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Speaker 1: few lines more familiar to fans of American horror cinema
Speaker 1: than They're coming to get to you, Barbara. The line
Speaker 1: uttered by Barbara's brother Johnny at the beginning of George A.
Speaker 1: Romero's The Night of the Living Dead surely before he
Speaker 1: is killed by a zombie, sets the tone for what
Speaker 1: some consider to be one of the most influential films
Speaker 1: ever made. Released in nineteen sixty eight, the film is
Speaker 1: celebrated for bringing the previously much maligned genre of horror kicking, tearing,
Speaker 1: and screaming into the twentieth century. The film's potency has
Speaker 1: much to do with the year it was released, coming
Speaker 1: out at the height of public disillusionment with the American
Speaker 1: Vietnam War, but also in the immediate aftermath of both
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior and Robert Kennedy's assassinations. For many,
Speaker 1: Romero's film, with its portrayal of uneasy alliances, not so
Speaker 1: casual racism, and the endless march of a moronic, ghoulish
Speaker 1: horde intent on devouring anyone with a fully functioning brain,
Speaker 1: appeared to reflect the entire state of a nation. However,
Speaker 1: The Night of the Living Dead will perhaps mostly be
Speaker 1: remembered for its portrayal of the humble zombie. Though somewhat
Speaker 1: ironic since the term zombie is never used in it,
Speaker 1: Romero's film, none the less set the template for almost
Speaker 1: all subsequent iterations of these hapless creatures. It was there
Speaker 1: that we were first introduced to the flesh hungry, cannibal
Speaker 1: version of the zombie that could only be defeated by
Speaker 1: destroying its head. Romero zombies have become so ubiquitous as
Speaker 1: a modern day monster, it is often easy to forget
Speaker 1: just where the notion of the zombie originated from in
Speaker 1: the first place. Some perhaps are aware of the figure's
Speaker 1: origins in Haitian folklore and its associations with the ancient
Speaker 1: practice of voodoo. What you might not know, however, is
Speaker 1: that for many the zombie is not merely a figment
Speaker 1: of folklore, but is in fact considered to be something
Speaker 1: very real. In nineteen eighty, a man walked into a
Speaker 1: village market place in Haiti claiming to be a local
Speaker 1: landowner named Clavius Narcisse. After interviewing the man and his family,
Speaker 1: local authorities confirmed that he was indeed who he said
Speaker 1: he was, the only problem being that Clervius was supposed
Speaker 1: to have been dead and buried for eighteen years. Two
Speaker 1: years later, inspired by Clervius's story, ethnobiologist Wade Davis was
Speaker 1: sent to Haiti on a research trip to find out
Speaker 1: just how exactly this could have happened. What he eventually
Speaker 1: discovered was far more bizarre than anything he could possibly
Speaker 1: have imagined. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McClain Smith.
Speaker 1: Before gaining entry to Harvard University to study anthropology in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, where Davis had barely been out of
Speaker 1: his home province of British Columbia in Canada, all that
Speaker 1: changed However, when he signed up to a course led
Speaker 1: by Professor Richard Schultz, a pioneer in the field of ethnobotany,
Speaker 1: the scientific study of how different cultures and societies relate
Speaker 1: to and utilize plants, Schultz held somewhat of a mythical
Speaker 1: status among its students. Schultz had devoted much of his
Speaker 1: early career to investigate in the ritualistic use of pyote
Speaker 1: and iowaska. He was also known for a tendency to
Speaker 1: disappear into the Amazon rainforest for months, sometimes years at
Speaker 1: a time in his quest to better understand the secrets
Speaker 1: hidden within it. It was Schultz who first encouraged Davis
Speaker 1: to take his own trip to the Amazon, where in
Speaker 1: his early twenties he also tried iowaska and soon proved
Speaker 1: himself to be an outstanding field researcher. By nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: then twenty nine year old Davis, now a fully fledged
Speaker 1: ethnographer in his own right, was teaching a course at
Speaker 1: Harvard University alongside Schultz when he was called into his
Speaker 1: mentor's office late one Monday evening, finding the professor on
Speaker 1: the phone. When he entered, Davis quickly took a seat
Speaker 1: opposite and waited for him to finish. As he continued
Speaker 1: the conversation, Schultz quickly scribbled something onto a notepad and
Speaker 1: handed it to his colleague. It was an address in
Speaker 1: Manhattan belonging to a doctor Nathan Kline. Kline was well
Speaker 1: known to Davis as a pioneer in the field of psychopharmacology,
Speaker 1: having been one of the first psychiatrists in the US
Speaker 1: to use medication to treat individuals with psychiatric disorders. With
Speaker 1: the call finally coming to an end, Schultz put down
Speaker 1: the phone and asked Davis if he was free to
Speaker 1: travel to Haiti in two weeks time. Having never been
Speaker 1: to the country before and intrigued by Schultz's playful tone,
Speaker 1: Davis took up the gauntlet and agreed to contact Kline
Speaker 1: to find out more. Two nights later, Davis arrived at
Speaker 1: doctor Clyne's Manhattan apartment, where he was introduced to both
Speaker 1: Kline and his colleague, professor Heinz Lehmann, who also happened
Speaker 1: to be the head of psychopharmacology at Montreal's mc gill University.
