Wade Davis - The Serpent and the Rainbow

WHITE DARKNESS The term Maya Deren used to describe the state of possession that she experienced.

ZOMBI ASTRAL A zombi of the ti bon ange. An aspect of the soul that may be transmuted at the will of the one who possesses it.

ZOMBI CADAVRE The corps cadavre, gros bon ange, and the other spiritual components. A zombi of the flesh that can be made to work.

ZOMBI SAVANE An ex-zombi, one who has been through the earth, become a zombi, and then returned to the state of the living.

1. THE JAGUAR

An account of the Darien expedition appears in Sebastian Snow’s The Ruck-Sack Man , Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1976. For biographical background on Professor Schultes, see Krieg, M. B., Green Medicine , Bantam Books, New York, 1964. Schultes’s most important work, written with Albert Hofmann, is The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens , Charles C Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1980. Their popular treatment of the subject is Plants of the Gods , McGraw-Hill, New York, 1979.

2. “THE FRONTIER OF DEATH”

The difficulty of diagnosing death is discussed in: Kastenbaum, R., and R. Aisenberg, The Psychology of Death , Springer Publishing, New York, 1972; Mant, A. K., in Toynbee, A., ed., Man’s Concern with Death , Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1968; Watson, L., The Romeo Error , Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1974. The case from the Sheffield mortuary was reported in The Times , London, 28 February 1970. The New York case is cited in Watson (1974), P. 1 5 . Medical studies describing the ability of Indian fakirs include: Anand, B. K., G. S. Chhina, and B. Singh, Studies on Shri Ramanand Yogi during his stay in an air-tight box, The Indian Journal of Medical Research 49, no. 1 (1961): 82-89; Anand, B. K., and G. S. Chhina, Investigations on Yogis claiming to stop their heart beats, The Indian Journal of Medical Research 49, no. 1 (1961): 90-94. The case of Clairvius Narcisse was first introduced in Douyon, L., Les zombis dans le contexte vodou et Haitien, Haiti Santé 1 (1980): 19-23. The various issues associated with anesthesiology are presented in Orkin, F. K., and L. H. Cooperman, eds., Complications in Anesthesiology , J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1982.

3. THE CALABAR HYPOTHESIS

The San Pedro healing ceremony is described in Sharon, D., The San Pedro cactus in Peruvian folk healing, in Furst, P. T., ed., Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens , 114-35, Praeger, New York, 1972; and Sharon, D., Wizard of the Four Winds , The Free Press, New York, 1978. My own observations appear in Davis, E. W., Sacred plants of the San Pedro cult, Botanical Museum Leaflets—Harvard University 29, no. 4 (1983): 367-86.

The catalog referred to was Moscoso, R. M., Catalogus Florae Domin-gensis Pt. 1, New York, L & S Printing, Inc., 1943. Other information on concombre zombi was found in Brutus, T. C, and A. V. Pierre-Noel, Les plantes et les légumes d’Haiti qui guérissent , 3 vols., Imprimerie de l’Etat, Port-au-Prince, 1960.

For information on other aspects of datura see: Schleiffer, H., Sacred Narcotics of the New World Indians , Hafner Press, New York, 1973; Schleiffer, H., Narcotic Plants of the Old World , Lubrecht & Cramer, Monticello, NY, 1979; Hansen, H. A., The Witch’s Garden , Unity Press, Santa Cruz, 1978; Weil, A. T., The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon , Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1980; Emboden, W., Narcotic Plants , Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1979; Lockwood, T. E., The ethnobotany of Brugmansia, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 1 (1979): 147-64.

An excellent article on the Calabar bean is: Holmstedt, B., The ordeal bean of Old Calabar: the pageant of Physostigma venosum in medicine, in Swain, T., ed., Plants in the Development of Modern Medicine , Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1972. For the secret societies of the Efik see: Forde, D., The Efik Traders of Old Calabar , Oxford University Press, London, 1956.

