The Serpent and the Rainbow

by Wade Davis

  Unfortunately, it appears from her writings at least that Hurston was never able to attend one of these gatherings herself. Perhaps because of this she was unable to get beyond the public face of the societies, an image that cast them in the words of a later ethnographer as “bands of sorcerers, criminals of a special kind.” A member of the mulatto elite, for example, told Hurston:

  We have a society that is detestable to all the people of Haiti. It is known as the Sect Rouge, Vinbrindingue and Cochons gris and all these names mean one and the same thing. They are banded together to eat human flesh…. These terrible people were kept under control during the French period by the very strictures of slavery. But in the disturbances of the Haitian period, they began their secret meetings and were well organized before they came to public notice. … It is not difficult to understand why Haiti has not even yet thoroughly rid herself of these detestable creatures. It is because of their great secrecy of movement on the one hand and the fear that they inspire on the other…. The cemeteries are the places where they display the most horrible aspects of their inclinations. Some one dies after a short illness, or a sudden indisposition. The night of the burial the Vinbrindingues go to the cemetery, the chain around the tomb is broken and the grave profaned … and the body spirited away.

  Yet who were these secret societies? Zora Neale Hurston never really says. She concludes simply by emphasizing that they are secret, and that the very lives of their members depend upon the confidence of the group. But she also, rather remarkably, describes what she could not have realized was the primary method of zombification. “There is,” she writes, “swift punishment for the adept who talks. When suspicion of being garrulous falls upon a member, he or she is thoroughly investigated, but with the utmost secrecy without the suspect knowing that he is suspect. But he is followed and watched until he is either accounted innocent or found guilty. If he is found guilty, the executioners are sent to wait upon him. By hook or crook, he is gotten into a boat and carried out beyond the aid and interference from the shore. After being told the why of the thing, his hands are seized by one man and held behind him, while another grips his head under his arm. A violent blow with a rock behind the ear stuns him and at the same time serves to abrase the skin. A deadly and quick-acting poison is then rubbed into the wound. There is no antidote for the poison and the victim knows it.”

  It wasn’t until almost forty years later that a young Haitian anthropologist by the name of Michel Laguerre managed to begin to answer some of the questions raised by Hurston’s fieldwork. In the summer of 1976, Laguerre met a number of peasants who had been invited to join the secret societies, but who later had converted to Protestantism and hence were willing to talk. There were, according to these informants, secret societies in all parts of the country, and each one maintained control of a specified territory. Names varied from region to region but included Zobop, Bizango, Vlinbindingue, San Poel, Mandingue, and, most interestingly, Macandal. Membership was by invitation and initiation, open to men and women, and was strictly hierarchical. Laguerre verified the existence of passports, ritual handshakes and secret passwords, banners, flags, and brilliant red-and-black uniforms, as well as a specialized body of spirits, songs, dances, and drumbeats. He also noted the central importance of the cyclical rituals performed to strengthen the solidarity of the group: gatherings that occur only at night, that begin with an invocation to the spirits and end with the members in procession, flowing beneath the symbol of the society, the sacred coffin known as the sekey madoulè.

  But according to Laguerre the function of the secret societies was unlike anything reported by Hurston. In no way could they be considered criminal organizations. On the contrary, he described them as the very conscience of the peasantry, a quasi-political arm of the vodoun society charged above all with the protection of the community. Like the secret societies in West Africa, those of Haiti seemed to Laguerre to be the single most important arbiter of culture. Each one was loosely attached to a hounfour whose houngan was a sort of “public relations man” acting as a liaison between the clandestine society and the world at large. In fact, so ubiquitous were the societies that Laguerre described them as nodes in a vast network that, if and when linked together, would represent a powerful underground government capable of competing head-on with the central regime in Port-au-Prince. And of the origin of these secret societies, Michel Laguerre had no doubts.