Speaker 1: With Davis still unshore as to why he'd been invited over,
Speaker 1: the men made the usual pleasantries before quickly turning to
Speaker 1: the subject of death, or more specifically, how you determine
Speaker 1: that a person has well and truly died, As both
Speaker 1: Lehman and Klein noted, there had been countless examples over
Speaker 1: the years of individuals being declared dead only to seemingly
Speaker 1: reanimate days later, not to mention the various horror stories
Speaker 1: of people believed to have died later a wake up
Speaker 1: to find themselves trapped in a coffin deep underground. Interesting
Speaker 1: as that all was, however, Davis, growing impatient, demanded what
Speaker 1: it had to do with his being there. Klein promptly
Speaker 1: got up and left the room, returning moments later with
Speaker 1: the slim file, which he handed to Davis and invited
Speaker 1: him to take a look at. Inside, and, now even
Speaker 1: more perplexed, Davis found a death certificate for a man
Speaker 1: named Clavius Narcis from Lestaire in Haiti, dated May nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, twenty years ago. I don't understand, said Davis.
Speaker 1: Layman took a sip of his drink, then invited Klein
Speaker 1: to elaborate. Clavius, he explained, had been declared dead by
Speaker 1: two separate physicians, only to reappear eighteen years later in
Speaker 1: his home village, very much alive. Davis was unimpressed, however,
Speaker 1: clearly it had just been some kind of administrative error,
Speaker 1: But then Kleine elaborated further. It was late in the
Speaker 1: evening of April thirtieth, nineteen sixty two, when a man
Speaker 1: approached the front desk of Haites Albert Scheitzer Hospital suffering
Speaker 1: from a high fever and spitting blood. The man, who
Speaker 1: was forty two and gave his name as Clevius Narcis,
Speaker 1: had been struggling with chest pains and muscle aches for
Speaker 1: a few days before taking himself to hospital. By now
Speaker 1: in a desperate state, the medical staff immediately rushed him
Speaker 1: through to an operating theater to examine him further. Unable
Speaker 1: to determine the exact cause of his ailment, the man
Speaker 1: was kept in for further observation, only for his condition
Speaker 1: to deteriorate rapidly over the next few days. But shortly
Speaker 1: after one pm on May the second, with his sister
Speaker 1: Angelina watching on from his bedside, Clavius Narcis died, having
Speaker 1: been pronounced dead by two separate doctors. Clavius's older sister,
Speaker 1: Mary Claire, arrived soon after to identify the body and
Speaker 1: signed the official death certificate. The man's lifeless body was
Speaker 1: then placed in cold storage at the hospital Morgue before
Speaker 1: being released for burial the following morning. At ten am
Speaker 1: on May third, in a cemetery just north of the
Speaker 1: man's hometown of Leicsterre, a small handful of friends and
Speaker 1: family members gathered together as a coffin containing Clavius's body
Speaker 1: was lowered six feet into the ground and buried under
Speaker 1: a mound of soil. Ten days later, a hefty memorial
Speaker 1: stone commissioned by the family was placed over the unfortunate
Speaker 1: man's grave, and that it seemed was that. It was
Speaker 1: eighteen years later that a relative of Clervius's was walking
Speaker 1: through the market place in Lesterre when a commotion erupted
Speaker 1: before him, and soon a large crowd had started to gather.
Speaker 1: Pushing through to the front, the relative soon found the
Speaker 1: subject of its attention, a stranger that had just entered
Speaker 1: the village who looked surprisingly similar to the long dead Clervius.