4. WHITE DARKNESS AND THE LIVING DEAD

Basic references on the vodoun religion include: Métraux, A., Voodoo in Haiti , Schocken Books, New York, 1972; Deren, M., The Divine Horse men—the Living Gods of Haiti , Thames and Hudson, London, 1953; Herskovits, M. J., Life in a Haitian Valley , Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1937. See also the academic papers of George Simpson, in particular: Simpson, G. E., Religious Cults of the Caribbean: Trinidad, Jamaica and Haiti , Caribbean Monograph Series 15, Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, P.R., 1980; Marcelin, M., Mythologie Vodou , Les Editions Haïtiennes, Port-au-Prince, 1949; Maximilien, L., Le Vodou Haitien , Imprimerie de l’Etat, Port-au-Prince, 1945; Rigaud, O. M., The feasting of the gods in Haitian vodu, Primitive Man 19, nos. 1-2 (1946): 1-58. Another basic source is Courlander, H., The Drum and the Hoe: Life and Lore of the Haitian People , University of California Press, Berkeley, 1960. For vodoun song see: Courlander, H., Haiti Singing , Cooper Square Publishing, New York, 1973; and Laguerre, M. S., Voodoo Heritage , Sage Library of Social Research 98, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 1980. Two enjoyable and informative books based on personal accounts are: Dunham, K., Island Possessed , Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1969; and Huxley, F., The Invisibles—Voodoo Gods in Haiti , McGraw-Hill, New York, 1966. Of historical interest is Price-Mars, J., Thus Spoke the Uncle , Three Continents Press, Washington, D.C., 1983.

A case of another zombi from Ennery, the village where Ti Femme was discovered, is reported in Simpson, G. E., Magical practices in northern Haiti, Journal of American Folklore 67, no. 266 (1954): 401. Reports from Seabrook, W. B., The Magic Island , George G. Harrap & Co., London, 1929; and Hurston, Z., Tell My Horse , Turtle Island, Berkeley, 1981, are reviewed in Métraux, A. (1972). The cases of Ti Femme and Narcisse have been summarized in: Diederich, B., On the nature of zombi existence, Caribbean Review 12, no. 3 (1983): 14-17, 43-46. A regrettably sensational account of Narcisse appears in: Pradel, J., and J. Casgha, Haiti: La République des morts vivants . Editions du Rocher, Paris, 1983.

For accounts of firewalking see: Weil, A. T., Health and Healing-Understanding Conventional and Alternative Medicine , Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1983.

5. A LESSON IN HISTORY

Basic historical sources include: Leyburn, J. G., The Haitian People , Yale University Press, New Haven, 1941; James, C. L. R., The Black Jacobins , Random House, New York, 1963; Moreau de Saint-Mery, Description topographique, physique, civile, politique, et historique de la partie française de l’Isle de Saint Domingue , Librairie Larose, Paris, 1958. Other early sources include: Baskett, J., History of the Island of St. Domingo from Its First Discovery by Columbus to the Present Period , Negro Universities Press, Westport, CT, 1971 [1818]; Brown, J., The History and Present Condition of St. Domingo , 2 vols., Frank Cass, London, 1971 [1837]; Franklin, J., The Present State of Hayti , Negro Universities Press, Westport, CT, 1970 [1828]; MacKenzie, C, Notes on Haiti , 2 vols., Frank Cass, London, 1971 [1830]; Wimpffen, F., A Voyage to Saint Domingo , London, 1817. The contemporary social structure of Haiti is examined in: Horowitz, M. M., Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean , The Natural History Press, 1971; Mintz, S., ed., Working Papers in Haitian Society and Culture , Antilles Research Program, Yale University, New Haven, 1975; Moral, P., Le Paysan Haitien , G. P. Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris, 1961; Simpson, G. E., Haiti’s social structure, American Sociological Review 6, no. 5 (1941): 640-49; Laguerre, M., The place of voodoo in the social structure of Haiti, Caribbean Quarterly 19, no. 3 (1973): 36-50.