No one wants to die if the human design was scheduled for a revision. That's one of the features that would get an overhaul. Our mortality has been an obsession since the dawn of humanity itself, people long for ways to avoid death, or at least to make it bearable. Some cultures have practically move Heaven and Earth To do so, thousands of years ago, the Egyptians built enormous stone structures in order to how's they're dead and ensure them a place in the afterlife they perfected the art of embalming, so that even after death, those bodies might be ready for a new existence in a new place. Death, though, is a reality for all of us, whether we like it or not, young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick

life is one long journey down a road, and we walk until it's over some Think they see a light at the end of it all, while others hope for darkness That's where the mystery of it all comes in. No one knows. What's on the other side, we just know that the proverbial walk ends at some point, and maybe that's why we spend so much time guessing at it building story and myth and belief around this thing. We can't put our finger on what would be easier. Some say is: if we just didn't die, if we somehow went on forever it's impossible, but we dream of it anyway. No one returns from the grave. Do they most saying? Well, adjusted people would say no but story

exist. That say otherwise. These stories are new. They been around for thousands of years and span multiple cultures and, like their subject matter, be stories simply refuse to die. One reason for that as hard as it is to believe because some of those stories appear to be true. Depending on where you look and who you ask, there are whispers of those who beat the odds. Sometimes the journey doesn't end. After all, sometimes the dead, you do, walk I'm Erin Maggie, and this is lore the the the the the

the quintessential zombie movie, the one that all the commentators say responsible for putting zombies on the map. Fifty years ago was J, Ramiro, Classic Knights of the living dead, the crew, here's that Romero brought to the big screen managed to influence generations of filmmakers, giving us the Ike, an example that we see today in television shows like the walking dead. The trouble is removed. never used the word zombie to describe the creatures from his landmark film. Instead, they were ghouls agree, you're, borrowed from arabian folklore according to them ology ghouls are demons who either dead then because of that they're usually found in graveyards. But Romero schools were not the first undead creatures to hunger for the flesh and blood of the living, something that honour fall. to the odyssey. The epic greek poem written by homer nearly three thousand years ago, in the story

There is a scene where a deceased needs to get some information from a long dead. Profit named Teresa us to give the spirit. Strength, speak o D. C S feeds him blood in a lot of ways, the creatures we think Today, as zombies are similar to the european tales of the revenant. They ve gone by. Many names, the ancient Irish called them. The niyazov Mari meaning the undead in Germany, they are the veto gang or the one who walks again. And in nordic mythology, they're, called the drug or an M revenant itself is latin and means the returned. The basic concept is pretty easy to guess from that. evidence have those who were once dead but have returned to haunt and terrorize their neighbours in family. It might sound fantasy to our modern sensibilities, but some people really did believe that this could happen. historians in the middle ages wrote about revenant activity as if it were fact one man, William of Newberry

wrote in eleven ninety that- and I quote it would not. easy to believe that the corpses of the dead should sally from their graves and wonder about to terror or destruction of the living did not frequent exam. occurring in our own times. Suffice to establish this fact to the truth of which there is abundant. Testimony were I too right down all the instances of this kind, which I have ascertained to have befallen. In our times the undertaking would be beyond me. you're laborious and troublesome new Regos onto wonder why the ancient writers never mentioned events like these, but doesn't seem to take that as proof that residents are fantasy mentioned all sorts of boring things, Dane and important, mostly so why not the unnatural or the unusual. He was wrong. Of course, the ancient Greeks did have certain

leafs surrounding the dead and their ability to return to haunt the living. But to them there was much more complicated and each region came back with its own unique purpose. You see Greco. Roman culture believed that there was a gap between the date of someone's actual death and the intended date of their death. Remember this was sure. That believed in the mirror, the fates who had a plan for everyone's life. So, for example, Armor may be destined to die in his eighties from natural causes, but he could instead die in an accident in his field. Are that the market and these people who died early according to the law? genes were doomed to wander the land of the living as spirits until the dates of their intended. Death had arrived still with me good. So what the Greeks believed was that it was possible to control those wandering spirits. Now you needed to do is make a curse tablet. Something written on clay are ten or even parchment

and then bury it in the persons grave like a key in the ignition of a car. This tablet would empower some one to control the wandering dead. It might sound like the world's craziest, Martha Stewart how to project but to the Greeks. Magic like this was a powerful parts of their belief system. The dead were really gone and because of that they could serve a purpose. Unfortunately, that's not an attitude that was unique to the Greeks and in the right culture at the right time and under the right pressure. It was an idea that could be devastating in Haiti, the vast majority of the people there are genetically connected to West Africa to some degree of the ninety five percent. According to some study

