(RNS5-SEPT12) William Galston is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
For use with RNS-10-MINUTES, transmitted Sept. 12, 2007. Religion News Service photo
courtesy Brookings Institution.

(RNS) In the aftermath of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the country’s chief Voodoo priest reportedly warned that burying victims in mass graves “is not respecting the dignity of these people.”

Some news reports tried to put his remarks in context by referring to the Haitian Voodoo tradition of believing in zombies.

Among those concerned to set the record straight is Claudine Michel, editor of the academic Journal of Haitian Studies. Michel is a Haitian native, a practitioner of Voodoo, and a professor of black studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What is a zombie?

A: It has been established that there are some drugs, a poison that can be given to someone who has hurt the community. It’s a way of bringing that person maybe back to balance by removing some powers in that individual. Those drugs have a power to remove people’s memory. It’s a way of putting somebody to work. That phenomenon is such a rare phenomenon. It might be one or two cases per year.

Q: Do Haitian Voodooists believe that dead people can return as zombies?

A: No. This is totally false. These (earthquake victims) are people who have died in a disaster. You could never go through the process (to become a zombie) without going through that particular treatment, with medicinal herbs and so forth. It would be impossible.

Q: In Haitian Voodoo, if your relative is improperly buried, is it possible that their spirit will come back and torment you?

A: They will not come back and torment you, but this (improper burial) brings imbalance and disequilibrium to the world. This has to do with a general human need to bury your dead. Having a particular burial site gives a sense of history, closure and meaning to their loss. Not being in a position to do that is a terrible spirit wound.

Q: If a Haitian person has had a friend or loved one buried in a mass grave, what is that person likely to be worried about?

A: It probably adds to the injury, adds to the loss. Very soon they will need to have some kind of services at those mass grave sites. It will be Catholic priests, Protestant pastors and also Voodooists.

Q: So in Voodoo, there’s nothing to fear about a mass grave?

A: No, not to my knowledge. My people are expressing their concern that this is not right, that the souls are not put being put to rest the way that they should be. Then somebody in the press throws “zombie” in there.

Q: Why do we have this idea that Voodooists believe in the dead returning as zombies?

A: Haitian Voodoo has suffered so many misrepresentations, so many distortions. It is a religion that has been maligned by the West.

Q: What makes a proper burial in Voodoo?

A: It’s the ritual. Just the fact that some will never know where their loved ones ended up is a terrible amount of suffering. The other difficulty is that (in mass burials, the body) hasn’t gone through the proper cleaning, the proper rituals. When you are put in a mortuary, you are bathed, cleaned, offered respect, prepared with dignity.

Q: Do spirits of the dead come back and manifest as illnesses in people?

A: No. (Mass burial without ritual) is creating imbalance in the world, bad energy. It may go to the level of nature — the forces of the universe reacting. It’s just bringing bad energy on the planet — not just Haiti — because we’re all interconnected.