Let’s start out with a very elementary question… Week 2 -- Culture Let’s start out with a very elementary question…

How can you tell if someone is dead? By this I mean definitive signs of death… Not just maybe dead After all, you never know when you might run into a dead body…

Definitive Signs? Not breathing? But they could still be revived.. No detectable pulse? They might be revivable too… Cold? Stiff? Could have hypothermia. Flat-lined on EKG? Even some of those folks have come back

It’s Hard to Tell if Someone’s Dead That’s what a famous Harvard anthropologist Richard Schultes told his student Wade Davis one day In fact, people “come back” from the dead all the time… That’s why we use embalming fluid and nail coffins shut Too scary otherwise…

Zombies Dr Shultes had an article “Alleged Zombie Kills Master” from Haiti. He suspected Zombies might be real He thought certain herbs and poisons might turn people into something very much like Zombies He already knew that Blowfish poison sometimes caused people to be paralyzed with no vital signs, but to… … STILL BE CONSCIOUS!

Going to Haiti He sent his student Wade Davis to Haiti to do research What Davis found was written in a book The Serpent and the Rainbow. (It was later made into a scary Hollywood horror movie) So what did Davis find out?

What are Zombies? First we have to be clear on what zombies are: Neither dead nor alive (undead) Slow-moving, clumsy Under the control of a voodoo Zombie Master (They don’t eat brains, though)

What Davis Found Out Shultes believed Zombies were created by a special poison Davis found out though, that there were 3 ingredients necessary…

The three Ingredients to make a Zombie 1. A poison 2. An antidote 3. A little bit of sociology

How it might work Suppose you lived in Haiti, and one day someone got pissed off at you And it turned out it he was a Voodoo practitioner Instead of flipping you off, he might put a curse on you to become a zombie. But you don’t believe in zombies

The Voodoo Master’s Secret What you don’t know is that the Voodoo master has many spies and allies One day, one of them might be able to slip some zombie poison into your food You’d collapse and everyone would think you are dead But you could hear everything going on around you

Haiti features “Same Day” burials! Lacking modern equipment, the doctor in Haiti would pronounce you dead Because Haiti is so hot, people get buried the same day so they don’t stink They would cart you away to the graveyard within hours

Join the “Undead” See the Underworld! They would put you in the coffin Nail it shut Put the dirt back on your coffin And you’d be buried It would be very quiet Maybe you would remember you were cursed

Zombies Need Love, Too… At about midnight, you might be surprised to hear noises … the sounds of people digging you up… And the sounds of Voodoo drums… They would open the coffin and give you a potion… The Antidote!

The Antidote Wade Davis easily found out what the antidote was An herb very similar to the well-known belladonna In fact, it is often used as an anti-histamine But it has side-effects

The Side Effects Drowsiness Clumsiness Groggy-ness In fact, acting like a zombie.

Do we have a match? 1. Undead 2. Clumsy, slow-moving 3. Under control of the Zombie master 1. Zombie Poison 2. Zombie Antidote Hmm, but would we be under his control?

A little bit of sociology This is where the sociology comes in: Remember, in Haiti, a lot of people believe in Voodoo Not only that, you went through an experience of being killed and brought back to life So if you believed 100% you were a zombie, would that make you one?

Zombie, yea or nay? No, but you might still act like one. We know this because research on self-esteem shows that when people don’t believe they can do something, they never test it out Or if they do, it’s half-hearted, so it always fails … thus proving them right.

Zombies Unite! So Zombies are people who are brainwashed into thinking they are not free even though they really are. But here’s the Kicker: So are you. That is -- whenever you accept someone else’s “reality” without testing it out

Culture is the Cult you are. Culture is just another term for the brainwashing your society subjects you to Do you think kissing is good, hamburgers are food, and terrorists are bad? That’s because you are American But you might not think so if you were a vegetarian, terrorist Eskimo. (If there are such things).