  It was his view that in the aftermath of the war of independence, and in the face of a history of betrayal at the hands of the military leaders, the struggle of the Maroons had continued. In certain parts of the country Maroon bands had persisted as late as 1860 but on the whole, as the ex-slaves took to the land and the vodoun society was born, the role of the Maroons was transformed from fighting the French to resisting a new threat to the people—an emerging urban economic and political elite distinguished not by the color of their skin but by the plans they harbored for both the land and labor of the peasants. And whereas the war with the French could be won, the new struggle promised to be a permanent feature of peasant life. From overt and independent military forces, the Maroons went underground and became a clandestine institution charged with the political protection of the vodoun society. Thus were conceived the immediate predecessors of today’s secret societies. As the Maroons fought for liberty, the contemporary secret societies, according to Laguerre, “stand strong to keep safe the boundaries of power of their local communities and to keep other groups of people from being a threat to their communities.”

  If Laguerre was correct—and his was the only explanation that made sense to me—the implications were clear. From the leading medical authorities in Port-au-Prince I had been told that zombification was a criminal activity that had to be exposed and eradicated for the collective good of the nation, but now a quite different scenario presented itself. In the minds of the urban elite, zombification might well be criminal, but every indication suggested that in the vodoun society it was actually the opposite, a social sanction imposed by recognized corporate groups whose responsibility included the policing of that society. Zombification had always struck me as the most horrible of fates. Now, if what I was beginning to think was true, I realized that it had to be. After all, what form of capital punishment is pleasant?

  I knew from my own research that in at least some instances the zombi powder was controlled by the secret societies, and a knowledge of poisons and their complex pharmacological properties could be traced in a direct lineage from the contemporary societies to the Maroon bands, and beyond to the secret societies of Africa. There was no doubt that poisons were used in West Africa by judicial bodies to punish those who broke the codes of the society, and Hurston had suggested that the same sort of sanction was applied among the secret societies of Haiti. I had every reason to believe that Ti Femme and Clairvius Narcisse had received a poison, and that at the time of their demise they were both pariahs within their respective communities. Narcisse’s transgression was directly related to access to land, precisely the sort of issue that, according to Laguerre, would attract the attention of the secret society. By his own account, Narcisse had been taken before a tribunal, judged, and condemned. The possible link to the tribunals of West Africa was obvious. What’s more, Narcisse had referred to those who had judged him as the “masters of the land,” and had implied that he would only encounter more trouble if he created further problems himself. Finally, Max Beauvoir had told me directly that the answer to the zombi mystery would be found in the councils of the secret societies.

  If my identification of the zombi poison revealed a material basis for the phenomenon of zombification, the work of Michel Laguerre combined with the information provided by Max Beauvoir and others finally suggested a sociological matrix. And once again, the indomitable Zora Neale Hurston provided a critical clue.

  In October 1936, a naked woman was found wandering by the roadside in the Artibonite Valley. She directed the authorities to whom she was taken
to return her to her family land, and there she was identified by her brother. The woman’s name was Felicia Felix-Mentor. Like Ti Femme she was a native of Ennery, and twenty-nine years before she had suddenly taken ill, died, and been buried. Death certificates and the testimony of her ex-husband and other family members seemed to support her account. When found she was in such a wretched condition that the authorities, after her identification in Ennery, placed her in a hospital in Gonaives, and it was there that Zora Neale Hurston found her. In Hurston’s own words, the woman was a dreadful sight—a “blank face with dead eyes” and eyelids “white as if they had been burned with acid.”

  Hurston remained with the reputed zombi for only a day, but she came away from the encounter quite able to tell the world just about everything there was to know about the phenomenon. Unfortunately, nobody believed her. For example, she later wrote that she and the attendant physician “discussed at great length the theories of how zombies came to be. It was concluded that it is not a case of awakening the dead, but a matter of a semblance of death induced by some drug known to a few. Some secret probably brought from Africa and handed down generation to generation. The men know the effects of the drug and the antidote. It is evident that it destroys that part of the brain which governs speech and will power. The victim can move and act but cannot formulate thought. The two doctors expressed their desire to gain this secret, but they realize the impossibility of doing so. These secret societies are secret [italics mine].”

