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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 Nom. 438 ya 446

South African witchcraft zombie

Gape e bidiwa: xidachane, maduxwane, witch-train zombies
Dinaane tsa setso le ditlhamaneBaswi ba ba tsogilengBoloi

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
Tshimologo
South African (Tsonga, Sotho, Venda)
Aforika Borwa
Se se e bakang
Boloi
A witch kills the victim, or makes them seem to die, and takes control of the body for forced labour.
O fetoga yone jang
A witch's spell; in some accounts even a small child can zombify a dead person.
Botlhale
E sena tlhaloganyo
Bokoa
  • a sufficiently powerful sangoma (traditional healer) can break the spell
dikwalo tsa patlisiso

Se metswedi 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

Metswedi

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

Ntlha nngwe le nngwe mo tsebeng e e tswa mo metsweding e, e kwadilwe ka mafoko a rona. O bone phoso? Re bolelele kwa [email protected].

Fepa letshwititi. Ga go na dipapatso, ga go na dilatedi, e duelelwa ke motho a le mongwe. Madi a tebogo a e boloka e le mo inthaneteng.Tlogela madi a tebogo

Dinaane tsa setso go tswa mo mafatsheng a le mangwe

UmkhovuZulu, 1875

Tse dingwe tse di tshwanang

GhoulArabicPocongJavanese / Indonesian and MalayRo-langsTibetanToyolMalay and IndonesianXiangxi walking corpsesChinese (western Hunan; attributed to Miao sorcery)CondenadoAndean (Peru and Bolivia)
Fepa letshwititiTlogela madi a tebogo