Botanical Mrsi;rM Llafllts 



Vol. 29, No. 2 



Spring 1983 



PREPARATION OF THE HAITIAN ZOMBI POISON 



E. Wadl Davis 



For many years travellers to the Caribbean island of Haiti have 

 returned with sensational reports o^ zombies, the so-called living 

 dead of the Voudou society. According to these popular accounts 

 zombies are innocent victims, raised in a comatose trance from 

 their graves by malevolent Voudou priests (bokors) and forced to 



toil indefinitely as slaves. 



Serious students of Haitian culture, while noting that the vast 

 majority of the peasantry believes in the physical reality of zom- 

 bies, have usually considered the phenomenon as folklore (Hers- 

 kovits 1937, Leyburn 1941, Mars 1945, Bourguignon 1959, 

 Metraux 1959, Courlander 1960). Certain writers, however, have 

 postulated a material basis for zombification (Hurston 1938). 

 This basis is a reputed poison acting dramatically to lower 

 metabolism and simulate death so much so that the victim is 

 buried alive and later resusitated with an antidote administered 

 by the bokor in the graveyard. (Hurston 1938, Leyburn 1941, 

 Metraux 1959). Scientific interest in this zombi poison was 

 recently stimulated by three cases of zombification, one of which 

 may represent the first potentially verifiable instance (Douyon 

 1980, Pradel and Casgha 1983, Davis 1983). Physicians familiar 

 with these three cases, fully cognizant of the medical potential of 

 such a drug, asked me in the spring of 1982 to investigate its 

 organic composition in Haiti. 



During the course of three expeditions, the complete prepara- 

 tion of five poisons used to make zombies w^as documented at 

 four w idely separated villages in Haiti. Although each locality has 

 an unique formula for the poison, botanical and zoological 

 determination of the voucher specimens indicates that the princi- 

 ple ingredients are consistent at three of the four localities and in 

 four of the five poisons. The formulae for the antidotes, on the 

 other hand, show no consistency in these widely separated 



localities. 



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