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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.
Galmee Lak. 438, 446 keessaa

South African witchcraft zombie

Maqaa biraa: xidachane, maduxwane, witch-train zombies
Seenaa aadaa fi afoolaDu'aa ka'eFalfala

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

Lolsiisi
Ka'umsa
South African (Tsonga, Sotho, Venda)
Afrikaa Kibbaa
Maaltu isa fida
Falfala
A witch kills the victim, or makes them seem to die, and takes control of the body for forced labour.
Akkamitti isa taata
A witch's spell; in some accounts even a small child can zombify a dead person.
Beekumsa
Sammuu malee
Bakkeewwan laafoo
  • a sufficiently powerful sangoma (traditional healer) can break the spell
yaadannoo dirree

Maddoonni maal jedhu

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

Maddoota

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

Dhugaan fuula kana irra jiru hundi maddoota kana irraa dhufe, jechoota keenyaan barreeffame. Dogoggora argitee? [email protected] irratti nutti himi.

Tuuta nyaachisi. Beeksisa hin jiru, hordoftuun hin jiru, nama tokkoon kaffalama. Gumaachi toora irra akka turu godha.Gumaacha kenni

Seenaa aadaa biyyoota wal fakkaatan irraa

UmkhovuZulu, 1875

Kan akkasii dabalataa

GhoulArabicPocongJavanese / Indonesian and MalayRo-langsTibetanToyolMalay and IndonesianXiangxi walking corpsesChinese (western Hunan; attributed to Miao sorcery)CondenadoAndean (Peru and Bolivia)
Tuuta nyaachisiGumaacha kenni