There is no doubt that most of gamers and movie-lovers around the world are familiar with it, but I bet less than half of them aware that the origin of the word "zombie" was derived from Kikongo (Congo's language) word zumbi which means god or divine entity. There are just too many zombie-related video games and movies. Among them, the most famous franchise is clearly Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), which was produced by Capcom and made its debut in 1996 as one of Sony PlayStation's earliest 3-D video games.
The history of zombie emergence is arguable even today. Most people doubt their very existence other than a mere Hollywood fiction, whereas some believed the traces are left in some part of Africa. So, long time ago, the West African believed that dead people could be revived by a sorcerer through voodoo power. These "undeads" were then controlled as laborers to work at farm or garden. In 1937, Zora Hurston, an African-American author, found a case of a woman who had died and been buried yet appeared in a village in Haiti. She found out that the awakening of the dead woman was due to the use of some medical secrets. However, she was not able to finish her investigation as she could not find any further information.
In 1982, another investigation – again, in Haiti -- was done by Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist. He concluded that a living human can be turned into a zombie by using two special powders. The powders were coup de poudre (French for powder strike) and datura. By inserting these powders into the vein, a victim can be turned into a death-like state in which a shaman is able to control him/her. From his research, he wrote two books to explain this phenomenon, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). However, his works had been heavily criticized. Terence Hines, an expert in neurology, doubted Davis’ claim that the powders can induce the death-like state. He also stated that Davis’ reports of Haitian zombies is viewed as overly credulous.
The description and concept of zombie we know today are assumed to had been greatly influenced by George A. Romero's film Night of the Living Dead. In this 1960's film, he related zombie with vampire which resulted on a new hybrid of powerful yet messy monster with a never-satisfiable hunger on human flesh. He was inspired by Richard Matheson, the first author of the genre with his first novel I Am Legend (1954), which had been adapted several times by Hollywood producers.