It's a reminder of a darker time when slavery was legal and millions of Africans were pulled from their homes and transported across the Atlantic to work. The sugar plantations that filled the spanish coffers. We tend to imagine african slaves as being shipped the new world with no possessions beside their clothing on their back, but they came with their beliefs with their customs and traditions and with centuries of folklore and superstition they might not have carried luggage filled with precious heirlooms by they held the most important pieces of their identity in their minds, and hearts and one could take that away. There are a few ideas that need to be understood about this transplanted culture. First, they believed that this, oh and the body were connected, but also that death could be a moment of separation between the two, not always, but it could be now explain more about that in a moment. Second, they lived with a hatred and fear of slavery. Slavery took away their freedom.

It took away their power, they no longer had control over their lives, their dreams or even their own bodies, whether they lie did or not, they were doomed to endure horribly difficult labour for the rest of their lives. Only death would break the chains and set them free and third, that freedom wasn't guaranteed a most Africans dreamed of returning to their homeland in the afterlife. Their worse Who wanted to get their quicker? Suicide was common in colonial Haiti, but it was also frowned upon. In fact, it was believed that those who ended their own life wouldn't be taken back to Africa at all. Instead, they would be punished, The penalty, it was said, was eternal imprisonment inside their own body without control or power over themselves it was in a sense just like their life to the lives of Haiti. Hell was just more slaves, But a slavery that went on forever, these bodies entrapped souls had a name in their culture, the zombie it was first recorded in

teen. Seventy two, when a linguistic scholar recorded a zombie was- and I quote a phantom or ghost not infrequent he heard in the southern states, in nurseries and among the servants, the name it turns out has african routes is in the Congo. They use the word zombie, which means the spirits of the dead person, its related to two other words that both mean Guy and fetish fetish in this sense being a manufactured thing. A creature that has been made. The walking dead, at least according to haitian lore, are real. And what did these zombie look like? Well, thanks to soar, Neil. Firstly, we have a first hand account Hurseton was african american author, known for her novel. Their eyes were watching God and is regarded as one of the pillars of the Harlem Renaissance and it was while researching folklore during the trip to Haiti in nineteen thirty, six that she encountered something strange in her book tell my horse Hurseton recounts. What happened

I had the rare opportunity to see and touch and authentic case she wrote. I listened to the broke noises in its throat if I had not experienced this in the strong sunlight of the hospital yard. I might have come away from Haiti interested but doubtful, but I on this case of Felicia. Felix mentor, which was vouched for by the highest authority, though I know that there are zombies in Haiti, people have been called back from the dead. The site was dreadful. She said that blank face with the dead eyes. The eyelids were White all around the eyes, as if they had been burned with acid. There was nothing you could say to her or get from her, except by looking at her, and the sight of this wreckage was too much to endure for long wreckage. I can't think of another word with as much beauty and horror as that. In this context, something was happening in Haiti and the result was wreckage, lives, Bro,

in and torn apart by something. But what the assumption might be that these people all had attempted suicide, but suicide is common in many cultures, not just in Haiti. When you dig deeper, though it's possible to uncover the truth, then in this case the truth is much darker than we'd like to believe zombies. It turns out can be created. On the night of April, thirtieth of nineteen sixty two a man walked into the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Haiti. He was sick and complained of body aches, a fever and, most recently, coughing fits that brought blood up from his lungs. Naturally, the medical staff was concerned, and they admitted him

protests and treatment. This man, clear, vs nurses, was seen by a number of medical doctors, but his condition quickly deteriorated one of his sisters. Angelina was there at his bedside and according to her, his lips turned blue and he complained to her of a tingling sensation all over his body. But despite the hospitals, best efforts northeast died. stay to doctors, one american and one American trained each confirmed his death. Anne sister Angelina sign the death certificate after confirming the man's identity, because she couldn't read or write. She did so by pressing her thumbprint onto the paper and then his family began the painful process of burying their loved one and trying to move on death. As always is a part of life, never a pleasant one, but apart nonetheless,

