Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origin 75. The weird origin today "zombie. " Okay.
Let's take a look at the note here. Today, a zombie is supposed to be a dead person
in some religions who looked and behaved like he or she is alive through magic.
Even though most of us probably think it as just fantasy from sci-fi from these ... a
horror movie, some horror movies having these characters, especially in recent
years. They've got carried away with zombie movies and zombie stories and
they've actually changed zombies a lot from the very beginning. But let's
continue., for now. We do have a second meaning of zombie. Sometimes referred to
as a real person. Its a more humorous one. If the person
is really overtired and they're exhausted and their head is not very
sharp that day, usually people say I'm a real zombie today or I feel like a
zombie today. So, so we do use that meaning too , usually in a humorous way. Of
course, not meaning that you are literally a zombie. All right. Let's
continue here. Out of all the typical horror movie creatures you know, such as
vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein, etc. zombies are the only ones based on some
truth. Okay. The origin of the word comes from the
West African languages. I think around the Congo area if I remember correctly.
The word meaning " zumbi" meaning a fetish and" zombi "meaning god, originally
from a snake God. So and then of course you know this worked its way into the
Voodoo religion. So let's continue here. Zombie comes from the religion of Voodoo.
You know, like we always hear about voodoo dolls. Well they're they're the
ones that's connected to zombies too. Some voodoo priests known as bokors or a
bokor. This type of voodoo priests. So I don't know, if all voodoo priests do
this, but ones that have that have done this practice is referred to as a bokor.
So bokors used a concoction. A concoction is like a strange mixture, of herbs,
shells, fish, animal parts, bones and some objects that they
made into a powder. The key poisonous substance was tetrodotoxin from the
deadly pufferfish or the Blowfish. You know remember that's, that's that fish
you have to be a special chef to learn how to cook because you might
accidentally poison your customers. If a bokor used sub-lethal... Well you know,
below you know, not enough to kill you but sub-lethal doses on an enemy, it
caused symptoms similar to a zombie. Okay, such as mental confusion, you know, you're
kind of like in a fog. Kind of like that slowness and difficulty walking and
breathing. All right. In this case, it could lead to a temporary paralysis in which
they could be buried in a grave and revived a few days later. So this is what
some of these you know, evil sort of voodoo priests, the bokers did. I think
they did it to scare their other enemies. Like showing look what, look what I
could do to somebody. Where the average people thought this person actually died.
He looked dead. You know, I think it slowed down your heart rate and
everything else to the point where they buried them and then suddenly like three
or four days later, you see the person walking around again. But now they're,
they're practically kind of ... I think there was some brain damage. You know,
with the slowness and not not one that they recover from. Not just from
tiredness. You know, they might have walked around like (groaning sounds ) kind of like
that. In a fog and that's what the original zombies were more like in the
first zombie movies. Okay. So let's continue here. Yeah. In 1968 the director,
George Romero started to popularize the idea of zombies in his movie " Night of
the Living Dead" and then he made a few more after that too. But he took the
original idea of the real zombie. You know, somebody that was you know, dug out
of a grave. You know, now of course Hollywood added a lot of things.
Zombies have never been able to you know, eat people's skulls. They
actually say even if there was such a thing as a zombie. The human jaw is not
strong enough to bite through a skull and eat human brains. So, so of course that
part is total fantasy. And nowadays with the zombie movies, they've completely
changed. The original zombie movie ... the original zombie could barely move. He
was walking very slowly like this and that. Now they can run. They can speed.
They can chase after you. So Hollywood has really you know, given some zombies
practically like superpowers now. So they changed a lot over time. But this is
really where zombie really comes from. So there's some truth based to it. But you
know, Hollywood you know, added a lot of stuff too. Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope
you enjoyed it. I hope you found it informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-
bye.