
Until 16 February, the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac is staging an exhibition on the zombies of Haiti. "Zombis. Death is not the end" examines a polymorphous anthropological, religious, social and historical reality. Meet the "undead" of Haitian voodoo culture.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the etymology of the word zombi refers to a ghost, usually that of a dead child. The term has its roots in various West African idioms. It is said to be derived from Nzambi (deity) in the Congo, Mzumbi in Togo (a body that is no longer under the control of a spirit), Ngzombi in Dahomey (a bewitched being). "The practice of zombification in Haiti lies at the convergence of three phenomena: the religions of sub-Saharan Africa (and in particular witchcraft practices aimed at harming victims from a distance); the slave routes along which beliefs and cultures from three continents met; and the mastery of poisons and narcotic substances by the indigenous populations of the Caribbean arc (Arawak, Taïnos, Caribbean). "explains the exhibition press kit.
Secret societies

Glass and plastic beads, satin. 150 x 125cm. Port-au-Prince.
musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, photo Claude Germain.
There are around ten secret societies in Haitian voodoo, which claim to be descended from groups of maroon slaves fleeing their Western masters (Chanpwèll, Cochon gris, Cochon marron, Bozop, Bizango, etc.). Depending on their specific characteristics (region of origin, tutelary deity, etc.), they have specialised over time, acquiring specific powers and functions. The Bizango society plays a judicial role, both preventive and curative, and is traditionally responsible for creating zombies.
The banner above by Haitian artist Myrlande Constant is a summary of the rituals associated with Baron Samedi and Grande Brigitte. At the centre of the hanging is the loa (1) of the dead, dressed in his elegant clothes, glasses broken, hat and frock coat. Around him, tombs and crosses indicate that we are in a cemetery. Initiates come to visit the dead, and their clothes are like Baron Samedi with a missing shoe or broken glasses, as if they had one foot in life and the other in death. The large black cross in the centre is that of Baron Samedi, raised over the oldest grave in the cemetery, blackened by the smoke and blood of the sacrifices.
At the top, Grande Brigitte, elegantly dressed and riding a cross, is greeted by a Christian god (with a white hand) opening the clouds of heaven.

While the figure of the zombie has been the subject of misconceptions and fantasies (a bloodthirsty creature bent on murder and cannibalism) in a number of films (Night of the Living Dead, 1968), TV series (Walking Dead, 2010), comic strips, songs (Thriller by Michael Jackson), etc., it is still very much alive in popular beliefs and in Haitian practices linked to voodoo.

In its common usage, the term "zombi" in Haitian Creole, or "zombie", which corresponds to the American word, refers to a human being who is supposed to have died and risen from the dead to return to roam the world of the living. In Haiti, it refers to a person who has generally committed a misdeed: "Thieves, rapists and, above all, those who have sold land that does not belong to them, a very serious matter in Haiti," explains Dr Philippe Charlier, forensic pathologist, curator of the exhibition and director of the Laboratory of Anthropology, Archaeology and Biology (LAAB) at the University of Paris-Saclay. This individual, in a magical-sorcery context, finds himself judged, condemned, drugged, buried alive, exhumed then exiled and transformed into a slave by a sorcerer or bokor. Conducted by secret societies that act as courts of law, zombification, through the absorption of powerful toxins - such as cucumber-zombi or the tetrodotoxin - and codified burial, would create a man who would be no more than a shadow of his former self, just as the slaves were. Described since the early twentieth century in Haiti (although the semantic occurrence appeared in 1687 in the French book The Zombie of Greater Peru), zombification is considered a punishment worse than death, and is in fact used as a "parallel justicesays Dr Charlier.
The exhibition route

On the floor, symbols traced with maize flour (vèvès) are used to summon the divinities (loas), provided they are activated by libations of alcohol, candles and congo packets. Seated on low chairs or kneeling, the initiates (whose clothing is coloured according to their degree of spiritual elevation and the tradition they have adopted) recite the ritual songs.
musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, photo by Patrick Gries.
The exhibition looks at zombification through a variety of objects linked to the ritual. The first part of the exhibition presents the basics of Haitian voodoo: its general codes, the organisation of the gods and the cult, the rituals surrounding the deceased and the deities associated with death (loas), in particular Baron Samedi and his wife Grande Brigitte, an "army of Bizango warriors" (a group of around twenty "fetish" dolls from the secret Bizango society involved in the trial of the accused, a sort of "army of the dead"), and the deities associated with death (loas).This is a sort of "army of shadows" that operates at night to carry out the spells cast by its followers.)
A life-size voodoo temple and a cemetery have also been reconstructed. The temple features a central column covered in symbols known as the potomitan. On the floor are ritual objects of indigenous or archaeological origin. These magical objects stand side by side with crosses, a visible manifestation of the religious syncretism between Catholicism and West African traditions, archaeological artefacts (ceramics, cut or polished stones, axes, etc.) from the indigenous Taïnos populations expressing a mythical filiation with the Caribbean populations, pious images of Catholic saints from Cuba and Packets. congo. These are objects of power for the priest and the initiates under his care, and are placed on the altars of voodoo temples. They are used in healing rituals, but also in homes as protective amulets.

The second part of the exhibition brings together a number of objects from the collection of the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac collection, including interlocking sculptures and spell-repelling mirrors. Many religions in sub-Saharan Africa consider wandering souls and dead bodies to be realities. These supernatural entities, and the practices associated with them, are also evoked through the accounts of eight individuals considered to be 'zombies' since the beginning of the twentieth century. These accounts are far from unique and go beyond the realms of folklore. They include Clairvius Narcissus who claims to have been drugged, buried and brought back to life: born in 1922, "dead" in 1962, he was poisoned because of a family conflict. He reappeared in 1980 and was reunited with his family, to whom he shared his strange story.

musée du quai Branly -Jacques Chirac, photo Pauline Guyon.
Philippe Charlier also interviewed a former zombie: "Jacques Ravix is a gynaecologist who was zombified by his mother-in-law because he wanted to separate from his wife. He told me that in 1994, without realising it, he was poisoned by substances placed day after day on the armrests of his chair. In particular, he had been given tetrodotoxin, a drug extracted from the liver of a fish called froufrou in Haiti (tetrodon or fugu in Japan). He explained to me that he was in a kind of coma. He was able to continue dressing and doing things while completely unconscious. He was fished out of the water when he was already in a body bag. A member of his family saw that he was still breathing. He was resuscitated and hidden away so that the bokor couldn't finish the job. To protect him, they even organised a fake funeral.

are there to ward off evil spells.
Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, photo Pauline Guyon
The practice is supposed to be illegal on the Caribbean island, but Philippe Charlier reveals in an interview with France Info that there are "several tens of thousands of zombies in this country and we expect this to increase as a result of the current unrest linked to gang violence, because they are creating "bad deaths", people who have been murdered and who have not had the funeral rituals".
The exhibition develops an educational approach that provides a better understanding of this practice, exploring its origins and the complexity of the zombie phenomenon within Haitian voodoo, while questioning a socially recognised anthropological reality. The exhibition concludes with extracts from twentieth-century films about zombies, shown in a separate room.
1 The loas They bring together a multitude of divinities and spirits, who can communicate with humans by riding on their backs during religious ceremonies. They cover all the forces and creations of nature. Many of them have a double in the form of a Roman Catholic saint.
Exhibition " Zombies. Death is not the end? "From 8 October 2024 to 16 February 2025, Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, 37 Quai Jacques Chirac, 75007 Paris.
Text and Photos Brigitte Postel