{"id":7137,"date":"2022-11-21T20:35:59","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T20:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=7137"},"modified":"2022-11-21T20:35:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T20:35:59","slug":"zombie-dawns-and-blackened-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/zombie-dawns-and-blackened-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"ZOMBIE DAWNS AND BLACKENED ROOTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a long absence, we return, dear listeners! Today we take a look at early zombie and voodoo films, gape at how bad some of them were, and point you to the campaign for an innovative new anthology of zombie tales by Black writers, called Blackened Roots<\/em>…<\/p>\n

VOODOO ON SCREEN<\/h1>\n

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Although there had been literature which included voodoo before the 1920s \u2014 for example, Henry Francis Downing, an African-American politician and writer, wrote a play called Voodoo<\/em> in 1914 \u2014 it was mainly William Buehler Seabrook\u2019s book The<\/em> Magic Island<\/em> (1929) which threw voodoo and zombies into the wider world\u2019s imagination, and surely primed the imagination of the movie studios.<\/p>\n

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henry francis downing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sometimes sympathetic, sometimes sensationalised, and supposedly factual, the book, based on his experiences in Haiti, was a bestseller:<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned from Louis that we white strangers in this twentieth-century city, with our electric lights and motor cars, bridge games and cocktail parties, were surrounded by another world invisible, a world of marvels, miracles, and wonders \u2014 a world in which the dead rose from their graves and walked, in which a man lay dying within shouting distance of my own house and from no mortal illness but because an old woman out in Leogane sat slowly unwinding the thread wrapped round a wooden doll made in his image; a world in which trees and beasts talked for those whose ears were attuned, in which gods spoke from burning bushes, as on Sinai, and sometimes still walked bodily incarnate as in Eden\u2019s garden.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems no coincidence that within a couple of years of The Magic Island <\/em>being published, the studios began producing a whole slew of low budget films featuring voodoo and\/or zombies (another contributory factor may have been the questionable United States occupation of Haiti from 1915\u20131934, when US troops and administrators were exposed to aspects of local customs and practices – and brought stories home).<\/p>\n

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Woodrow Wilson archive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

There were film offerings such as White Zombie, Black Moon, Drums O’ Voodoo, Chloe Love Is Calling You, Ouanga, Revolt of the Zombies, The Devil\u2019s Daughter, The Ghost Breakers, King of the Zombies, Revenge of the Zombies, I Walked with a Zombie, Voodoo Man<\/em>, and Zombies on Broadway<\/em> (all these were made between 1932 and 1945).<\/p>\n

Voodoo* on screen was splattered over a whole range of real and fictional islands, usually with white stars parachuted in for the big audiences. \u2018Inter-racial\u2019 romance was a no-no, lighter coloured Black people often got the better parts, with darker skinned actors frequently relegated to the role of servant (scary or comedic) or supposed savage. And voodoo itself was generally shown as a wild, primitive hangover from the \u2018jungle\u2019, rather than a syncretised religion drawing on both Catholic and West African beliefs.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the films are still important in their way, both as film history and for giving access to how Black people and their beliefs, especially those of the Caribbean and Deep South, could be represented on screen at the time. Sometimes it\u2019s positive and interesting; sometimes it\u2019s either offensive or bloody awful.<\/p>\n

*Although we would normally use \u2018vodou\u2019 to refer to the Haitian-based religion, or other terms depending on what, where, and when, the prevalent blanket term in the media back then was voodoo (don\u2019t get us started on American hoodoo, which is another matter \u2014 see http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/aint-no-witch-caroline-dye-hoodoo-blues\/<\/a> . So we\u2019ll mostly stick to ‘voodoo’ here.<\/em><\/p>\n