over eighteen years later, the nineteen eighty one Angelina nurses was walking through the market in her village, something she did nearly every day. She knew the faces of each vendor. Do the sense and the sounds tat filled the space there, but when she looked down the dirt road toward the small crowd of people, something frightened her and she screamed their walking toward her was her brother, clear views. He was, of course older now, but it was him she would have recognized him anywhere and when he finally approached her and named himself with a childhood nickname, Any doubt she might have had melted away. What followed was a whirlwind of revelations as clear VS told his sister. What had happened to him and it all started. He said in the hospital room Into him his last moments in the bed, there were dark but fully aware he could longer see any one and he could move, but he remembered hearing the doktor pronounce him dead,

he remembered, the sound of his sister weeping and he even. Member of the rough cotton sheet being pulled up and over his face. That awareness continued on to his funeral, where he claimed to hear the procession. Even pointed to a scar on his face and claim that it was a result of one of the coffin nails, cutting him. later, the family brought in a psychiatrist, who performed a series of tests on clear vs to see if he was a fraud, but the man passed with flying colours answering questions that no one but Clare vs himself could have known in Sean over two hundred friends and family members vouched for the man's identity. This all of them confirmed was clear, vs nurses. So what happened according to clear vs himself. He was poisoned by his brother over a property dispute, how he wasn't sure mature.

They after his burial, a group of men, dug up his coffin and pulled him free. That's a thought worth locking away deep in the back of your brain by the way trapped inside a coffin beneath the earth blind and paralyzed cold and scared. It's a wonder, the man didn't lose his mind. The men who doug him up were led by a priest called a book or the mansion Claire VS and then guided him away to a sugar plantation where he was forced to work alongside others in a similar state of helplessness. daily doses of a mysterious drug kept. All of them unable to resist or leave. According to his story, he managed to escape to your later, but fearing what his brother might do to him. If he were to show up alive, he avoided returning home Only the news of his brothers death. Many years later, that coaxed him out of hiding ray of clear vs Northeast has perplexed scientists and historians for decades

in the nineteen eighties harboured sent in F, no botanist name way, Davis to investigate the mysterious drug and the result of his trip was a book called the serpent and the rainbow, which would go on to be a New York Times best seller, as well as a Hollywood movie. But few agree on that closures, samples of the drug that Wade collected have all been disproven, no, illegal sugar plantation staffed by zombie. Slaves has ever been discovered and the doctors who attended to clear vs in nineteen sixty two have all been accused of misreading the symptoms and prematurely declaring the man dead. There are so many doubts to the people closer to him, though. The facts are solid. Clare vs nor cease died. His family watched his burial in the cemetery. He was mourned and missed an eighteen years later. He came back into their lives

The walking dead medical mishap were the result of haitian black magic. We may never know for sure. stories of the walking dead are everywhere these days. It's as if we ve traded in obsession with extending our life and resigned to the fact that normal death, the kind where we die and stay dead, might just be better. We fear death because it means the loss of control, the loss of power this and freedom death in the eyes of many people robs us of our identity and replaces it with finale its understandable, then how slavery can be viewed through the same whence it removes a person's ability to make decisions for themselves

it turns them in a sense into nothing more than a machine for the benefit of other people. But what? If there really are individuals out there, the boat or evil pray who have discovered away to manufacture their own walking dead, who have perfected the art slaving a man or a woman deeper than slave owner might have managed before to rob them of their very soul and bind them to an after life of tireless ceaseless labour. In February of nineteen, seventy six Francine Alias was admitted to her local hospital in Haiti. She said she felt weak and light headed heard Digest, system was failing and her stomach ache. The doctors their treated her and then released her several days later she passed away and was buried in the local graveyard. She had only been thirty years old

Three years later, France Scenes mother received a call from a friend a few miles away. She needed her to come to the local market place there, and it was urgent. Brad mother didn't know what the trouble was, but she made the journey as quickly as she could once there she told that a woman had been found in the market. She was emaciated, catatonic and refused to move for where she was squatting in a corner head down and hands laced over her face, the woman it turned out was Francine, Alias Her mother brought her home and tried to help her, but Francine seem to be gone. She was there in body, but there is very little spirit left subsequent doctors in psychiatrists have spent time with Francine, but with very little progress to show for it On a whim, Francine mother had the coffin exude she had to see for herself. If this woman, little more than a walking corpse truly was her daughter. Yet

the woman had the same scar on her forehead that her daughter head. Yes, they looked like yes, others recognized her as Francine, but she needed to know for sure. When the man pulled the coffin out of the earth, it was heavy too heavy. They murmured to be empty more doubtful by the minute. Francine mother asked them open it, and when the last nail had been pulled free from the wood the lid was lifted and cast aside, the coffin wasn't empty. After all, it was full of rocks. There's a universe of focus