Speaker 1: The relatives soon realized with horror the man didn't just
Speaker 1: look like him, it was him. Clervius's sister, Angelina, who
Speaker 1: still lived in the village, was quickly summoned to speak
Speaker 1: with the man now openly claiming to be her long
Speaker 1: dead brother. Though incredulous at first, Angelina found herself standing
Speaker 1: before the man, who, though much older and a little
Speaker 1: frailer than he was before, looked undeniably like Clervius. When
Speaker 1: he gave her his nickname, only something she and her
Speaker 1: siblings had ever called him, her legs threatened to crumble
Speaker 1: beneath her. There was no denying it anymore. It was
Speaker 1: Clavius back from the dead, and there could only be
Speaker 1: one reason that that was possible. Her brother, or what
Speaker 1: was left of him, was a zombie. Are you always
Speaker 1: taking care of your family? Do you often take care
Speaker 1: of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take
Speaker 1: care of yourself, to make time for you. You deserve it.
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Speaker 1: Unexplained Podcast. The figure of the zombie is deeply ingrained
Speaker 1: in Haitian culture and folklore. To understand why, you have
Speaker 1: to understand the history of Haiti, or, as uc Irvin
Speaker 1: Professor Amy Wilence puts it more specifically, you have to
Speaker 1: understand the concentration camp culture of the slave plantation. Haiti
Speaker 1: is located on the island of his Biola in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: which is also home to the Dominican Republic. The island
Speaker 1: is believed to have been inhabited for over fifteen hundred years,
Speaker 1: having once been home to the Arawak, who migrated there
Speaker 1: from South America. It was descendants of these people, the Tyinho,
Speaker 1: who are thought to have been the first indigenous people
Speaker 1: that Christopher Columbus and his crew encountered on their maiden
Speaker 1: voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in fourteen ninety two. Soon
Speaker 1: after arriving, Columbus attempted to establish a settlement on the
Speaker 1: northwest of the island, known as La Navidad. The following year, however,
Speaker 1: some of the Tayino burned it down, having become convinced
Speaker 1: that Columbus and his men had in fact been sent
Speaker 1: from the underworld to consumed them. When Columbus returned to
Speaker 1: find Le Navedad destroyed, he responded by establishing another settlement
Speaker 1: in what would later become the Dominican Republic, on the
Speaker 1: opposite side of the island, which he named La Isabella.
Speaker 1: When gold was discovered shortly after, the European settler population
Speaker 1: began steadily to increase, partly in retribution for what some
Speaker 1: of the Taino population had done to Le Navedad, but
Speaker 1: also as an inevitable consequence of the ever expanding European population.
Speaker 1: The settlers slowly began to exert more authority. The indigenous
Speaker 1: population of what is now Ispiola before Columbus's arrival is
Speaker 1: estimated to have been somewhere between several hundred thousand to
Speaker 1: a million people. Over the next ten years, as the
Speaker 1: colonialists enslaved, massacred, and fatally infected the Taino, this population
Speaker 1: had dropped to thirty five thousand. As rampant colonial expansion
Speaker 1: into the Caribbean continued over the next few hundred years,
Speaker 1: Ispaiola became increasingly important as a gateway to the other islands.
