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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.
Faele ya 438 ho tse 446

South African witchcraft zombie

E boetse e bitswa: xidachane, maduxwane, witch-train zombies
Ditshomo le dinonwaneBafu ba tsohilengBoloi

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

Di lwantshe
Tshimoloho
South African (Tsonga, Sotho, Venda)
Afrika Borwa
Se e bakang
Boloi
A witch kills the victim, or makes them seem to die, and takes control of the body for forced labour.
Kamoo o fetohang e nngwe ya tsona kateng
A witch's spell; in some accounts even a small child can zombify a dead person.
Bohlale
Ha e na kelello
Dintlha tse fokolang
  • a sufficiently powerful sangoma (traditional healer) can break the spell
dinoutu tsa patlisiso

Seo mehlodi e se buang

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

Mehlodi

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

Ntlha e nngwe le e nngwe leqepheng lena e tswa mehloding ena, e ngotswe ka mantswe a rona. O bone phoso? Re bolelle ho [email protected].

Fepa letshwele. Ha ho dipapatso, ha ho disebedisi tsa ho latela, e lefellwa ke motho a le mong. Tjhelete ya teboho e e boloka inthaneteng.Fana ka tjhelete ya teboho

Ditshomo tsa dinaha tseo

UmkhovuZulu, 1875

Tse ding tse kang ena

GhoulArabicPocongJavanese / Indonesian and MalayRo-langsTibetanToyolMalay and IndonesianXiangxi walking corpsesChinese (western Hunan; attributed to Miao sorcery)CondenadoAndean (Peru and Bolivia)
Fepa letshweleFana ka tjhelete ya teboho