  When Hurston published this hypothesis in 1938 in Tell My Horse, it was ignored in the United States, while in Haiti it earned her the scorn of the intellectual community. It wasn’t that the notion of a poison seemed impossible. On the contrary, the belief in the poison was so common that virtually every subsequent student of Haitian culture would make some reference to it. Alfred Métraux’s suggestion that the “hungan [sic] know the secret of certain drugs which induce a lethargic state indistinguishable from death” was typical. And though most anthropologists remained equivocal, the Haitians themselves recognized the existence of the poison with such assurance that it was specifically referred to in the Penal Code.

  Hurston’s problem was less one of credibility than of timing. Her report appeared just in the period when Haitian social scientists trained in the modern tradition were most anxious to promote the legitimacy of peasant institutions. These intellectuals were still smarting from the sensational publications that had emanated from the United States, which in their minds had both slanderously misrepresented the Haitian people and rationalized the American occupation. The subject of zombis, which had figured so prominently in these books, as it would later in low-budget Hollywood movies, was simply anathema to them. Unworthy of serious consideration, the embarrassing phenomenon was dogmatically consigned to the realm of folklore. Zora Neale Hurston, meanwhile, whose insight, if encouraged and pursued, might have solved the zombi mystery fifty years ago, bore the brunt of her colleagues’ contempt.

  In defense of her critics, it must be said that her case for the poison hypothesis was suspect on several grounds. First, many informants insisted that the actual raising of a zombi depended solely on the magical power of the bokor. Secondly, despite the provocative case of Felicia Felix-Mentor, no physician had examined an indisputably legitimate case. And finally, of course, no one had penetrated the cults to obtain a sample of the reputed poison. Hurston did not help her position by concluding that “the knowledge of the plants and the formulae are secret. They are usually kept in certain families and nothing will induce the guardians of these ancient mysteries to divulge them.” Here, unfortunately, Hurston was unduly influenced by the warnings she had received from Haitian medical authorities, who had obviously sought the formula in a completely inappropriate manner. In one instance, for example, a zealous physician had used his connections to have a bokor imprisoned on no charges and threatened with a long term unless he divulged the secret. Not surprisingly, the recalcitrant old man refused, saying it was a mystery brought over from Guinée, which he would never reveal. From these same authorities Hurston received the dire warnings that may have prevented her from pursuing the mystery. “Many Haitian intellectuals,” she was told, “are curious, but they know that if they dabble in such matters, they may disappear permanently.” If she persisted in her desire to contact the secret societies directly, she was told, “I would find myself involved in something so terrible, something from which I could not extricate myself alive, and that I would curse the day that I had entered upon my search.”

  Zora Neale Hurston was a woman of uncommon courage, but she worked as a pioneer in a complete vacuum that left her no option but to heed the words of her Haitian colleagues. But if Michel Laguerre was correct and the secret societies represented a legitimate political and judicial force in the vodoun society, it had to be possible to contact them safely. Only by doing precisely that could the final aspect of the zombi mystery be solved. And in Herard Simon, I had someone who could take me there.

  12

  Dancing in the Lion’s Jaw

  MY REFLECTIONS from the vantage of New York and Cambridge trembled within me like a lodestar, pulling me back to Haiti. The desire to understand the connection between the creation of zombis and the secret societies had, by the late fall of 1982, extended into an ambition to penetrate the groups themselves. Only through this final step could I get beyond the public face, could I understand why zombis were made.

