Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Simon and Schuster (1985), Edition: 1st, 297 pages
Description
A scientific investigation and personal adventure story about zombis and the voudoun culture of Haiti by a Harvard scientist. In April 1982, ethnobotanist Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombis--people who had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead and had been buried. Drawn into a netherworld of rituals and celebrations, Davis penetrated the vodoun mystique deeply enough to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. In the course of his investigation, Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti--from the African origins of its people to the successful Haitian independence movement, down to the present day, where vodoun culture is, in effect, the government of Haiti's countryside. The Serpent and the Rainbow combines anthropological investigation with a remarkable personal adventure to illuminate and finally explain a phenomenon that has long fascinated Americans.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member satyridae
Fascinating account of Davis' journey to Haiti in search of the science behind the mystery and rumours surrounding zombification. Davis is an ethnobotanist with impeccable credentials, and he throws himself headlong into his research. I learned a lot about the history of Haiti. I learned about
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Voodoo, too, and the interesting rituals and beliefs surrounding this religion. Parts of the book were muddy and circuitous, but so too was the nature of Davis' search. Show Less
LibraryThing member Widsith
Wade Davis's renowned investigation into Haitian zombies has the benefit of featuring a hero who is fearless, rugged and insightful. It has the drawback that the hero is also the author, and so his presentation of himself as a latter-day Indiana Jones (an inevitable comparison that comes up in
Still, if you can't find a Boswell to write this stuff about you, you might as well do the job yourself. Davis has lived a boy's-own kind of life, and this deep-dive into voodoo and Caribbean secret societies in the mid-1980s was ethnographic fieldwork in the grand old style – hours of poring over dusty books in university libraries interspersed with midnight rituals, mind-altering chemicals, and treks through the jungle, all in search of the secret behind zombification. ‘It belongs here in Haiti,’ cry the houngans, bokors, and other assorted sorcerers. ‘It belongs in a museum,’ snarls Wade, who, conceivably, has spent his life trying to make up for the extreme dullness of his name. ‘Wade Davis’ sounds like someone who should be managing a small accounts team in Omaha, not grinding human bonemeal to appease the Ancient Ones.
Nevertheless, it's an enticing objective that does much to give this book its driving narrative force. His findings can be found summarised in various places online, but I won't spoil the surprise here because following him on his quest is well worth the adventure. Suffice to point out that he refers to it as an ‘ethnobotanic’ story – he goes into Haiti with the hypothesis that some plant-based drug is involved, and on the whole he finds his basic assumptions reinforced.
Admirably, Davis makes some very specific claims here, and therefore opens himself up to widespread disagreement. Some botanists of the non-ethno variety have pooh-poohed his results, but they do not give Davis enough credit for his lengthy consideration of what psychedelic researchers call the ‘set and setting’ of Haitian vodou – the mindset and cultural assumptions that people bring to any drug-induced experiences. Still, it's probably fair to say that, if his theories have not yet been comprehensively debunked, that's only because they were never totally bunked in the first place. Personally, I find his explanation, inconclusive though it is, very convincing. Certainly there appear to be no better ideas beyond either ‘zombies don't exist’ or ‘zombies are supernatural’.
Davis's occasional lapses into quasi-mystic lyricism do not do him any favours, however. One minute he'll be reeling off Latin names and calculating datura toxicity on the back of an envelope; the next, he'll come out with stuff like this:
Sometimes with my eyes closed, and the silence broken only by the odd bird, I would hear whispered messages of the land that intuitively I understood, if only for a moment. Eventually I came to respect those moments, for the cycle of logical questions was getting me nowhere.
I imagine these passages got up the noses of any academics who were trying to assess the book on its scientific merits. Perhaps aware of this, Davis published a straight academic account of his investigation a few years later, called Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie. If you want just the facts, you might try that instead, but personally, I'd stick with this one. It's great fun, and chock-full of high-octane scholarship and intellectual as well as physical adventure. Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.
