the anthropologist Philippe Charlier tells us all about this phenomenon in Haiti, on the occasion of the exhibition at the Quai Branly museum

This forensic doctor is one of the organizers of the exhibition on zombies presented at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum and one of the best French specialists on these living dead who have fascinated Hollywood cinema.

If one dared, one would say that death is one’s whole life. Philippe Charlier, 47, is a forensic doctor, archaeologist and anthropologist. He also held a consultation at the Nanterre remand center and is carrying out investigations into the remains of great historical figures: Louis XIV, Henri IV, Napoleon I, the painter Raphaël… For him, scientific analysis is a tool to clarify the mysteries of the past, what we sometimes call the cold cases. In Moscow, he was even able to examine a piece of skull and teeth attributed to Adolf Hitler.

This passionate man is also a specialist in zombies to which he devoted a book in 2015: Zombies, investigation into the living dead. He is one of the curators of the astonishing exhibition which has just opened at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum in Paris. We interviewed him in the recreated voodoo cemetery.

Franceinfo Culture: Why were you interested in zombies?
Philippe Charlier: Having a dual perspective on the human sciences and the fundamental sciences, I worked on the “bad deaths”, those who do not leave us alone. I made several anthropological research trips to Haiti, to the west of the island of Santo Domingo. I stayed fifteen days, sometimes a month. My main terrain was cemeteries. This is my second office, cemeteries. This is where I learn the most. I started in the main cemetery of Port-au-Prince, the capital, then moved to the Artibonite Valley to the north, where many zombies have been described and survive.

How do you become a zombie ?
Some individuals do evil, criminals, thieves, rapists and above all, those who sold land that does not belong to them, a very serious thing in Haiti. They take the risk of being judged by secret societies, a sort of parallel justice. They face a punishment worse than death, zombification. They will then be cursed and poisoned by a “bokor” – a kind of sorcerer who causes a state of apparent death – buried alive, exhumed, drugged and deprived of freedom and free will until the end of their days.

Were you able to meet zombies ?
I met former zombies who freed themselves or were freed from their masters, at the psychiatric hospital in Port-au-Prince, in their homes or in cafes. One of them, Jacques Ravix, is a gynecologist who was zombified by his mother-in-law because he wanted to separate from his wife. He told me that he had been poisoned in 1994, without realizing it, by substances placed day after day on the armrests of his chair. In particular, he was allegedly administered tetrodotoxin, a drug extracted from the liver of a fish called froufrou in Haiti. [le Tétrodon ou le fugu pour les Japonais]. He explained to me that he was in a sort of coma. He could continue to dress and do things while being completely unconscious. He was fished out while he was already in a body bag. A family member saw that he was still breathing. He was revived and hidden so the bokor couldn’t finish the job. To protect him, a fake funeral was even organized.

What does zombification consist of?
There are two aspects. The first is psychological, it’s almost suggestion. We put the individual under tension, for example by placing chicken feet on the threshold of his door. This is already huge in the context of the voodoo religion which includes trance and possession rituals. The second element is magical substances that we unknowingly hide in our clothes. Each bokor has his recipe. We find powdered human bones, tree bark, leaves, toad slime, viper juice… We have a fake corpse, but a real funeral.

What did you feel when you met these zombies?
The ones I saw were mostly criminal zombies. This means that there was no trial procedure, it did not go through the customary court. It is a form of revenge, of settling scores. For example, a man who zombified his wife who refused him a divorce. I also saw, while walking around the hospital, psychiatric cases. Including a woman who had been buried alive. She was really socially dead for me, very isolated. She had serious after-effects, never looked in the eyes, could not tolerate any contact. She was no longer under the negative influence of a bokor, she was free, but she has been missing since 2015.

In your practice as a forensic doctor, have you ever been confronted with false deaths?
I almost performed autopsies on two people who looked dead but weren’t: a suicidal woman who had taken lots of beta-blockers, a drug that slows the heart, and another who had had a stroke. Defining death is really not easy. There are three types: real and constant death, brain death (which allows organs to be removed) and social death, which includes zombies (the homeless, very elderly people who no one visits in nursing homes, migrants). …). We are doing a lot of research at the moment to characterize the different stages of death and no, contrary to legend, nails and hair no longer grow when you are dead!

Do you have any idea how many zombies there are in Haiti?
The zombies are among us. There are currently several tens of thousands of zombies in this country and an increase is expected due to the current unrest linked to gang violence because it creates “bad deaths”, murdered people who have no did not have the funeral rituals.

What do you think of zombie movies?
They give a shoddy vision, a biased and caricatured vision that harms Haitian culture. The figure of the zombie has become the metaphor for the fear of contagious death, like a virus. We’re making it a copy and paste of the Western vampire. In Haiti, anyone who touches a zombie does not become a zombie, a zombie has never bitten someone who then became a zombie.

Exhibition “Zombies. Death is not the end?” Until February 16, 2025 at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum – Open every day except Monday from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Entrance 12 euros, reduced rate 9 euros, 1st Sunday of the month free.