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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.
Fayiro Nnamba 438 ku 446

South African witchcraft zombie

Era ayitibwa: xidachane, maduxwane, witch-train zombies
Enfumo n'emboozi ez'eddaAbafu abalamuObulogo

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

Lwanyisa
Gy'ava
South African (Tsonga, Sotho, Venda)
Sawusafirika
Ekikireeta
Obulogo
A witch kills the victim, or makes them seem to die, and takes control of the body for forced labour.
Engeri omuntu gy'afuukamu omu ku bo
A witch's spell; in some accounts even a small child can zombify a dead person.
Amagezi
Talina magezi
Ebifo ebinafu
  • a sufficiently powerful sangoma (traditional healer) can break the spell
ebiwandiiko by'omu nnimiro

Ensibuko bye zigamba

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

Ensibuko

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

Buli kintu ku lupapula luno kiva mu nsibuko zino, nga kiwandiikiddwa mu bigambo byaffe. Olabye ensobi? Tubuulire ku [email protected].

Liisa ekibinja. Tewali birango, tewali bikulondoola, nga bisasulwa omuntu omu. Akasiimo kakikuuma ku yintaneti.Leka akasiimo

Enfumo okuva mu nsi ze zimu

UmkhovuZulu, 1875

Ebifaanana bino

GhoulArabicPocongJavanese / Indonesian and MalayRo-langsTibetanToyolMalay and IndonesianXiangxi walking corpsesChinese (western Hunan; attributed to Miao sorcery)CondenadoAndean (Peru and Bolivia)
Liisa ekibinjaLeka akasiimo