Speaker 1: When buccaneers from France succeeded in settling on the west
Speaker 1: side of it. Rather than become embroiled in an endless fight,
Speaker 1: the governments of France and Spain decided instead to divide
Speaker 1: the island between them. In sixteen ninety seven, the government
Speaker 1: of France assumed ownership of its western third and named
Speaker 1: the territory Sant de Mingue. What appealed most about Sant
Speaker 1: Deming to the French government and the colonial families that
Speaker 1: lived there was its abundance of sugar cane. As the
Speaker 1: crop became increasingly lucrative, Sant Deming in turn and became
Speaker 1: France's most profitable territorial holding. But in order to make
Speaker 1: and keep it so required thousands and thousands of slaves abducted,
Speaker 1: mostly from Africa. By seventeen twenty, as many as eight
Speaker 1: thousand a year were being brought to the island. Conditions
Speaker 1: in the slave colonies were so harsh and their treatment
Speaker 1: by slave owners so brutal, that a third of all
Speaker 1: slaves died within two years of arriving. By the mid
Speaker 1: seventeen eighties, it is estimated that as many as four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand slaves lived in San Domingue, with
Speaker 1: as many again having died as a result of their
Speaker 1: bondage since the colonies were first established. But then in
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine, something extraordinary occurred thousands of miles away
Speaker 1: on the other side of the ocean. The spirit of
Speaker 1: revolution had been unleashed in the French homeland. Back in
Speaker 1: San Deming, a small section of the population, known to
Speaker 1: the colonial powers as the free people of Color, inspired
Speaker 1: by the French Revolution, began to wander if they could
Speaker 1: achieve the same. This group, which occupied a unique place
Speaker 1: in San Deming society, was composed largely of children whose
Speaker 1: mothers had been raped by slave owners and had been
Speaker 1: granted some minor freedoms in return. Emboldened by the size
Speaker 1: of the island slave population, which outnumbered European settlers, by
Speaker 1: nine to one. The free people of color succeeded in
Speaker 1: organizing a mass slave revolt, as plantations were torched and
Speaker 1: colonialists killed off one by one. The French government were
Speaker 1: eventually forced to relinquish control of the country. On January first,
Speaker 1: eighteen o four, taking the original Tayino word for the island, Haiti,
Speaker 1: the newly freed people declared their independence. Despite gaining independence,
Speaker 1: the deep rooted history of slavery, which so horrifically underpinned
Speaker 1: the founding of the nation, has continued to haunt the
Speaker 1: people of Haiti. It is from out of this history
Speaker 1: that the zombie, as an icon of Haitian folklore first emerges. Certainly,
Speaker 1: it isn't difficult to see the similarity between the image
Speaker 1: of a zombie and the basic horror of servitude to
Speaker 1: be robbed of all personality and agency and reduced to
Speaker 1: your most basic functions. Over time, as the anxieties of
Speaker 1: slavery became more entwined with the culture of voodoo that
Speaker 1: had been brought to the island from West Africa, a
Speaker 1: new idea of the zombie materialized, becoming something that could
Speaker 1: be conjured up with the power of voodoo and treated
Speaker 1: like a at the beckoned call of its master. Voodoo,
Speaker 1: meaning spirit in the Fond language of Dahomey, a kingdom
Speaker 1: which once occupied parts of today's Togo, Benin, and Nigeria
Speaker 1: in West Africa, was first brought to Haiti by slaves
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century. Those who followed the religion centered
Speaker 1: their beliefs around the divine creator Mawu, a female being who,
Speaker 1: in one tradition, bore seven children, each gods in their
Speaker 1: own right, governing the forces of nature and human society. Further,
Speaker 1: spirits are considered to be embodied in various elements of
Speaker 1: the natural world, such as streams, trees, and stones, with
Speaker 1: all creation being divine. In this sense, the religion is
Speaker 1: particularly fascinating from an ethnobotany perspective with regard to medicines
Speaker 1: and herbal remedies, since they are also believed to contain
Speaker 1: the power of the divine. It is this under standing
Speaker 1: that gives rise to the ritualistic use of talismans known
Speaker 1: as fetishes, that many who are otherwise unfamiliar with the
Speaker 1: religion might recognize, such as the use of dolls, statues,
Speaker 1: and even in some cases, human body parts. Voodoo priests
Speaker 1: known as Houngans, have traditionally played a vital part in
Speaker 1: Haitian society, occupying all manner of roles, from community leaders
Speaker 1: to psychologists and spiritual healers. And then there are the Bokour.
Speaker 1: Although once considered simply priests, they have since come to
Speaker 1: be known more specifically as sorcerers capable of using voodoo
Speaker 1: to conduct black magic. Though many consider the zombie to
Speaker 1: be little more than a feature of Haitian folklore, there
Speaker 1: are many others who know them to be real, and
Speaker 1: it is the Bocour who create them. Having been deeply
Speaker 1: unsettled by her brother Clervius's sudden reappearance, Angelina Narses offered
Speaker 1: him money to go away and leave the family alone.
Speaker 1: As the other villagers grew equally unsettled by the reappearance
Speaker 1: of a man who had been dead and buried eighteen
Speaker 1: years ago, the police were eventually forced to arrest him
Speaker 1: for his own safety. A short time later, Clavius was
Speaker 1: brought to the attention of Lamarque de Joune, a one
Speaker 1: time student of doctor Kleins, who had now returned to
Speaker 1: his home country of Haiti to practice as a psychiatrist.
