THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

When a peasant dies, before being placed in his coffin he may be dressed in his best clothes – if he has any – and seated at a table with a lighted cigarette between his lips or, if a woman, a clay pipe.  When friends and neighbours arrive the feasting and dancing of the wake begins.  Although by law the corpse is supposed to be buried within twenty-four hours, decomposition is often allowed to set in.  This ensures that sorcerers will not dig him up and make a zombie, a work slave, out of him.  The heavy stone slabs with which Haitians cover their graves are added insurance that the dead will not rise to slave as zombies for the rest of time.

Whicker/Lifetime