Zombies have been a favourite of films and TV for a century but a new exhibition asks us to forget The Night of the Living Dead and examine a phenomenon born from the unique mix of cultures in Haiti. Zombies. Death is Not the End? is at the Musée du quai Branly till 16 February 2025.
Zombie movies have been popular since the 1930s, but they created a myth of an "undead" or "living dead" human who could infect ordinary people, leading to a zombie apocalypse.
In Haiti, zombies are generally people who have been condemned by voodoo secret societies for crimes they have committed against the community. Their sentence begins with drugs that are used to stupefy them and deprive them of their free will. In this state, they are buried, then taken out of the grave and effectively kept enslaved by the continuous administration of drugs.
The zombie phenomenon is part of the voodoo religion that developed in Haiti from the 16th century, a mix of the varied beliefs of enslaved people from different parts of West Africa and Roman Catholicism, which was imposed by the Spanish and then French colonisers of the island. Voodoo practitioners learned from the indigenous people of the island how to extract natural poisons and narcotics.
Both voodoo and zombies became better known outside Haiti during the U.S. occupation of the island from 1915 to 1934. Many travellers told stories of zombies. Some sensationalised, others serious anthropological work like that of Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston, who researched voodoo in Haiti in 1936-1937 and took a photo of a woman believed to be a zombie, Felicia Felix-Mentor, who had apparently died in 1907 but was found walking down a road in 1936, unable to speak.
Zombies. Death is Not the End?
Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac
8 October 2024 to 16 February 2025
Copyright(s) :
Léo Delafontaine / © musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, photo Léo Delafontaine
Personnage bizango, Haïti, 20e siècle. Tissu rembourré, os (crâne humain), bois, miroirs, métal.
Coll. Charlier / LAAB / UVSQ MAAM.2018.2.1 © musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, photo Pauline Guyon
Tag(s) : "black history" "costumes" "exhibition" "Haiti" "Harlem renaissance" "New Orleans" "Quai Branly" "voodoo" "zombies" "Zora Neale Hurston"