wrapped up in what we think. We know about words like voodoo and zombie, in fact, for centuries and entire belief, system thrived and evolved around the activities and services of the head priests known as the boat core, but the more you learn about them and the stories of their deeds. The easier it becomes to realise something. Important fear can often be a way of preserving yourself just how powerful, where they well I've, track down one more story that should illustrate that nicely stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

in the world. A vote there are many flavors depending on the region or country you are in. The expression of the religion might be slightly or wildly different, but few locations have such a rich. Well, a folklore as the island nation of Haiti in the world of haitian vote. There are some core beliefs that are important for us to understand. First, because its eight synchronous, religion, meaning a product of mixing a few different, larger trick. Since, like Catholicism and west african religions, it has a structure that might feel familiar to. Many of us. There are local temples, were priests, known as whom gun or both core serve the people there. The priests even have alters back in.

it ain't fifties. Researchers tried to document a number of those altars and do an inventory on the types of things found on them. Common objects included candles matches one or more crucifix, red paper or flags, small metal boxes and various broken objects where the beau core depart from our image of a priest is in the fact that both court charged for their services, similar to a doctor taking a fee for their assistance, the size of the feed depended on the type of ceremony needed, but unhappy customer well, sometimes return and ask for a refund or a portion of their funds to be restored and what sort of services did they provide? Well, some of it was

we mundane help with crops potions to give your love life a boost in medical treatment, but there was a darker side as well. It was common for clients to visit a book whore and ask for a rival to be poisoned or killed, but to do that properly, you needed to know their name. Of course. That sounds a bit obvious. Doesn't it? But apparently there was a huge tradition in Haiti: the centuries that involve the difference between birth names and public names. A person's real name would be listed on their birth records, but those records were something that just anyone had access to making them private and, in some cases, unknowable to most strangers, and one reason for that was to protect oneself evil deeds. It was thought that, if someone intended to harm you with a spell or a ritual that spell wouldn't be able to work without the targets- true birth name, so most people kept their name private and just use the less powerful nickname one that didn't allow others

to control them because, as we have already talked about earlier, freedom and control were a constant source of stress for the people of Haiti and even in the spiritual realm that battle had dire consequences. There were so many things to be careful of and doing something incorrectly ran the risk of putting yourself at danger or, worse upsetting the gods. One story might help us understand that relationship better in nineteen fifty Three, a man in Haiti found himself with a problem many years before he had convoy to a denomination of Christianity, known as the seventh day Adventists, but having grow up in and around vote you. He started to feel uncomfortable about the various voted if an area still lying around his house, so he reached out to his past her for help. They, Known each other for many years, and the pastor was more than happy to how about this, man requested that the pastor

hum and burned, one of his God stones when I'm assuming was a small stone, figurine of a specific guide, and so he did just that. He showed up at the house, took the statue then set it on fire. I imagine the man felt better after that in his world view, at least he had removed evil influence from his dwelling and he went about life as if that were the case that his past was finally behind him in the old gods. No longer had power over him, but three day later that man suddenly and tragically passed away the night of his death to Abraham friends, were working late at the nearby coffee processing facility. When a noise outside the building caught their attention. The darkness of night was a risky time to be up and about for those who truly believed all the folk lore of the land there There were evil spirits and unnatural creatures like the Luger route. To worry about that. Of course, zombies as these two men I scrambled over to a window. They cut movement outside along the nearby river under the

out of the moon. They could see a group of men beginning to cross as if they were on their way to some destination on the other side, and while these two and didn't recognize most of the people beside the river, they did see someone. They knew the dead man who had had his tat. You have a local god burned by his pastor, but that man had died, which made the scene they witnessed. All the more tariff, according to their testimony, the dead man was, walking naked beside the others, his hands bound at the wrists as his captors led him at the end of a long leash like rope he groaned over and over again, it was the sound of a man utterly terrified by what was happening and yet unable to do anything about it.

This episode of Lore was research written and produced by me, airing mangy, with music by Chad, Lawson or is much more than just upon cast. There's a book series available in bookstores in online and two seasons of the television show on Amazon, prime video, a television. Oh by the way produced by the makers of the walking dead, checking both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make an executive produced a whole bunch of other pod, all of which I think you'd enjoy my production company grim and mild specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark, Mammy Historical you can learn more about Oliver shows and everything,

going on over in one central place, grim and mild dot com, and you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, just search for lore podcast, all one word and then click that follow button. And when you do say hi, I like it when people say hi and as always, banks for listening.