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every review ever printed of this book; I will shamefacedly join the queue) is tinged with more than a little self-aggrandisement.Still, if you can't find a Boswell to write this stuff about you, you might as well do the job yourself. Davis has lived a boy's-own kind of life, and this deep-dive into voodoo and Caribbean secret societies in the mid-1980s was ethnographic fieldwork in the grand old style – hours of poring over dusty books in university libraries interspersed with midnight rituals, mind-altering chemicals, and treks through the jungle, all in search of the secret behind zombification. ‘It belongs here in Haiti,’ cry the houngans, bokors, and other assorted sorcerers. ‘It belongs in a museum,’ snarls Wade, who, conceivably, has spent his life trying to make up for the extreme dullness of his name. ‘Wade Davis’ sounds like someone who should be managing a small accounts team in Omaha, not grinding human bonemeal to appease the Ancient Ones.
Nevertheless, it's an enticing objective that does much to give this book its driving narrative force. His findings can be found summarised in various places online, but I won't spoil the surprise here because following him on his quest is well worth the adventure. Suffice to point out that he refers to it as an ‘ethnobotanic’ story – he goes into Haiti with the hypothesis that some plant-based drug is involved, and on the whole he finds his basic assumptions reinforced.
Admirably, Davis makes some very specific claims here, and therefore opens himself up to widespread disagreement. Some botanists of the non-ethno variety have pooh-poohed his results, but they do not give Davis enough credit for his lengthy consideration of what psychedelic researchers call the ‘set and setting’ of Haitian vodou – the mindset and cultural assumptions that people bring to any drug-induced experiences. Still, it's probably fair to say that, if his theories have not yet been comprehensively debunked, that's only because they were never totally bunked in the first place. Personally, I find his explanation, inconclusive though it is, very convincing. Certainly there appear to be no better ideas beyond either ‘zombies don't exist’ or ‘zombies are supernatural’.
Davis's occasional lapses into quasi-mystic lyricism do not do him any favours, however. One minute he'll be reeling off Latin names and calculating datura toxicity on the back of an envelope; the next, he'll come out with stuff like this:
Sometimes with my eyes closed, and the silence broken only by the odd bird, I would hear whispered messages of the land that intuitively I understood, if only for a moment. Eventually I came to respect those moments, for the cycle of logical questions was getting me nowhere.
I imagine these passages got up the noses of any academics who were trying to assess the book on its scientific merits. Perhaps aware of this, Davis published a straight academic account of his investigation a few years later, called Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie. If you want just the facts, you might try that instead, but personally, I'd stick with this one. It's great fun, and chock-full of high-octane scholarship and intellectual as well as physical adventure. Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.
Show Less
LibraryThing member aestrea
This book was not only a great and entertaining read, but packed full of wonderful, accurate first-hand information. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for an interesting fun read or looking to learn more about the culture of Haiti and the religion of Vodou.
LibraryThing member stacy_chambers
Moving portrait of voodooism and Haiti. Not at all like the movie, I'm sure.
LibraryThing member Eye_Gee
Too bad they made this wonderful book into a horror flick. The book is about a Harvard trained ethnobotanist who goes to Haiti to learn about some of the naturally occuring compounds used in the voudoun culture. The hope is that some of the active compounds may provide a safer alternative to
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general anaesthesia. What I found remarkable about the book was Wade Davis' ability to embrace and respect the voudoun culture (and it is a culture in the full sense of the word) without making western value judgements and assumptions about it. It is only through his understanding of the culture that he is able to learn what he came to find out. I don't want to include any spoilers here about the specific drugs or their effects, but I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in anthropology and/or biology. Show Less
LibraryThing member ritaer
role of zombification and secret societies in social and religious life of Haiti
LibraryThing member aeceyton
I forgot how much I loved this book. It's been at least a decade since the last read. Full of scientific facts, deep history, and beautiful mystical passages. Gives you a world view and draws you into Haiti's soul. I will definitely start looking for more of Mr. Davis's books.
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1985-12-11
Physical description
297 p.; 8.9 inches
ISBN
0671502476 / 9780671502478
Local notes
GdP
Other editions
The serpent and the rainbow by Wade Davis (Paper Book)
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