as direct connection to zombies, I haven't noted one, but I'm sure... There's nothing in a zombie-like state after their lobotomies, they're left in a zombie-like state. I mean, they were. So I've done any one right now. But without the seeking... No brains. All right. Well, I thank you all. This is one of my favorite things to do every year. Like I said, this is the fifth time I've done this. We keep having fun, so we're going to keep doing it. But enjoy the candy. Thank you for coming. And if you have any other questions, don't forget to speak.