In Haitian and West African Voodoo traditions, a zombie is a soulless, reanimated corpse resurrected from the dead by a Voodoo priest, known as a 'Bocor', for the purposes of indentured servitude. Etymologists and anthropologists speculate that the term is derived from Nzambi, a West African deity. A natural explanation may exist for this phenomenon. It has been suggested that the zombie may have been a person who was buried alive and only seemed dead through the administration of a drug containing the poison of various plants and animals and various human remains. The poison puts the victim in a death-like state. Not all those who take the drug survive; those who do remain conscious and witness their own burial and funeral.

After two days the Bocor raises the victim from the tomb and administers a hallucinogenic concoction that awakens the 'zombie', who is now so psychologically traumatized that he or she is willing to answer to a new name and follow the Bocor into a new life, which is usually to work in the fields. Not surprisingly zombification was once described as the African slave's ultimate nightmare, as not even death can release them from never-ending labor. Voodoo sorcerers are said to create zombies by capturing the souls of the deceased. If the sorcerer is able to capture the soul he can make a zombie ghost who wanders eternally in the astral plane at the command of the sorcerer. To prevent this happening, relatives of the deceased will often stab corpses in the heart or decapitate them.