History of Zombies: How Zombies Came into Literary World and World of Movies
A zombie is a mythological undead bodily revenant shaped through the reanimation of a cadaver. They are very common and seen mostly in fantasy and horror genres.
The term ‘zombie’ comes from Haitian folklore possible during the 17th century, in which it is a corpse reanimated utilizing several processes, most regularly magic like voodoo.
Zombies are widely featured in Haitian rural folklore as dead bodies that are physically revitalized with the act of necromancy of a witch or a sorcerer.
In 1819, the English word ‘zombie’ was first recorded as ‘zombi’, by poet Robert Southey. According to Oxford Dictionary, the word is originated from West Africa and compared to Kongo words number or zumbi (fetish).
The Magic Island was published in the year 1929 by W. B. Seabrook is one of the first books that introduced the voodoo concept to Western culture.
The elucidation of zombies is drawn hugely from the film Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero, which was partially inspired by a novel named I Am Legend written by Richard Matheson.
Romero directed two other movies based on zombies named Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. The variety waned for several years after zombie films named Dawn of the Dead and Michael Jackson’s music video Thriller.