Speaker 1: Doyjune carried out a number of extensive interviews with both
Speaker 1: Clervius and his family and concluded incredibly that he was
Speaker 1: indeed who he said he was. Once More, Clervius wasn't
Speaker 1: the only one to suddenly reappear under such circumstances as
Speaker 1: it happened. Douyune had been systematically investigate eating reports of
Speaker 1: zombies since nineteen sixty one, with a number of cases
Speaker 1: being of particular interest. In nineteen seventy nine, for example,
Speaker 1: one bereaved mother spotted someone that looked exactly like her
Speaker 1: thirty year old daughter walking aimlessly near her village. The
Speaker 1: woman was later identified as the daughter through a matching
Speaker 1: scar on her forehead, and after the coffin she was
Speaker 1: supposedly buried in was found to contain nothing but rocks.
Speaker 1: The following year, another woman, Nattiget Joseph, was found wandering
Speaker 1: around her village by a local police officer, the same
Speaker 1: officer who had pronounced her dead fourteen years previously. All
Speaker 1: the subjects had been not only clinically determined to have died,
Speaker 1: but had also been buried, only to seemingly reanimate and
Speaker 1: reappear alive many years later. Although he was convinced that
Speaker 1: the phenomenon was very real. Indeed, do Yune didn't believe
Speaker 1: that these zombies had risen from the dead either way,
Speaker 1: he had so far been unable to explain it. The
Speaker 1: relatives of the unfortunate victims of whatever it was that
Speaker 1: was taking place remained adamant, however, that these individuals had
Speaker 1: been first murdered and then brought back to life without
Speaker 1: their souls. Like Lamarque Doiune, Klein and his colleague Laymen
Speaker 1: were also convinced that the phenomenon was real, but that
Speaker 1: there had to be a rational, scientific explanation behind it.
Speaker 1: But just how, thought Davis, could these individuals have been
Speaker 1: declared dead, buried alive, then somehow kept alive long enough
Speaker 1: for them to later be dug up again. And what
Speaker 1: on earth would account for them having been kept in
Speaker 1: their supposed zombie state for so long? Well, said Kleine
Speaker 1: as he handed Davis a sealed envelope. That is precisely
Speaker 1: what we want you to find out. Later that night,
Speaker 1: Davis made his way to Grand Central Station and took
Speaker 1: a train back to Boston. Once on board, he opened
Speaker 1: the envelope that Klein had given him, finding inside it
Speaker 1: a smaller envelope filled with cash, a ticket to Haiti,
Speaker 1: and a polarid photograph of Clavius Narcisse. Over the next
Speaker 1: few days, he made the necessary arrangements for the trip
Speaker 1: and began formulating his own ideas about the apparent zombie phenomenon.
Speaker 1: It was doctor Kleine's theory that some kind of drug
Speaker 1: was at the center of it, something that could give
Speaker 1: the appearance of death. Klein had in fact come across
Speaker 1: something similar thirty years previously, after being given a possible
Speaker 1: sample of it by a film crew from the UK's
Speaker 1: BBC who had making a documentary about voodoo at the time.
Speaker 1: Despite carrying out a number of promising tests with the substance,
Speaker 1: Klein was unable to ascertain precisely what it was made of,
Speaker 1: and so it was in April nineteen eighty two, armed
Speaker 1: with little more than a photo of Clavius Narcisse and
Speaker 1: contact details for three individuals, Max Bouvoir, a local authority
Speaker 1: on voodoo religion, Marcel Pierre, the Bocour who had given
Speaker 1: the sample to the BBC, and lastly the psychiatrist Lamarque Deyune.
Speaker 1: Davis boarded a flight to Haiti and his adventure was
Speaker 1: just about to begin. You've been listening to Unexplained, Season four,
Speaker 1: Episode eight, Death's Pale Flag, Part one of two. You
Speaker 1: can hear the second and final part next week on Friday,
Speaker 1: seventeen of May. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and
Speaker 1: would like to help support us, you can now go
Speaker 1: to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward Slash Support. All donations,
Speaker 1: no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All
Speaker 1: elements of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: Forward Slash Unexplained. Now it's time to take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: To make time for you, teledoc gives you access to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling
Speaker 1: your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or
Speaker 1: video any time between seven a m to nine p
Speaker 1: m Local time. Seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is
Speaker 1: available through most insurance or employers. Download the app, or
Speaker 1: visit teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast Today to
Speaker 1: get started. That's t e l a d oc dot
Speaker 1: com slash Unexplained podcast