  It was a potent idea, and one that, if I were to accept the counsel of my advisors, was fraught with danger. After all, I was in effect asking who actually ruled rural Haiti. Nathan Kline, though remaining wed to the notion of raising a zombi from the grave, knew enough about Haiti to appreciate immediately the ramifications of my proposed venture, and in a series of meetings held throughout the early winter offered his total endorsement and support. Heinz Lehman remained cautious, and both he and the producer David Merrick, who I had since discovered was the principal financial backer of the project, echoed the concern of various anthropologists who had suggested that the most distinct and likely outcome of such an adventure was that I would get myself killed. I reassured them that based on the information I had, the dangers had been exaggerated. Finally it was agreed that I would be given full financial support, with the one stipulation that I give priority to arranging for the medical documentation of the resurrection of a zombi. But then, soon after the last of our meetings, circumstances beyond our control eclipsed any plans for my return. In mid-February 1983, Dr. Nathan Kline died unexpectedly while undergoing routine surgery at a New York hospital. Within forty-eight hours David Merrick suffered a debilitating stroke that left him incapacitated and severed his interest in the project. Thus, as the year turned through a winter of tragedy and rapid change, the chance to study the secret societies slipped temporarily from my grasp.

  It was a full year later before Haiti would again claim me, this time without backers, and with many things changed. Not the country, of course. Driving once more through the streets of Port-au-Prince, past the gingerbread houses with their tall palms thrust to the sky, past the stagnant pools of sewage by the side of the Truman Boulevard and the men from the public works, a mantle of green slime clinging to their thighs, I remained fixed as ever by the words of the stranger at the Hotel Ollofson: “Haiti will remain Haiti as long as the human spirit ferments.” Still, along with the easy happiness I had come to associate with the country, I was aware of a new and perhaps less superficial sensation—that sense of familiarity and alienation that comes to one who knows a place well, but who can never hope to become a part of it.

  Among my old contacts I would soon discover that time allowed us to expose new facets of ourselves, revealing contradictions previously unseen. On the surface, however, very little seemed to have changed. In Saint Marc, Marcel Pierre had reached giddy heights of fame as a result of the BBC documentary having been aired on national television, and he had recently been seen wandering the halls of the local ho
spital parroting the words of the reporter and insisting that he was not serving evil, but the future medical needs of all humanity. His exhilaration would soon be checked by the brutal illness of his favorite wife, who was slowly bleeding to death from a malignant tumor in her uterus. Max Beauvoir was still his ebullient, debonair self, only far poorer due to the virtual cessation of the tourist trade in the wake of the AIDS scare. As for myself, the death of my benefactor had brought a marked change in my financial status, and what little money I had soon went into buying blood for Marcel’s wife. The Haitians responded to all of this in a most unexpected way. When I had been flush with Kline’s money, they had done what they could to relieve me of the burden; now that I was limited to my own comparatively scant resources, they asked of me almost nothing.

  But of all of us who had joined hands in this unlikely drama, it was Rachel who had most truly changed. In the fall of 1982 she had begun her studies in anthropology at Tufts University, and her exposure to the United States had reaffirmed her identity among her own people. In a very real way, she had discovered her sense of place, and the free, undecided spirit I had known in Haiti had become committed. When I told her of my plans, she wanted to pursue the mystery with me. She contacted her academic advisor and arranged to receive credit for the time.

  We knew we would have to start with Herard Simon.

  In the late afternoon the air had been stifling, but then the rain began as it so often does in the early summer evenings, first in wild gusts and then more steadily in broad sheets that filled the horizon. As suddenly as it began the rain had stopped, leaving something ominous in the steely night wind that blew through the streets of Gonaives. A partial blackout had cut off the electricity, and kerosene lamps flickered in many quarters, casting a wan light. The waterfront, though, had been spared; a large crowd huddled beneath the marquee of the movie house where Herard Simon was supposed to be waiting. Herard loved the movies, and this dilapidated theater was one of his favorite conduits to the outside world. He took his films in pieces, dropping in on a whim, almost never watching from start to finish—a peculiar habit but one perfectly suited to Gonaives’s only theater, where American films are dubbed into garbled French that crackles in the ears of people who understand only Creole.