TRIVIA: In 1914 the Black composer Harry Lawrence Freeman (the first African-American to have an opera successfully produced \u2014 Epthalia, 1891) also wrote an opera called <\/strong><\/em>Voodoo, though it wasn\u2019t performed until 1928. The work includes rituals to removed a love rival, including, apparently, a powerful voodoo ceremony in the Third Act.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In those days, you got proper zombies on your screens. None of these rotting, running-around, flesh-eating pretenders, with their viruses and suchlike. You got intact zombies who lumbered and stared, who obeyed houngan and papaloi, mambo and mamaloi (or Bela Lugosi, of course), stolen shamelessly from Black culture. They were thrust onto the big screen to scare the bejaysus out of audiences, stock cinema figures just as Catholic exorcists later became in the seventies. They were the real<\/i> fake thing. Seabrook wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe zombie, they say, is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of life. People who have the power to do this go to a fresh grave, dig up the body before it has had time to rot, galvanize it into movement, and then make of it a servant or slave, occasionally for the commission of some crime, more often simply as a drudge around the habitation or the farm, setting it dull heavy tasks, and beating it like a dumb beast if it slackens.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, there has always been controversy as to whether \u2018zombies\u2019 were dead bodies, or bodies lacking souls, or just the living in thrall:<\/p>\n

\u201cZombis,\u201d said Crawfish Jonny. \u201cYou gotten yerself dead men, grave-goods, and the Lord won\u2019t let you rest for that.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Lyall grinned. \u201cZombis, huh? Well, some would agree there, and some wouldn\u2019t. There\u2019s bodies like my boys used to work the big fields in Haiti \u2013 tireless bodies, making no complaint. A fine change from \u2018Mistuh Lyall, this ain\u2019t what I\u2019s owed\u2019 and \u2018Mistuh Lyall, I cain\u2019t do a stroke \u2018til I\u2019ve slept a mite.\u2019 Those voices, they can aggravate a man.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBut these ain\u2019t dead men walking, are they Barnard Lyall?\u201d Mamma Lucy eased back the arms which held her, standing almost free. \u201cThey\u2019re goofered and tricked, and iffen they die like this, it\u2019s you who\u2019ll be payin\u2019.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A dismissive snort from the man. \u201cPeh. A few pieces of trash, picked here and there, brought up to the big house to take their medicine and listen to Uncle Lyall. They don\u2019t know they\u2019re alive, so it makes no matter to them. No pain, no hunger \u2013 nice change for colored boys like these.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Mamma Lucy felt her neck muscles knotting in anger…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Pine in the Soul, John Linwood Grant<\/em><\/p>\n

But born of sorcery, hypnosis, mental illness or dark pharmaceuticals, zombies \u2014 and voodoo \u2014 were here to stay. Are these films any good as pieces of cinema? Er\u2026 well, many are not (The Devil\u2019s Daughter<\/em> is just so tedious that we almost didn\u2019t list it). However, some do have notable aspects or moments where it\u2019s informative to see how the subject is handled (we\u2019ll say nothing about White Zombie<\/em> (1932) today, because that one\u2019s been covered so many times before, elsewhere). Instead, here are six specific films, with reasons why you might want to check them out:<\/p>\n

1) DRUMS O\u2019VOODOO (1934)<\/h2>\n

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An all-Black cast deliver an earnest morality play, punctuated by an over-extended debate scene in a Black church. This one is definitely worth a look, though, if you want to see a rare attempt to portray both church and voodoo as relevant and even complementary spiritual systems\/religions for Black people, and is far more nuanced than usually seen in these films. Ignoring the obvious plot of the Conflicted Preacher, the Innocent Girl, and The Baddie, the core question here is how Christianity and voodoo serve the Black community.<\/p>\n

The very fact that no white actors suddenly barge into the spotlight helps, and you also get a mamaloi in the spotlight, Auntie Hagar, played by Laura Bowman. Admittedly, the way she alternates between wise old woman and over-the-top rhyming voodoo priestess is a bit odd, but still… Oh, and this one\u2019s set in Louisiana, not the Caribbean or elsewhere (it was based on the play Louisiana<\/em> by African-American actor\/playwright J Augustus Smith.<\/p>\n