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Illustration of South African witchcraft zombie
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
Fael Nɔma 438 wɔ 446 mu

South African witchcraft zombie

Wɔfrɛ no bio: xidachane, maduxwane, witch-train zombies
Tete nsɛm ne anansesɛmAwufoɔ a wɔnantewAbayisɛm

In parts of South Africa, witchcraft belief includes people turned into zombies to labour for a witch. The victims are thought of as the stolen dead: small, mute and put to work at night. Stories of 'witch trains' staffed by zombies spread once railways began carrying migrant workers to the mines and cities. Scholars treat the belief as a commentary on labour exploitation, which is the same anxiety that produced the Haitian zombi.12

Fa ko
Mfiase
South African (Tsonga, Sotho, Venda)
South Africa
Deɛ ɛde ba
Abayisɛm
A witch kills the victim, or makes them seem to die, and takes control of the body for forced labour.
Sɛnea wobɛdane bi
A witch's spell; in some accounts even a small child can zombify a dead person.
Nyansa
Adwene nni mu
Mmerɛwyɛ
  • a sufficiently powerful sangoma (traditional healer) can break the spell
nhwehwɛmu nsɛm

Deɛ fibea no ka

1

Called xidachane in Sotho and Tsonga and maduxwane in Venda12

2

Imagined as shrunken in size, with the tongue cut out so that it cannot speak or protest12

3

Witch trains, ordinary-looking trains crewed by zombies, were said to abduct people at night12

4

Passengers were either zombified or beaten and thrown off far from home12

5

Anthropologist Isak Niehaus reads the belief as a picture of migrant labour and domination12

Fibea

  1. Zombie - Wikipedia
  2. Zombies - Encyclopedia.com

Asɛm biara a ɛwɔ krataafa yi so fi saa fibea yi mu, na yɛde yɛn ankasa nsɛm na akyerɛw. Wohunuu mfomsoɔ bi? Ka kyerɛ yɛn wɔ [email protected].

Ma dɔm no aduane. Dawurubɔ nni hɔ, trackers nni hɔ, onipa baako na ɔtua ho ka. Akyɛdeɛ ma ɛkɔ so wɔ intanɛt so.Ma akyɛdeɛ

Tete nsɛm a efi nsase koro no ara so

UmkhovuZulu, 1875

Bebree a ɛte sɛ yei

GhoulArabicPocongJavanese / Indonesian and MalayRo-langsTibetanToyolMalay and IndonesianXiangxi walking corpsesChinese (western Hunan; attributed to Miao sorcery)CondenadoAndean (Peru and Bolivia)
Ma dɔm no aduaneMa akyɛdeɛ