August 10, 2008
On The Meaning of ‘Voodoo Death’
It was a windy, rainy, gloomy day. Definitely, not a good day for take-offs and landings! But life goes on, and following a steep, almost vertical ascent, the aircraft had finally reached cruising altitude. Still, it was bouncing up and down over the wet dark clouds when the passenger in the next seat suddenly put an end to my doomsday contemplations with this friendly introduction:
“Hi, I am Jim,” he blurted out.
“Reynold,” I hurled back as I shook Jim’s outstretched hand.
“What’s your final destination, Rey?” he asked.
“Monaco!” I said.
“Vacationing?”
“Not exactly!”
“You are not serious, are you? What does one do in Monaco, besides having a good time?”
“I am actually on my way to a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology,” I answered back.
“Oh, a cardiologist!” Jim exclaimed. “What a wonderful encounter! I recently came across an article in the New York Times about ‘Voodoo death’ that left me really puzzled. I thought a doctor might be able to help me understand what the heck is going on over there, in Haiti. According to the article, Haitians can be made to wither and die, or, alternatively, become a zombie with the simple use of a Voodoo curse, that is to say, without laying a hand on them! Of course, I have often heard of people being cursed, of Voodoo sticks, pins and needles, but I have always thought of this kind of things as hocus-pocus, as Voodoo nonsense! But, according to this article, this is not a joke. It’s a grim, deadly serious business! Apparently, they are thousand of zombies roaming the streets, or working in the agricultural sector as slaves all over the country. It is even claimed that two Harvard scientists were able to explain how these walking dead are created. Incredulous, I Googled ‘Voodoo death,’ but all I got was a suggestion that overwhelming fear might be the proximate cause of this weird phenomenon. Frankly, I was disappointed, because, all told, that does not make sense to me.”
“Here is my problem: from times immemorial man has always had to deal with fear. Fear, it seems, is encoded in our DNA as a means of survival. It is with and perhaps because of fear and the state of alertness it creates that man has been able to survive in the jungle surrounded by carnivores of all stripes and spots. Why, then, would this very survival trait cause some people to recoil and turn into zombies while others thrive under the same circumstances? As a cardiologist, you tell me! What is Voodoo death? How can fear alone be the cause of death?”
“I really like the way you frame the question, Jim; you are very perceptive,” I said. “The Monaco symposium happens to be about ‘Sudden Cardiac Death’ and, surely, the issue of ‘Voodoo Death’ is one that might very well be on the program inasmuch as the term seems to refer to sudden unexplained death, an issue that is of great concern to all cardiologists.
“As it happened, the term ‘Voodoo Death’ was coined by Walter Cannon in a 1942-article published in the American Anthropologist journal. As Professor of Physiology and Head of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Cannon was known as one of the most prominent physiologists of his time. He was internationally famed and was so highly regarded that his name was repeatedly submitted to the Nobel Prize Committee by his friends/admirers in nomination for the Nobel Prize in medicine, which, incidentally, he never received.
“Given his reputation, Dr. Cannon was consulted on a wide range of medical issues, but, in reality, his expertise was in the study of the autonomous nervous system, which happens to have a profound influence on multiple organ systems in the body, in particular, the cardiovascular system. Dr. Cannon was, in the truest sense, a general physiologist. The breadth of that specialty assured him a towering presence among his peers. Without being necessarily specific in his delivery, he could offer a plausible explanation for almost any organ malfunction at a time when modern medicine was still in its infancy and real experts were few and far between. Unfortunately for Dr. Cannon, Voodoo is a religious and cultural phenomenon and, more often than not, one gets ensnared in absurdity when one tries to reconcile religious beliefs with reality. In point of fact, Dr. Cannon committed a fatal error in reasoning when he labeled or classified the alleged unusual phenomena as ‘Voodoo death’ before even considering, let alone discussing the possible explanations he would have to offer. In other words, the ‘Voodoo death’ theory has no foundation in logic; it is a biased opinion with no scientific merit; it should not have received the worldwide acceptance and respectability it has enjoyed over the years.
“Furthermore, the term ‘Voodoo death,’ in itself, is rather ambiguous. Indeed, it is impossible to know whether Dr. Cannon was referring to death as a direct result of a Voodoo intervention, or to any death — whether or not it is related to Voodoo or witchcraft — provided that the decedent is a ‘primitive’ or illiterate native, and the circumstances surrounding his/her death appear inexplicable, and come across as utterly weird or mysterious in the eyes of a civilized observer. How else could he have applied the term Voodoo to a death that occurs in Australia or New Zealand? I happen to have Dr. Cannon’s article with me. (Wait a minute! Here we are.) I read! Please pay attention to the phraseology of the introduction; it is quite informative.
“Cannon writes:
“In records of anthropologists and others who have lived with primitive people in widely scattered parts of the world is the testimony that when subjected to spells or sorcery or the use of ‘black magic,’ men may be brought to death. Among the natives of South America and Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the islands of the Pacific, as well as among the Negroes of Haiti, “Voodoo” death has been reported by apparently competent observers. The phenomenon is so extraordinary and so foreign to the experience of civilized people that it seems incredible; certainly if it is authentic it deserves careful consideration. I propose to recite instances of this mode of death, to inquire whether reports of the phenomenon are trustworthy, and to examine a possible explanation of it if it should prove to be real.”
“Now, having heard these remarks, what would you conclude, Jim?”
“You are right, Rey; despite his expressed reservations, Dr. Cannon does seem to endorse the notion of ‘magical or supernatural death.’ He even seems to equate Voodoo with witchcraft.”
“There is no question that Dr. Cannon jumped prematurely to conclusions. He had absolutely no sufficient data or information to determine whether these deaths, reported from areas far apart and culturally very different from each other, were indeed related to Voodoo, particularly when he, himself, readily admitted that the reported observations might not have been trustworthy. Under these circumstances, he should have been more critical and remained neutral or noncommittal to the end of his exposé. Worse yet, the language used in the introduction seems to indicate that the term ‘Voodoo death’ was rather an off-handed choice of words, painting as ‘Voodoo death’ any death that occurs in ‘primitive people’ and for which there is not an obvious explanation, notwithstanding the fact that these cases are never submitted to an autopsy.
“In fact, Cannon’s use of the term Voodoo is reminiscent of George Herbert Walker Bush mockingly characterizing then — Presidential Candidate Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economics policy as ‘Voodoo Economics. ‘Voodoo Economics’ was then supposed to mean a dumb, stupid theory, not worthy of consideration by knowledgeable or sophisticated people. Thus, when coupled with a known entity or concept to convey an opinion as to the nature or validity of that entity or concept, the word Voodoo takes a negative connotation. It does not express a scientific or learned opinion. It is rather a derisive way of characterizing an idea or a thing that is viewed as contemptuous, backward, or senseless, like, say, ‘Voodoo Medicine’ Voodoo Republic, Voodoo Economics!
“Thus, to characterize something as Voodoo-X -Y or -Z is, at best, a cop-out or an admission of one’s inability to make sense of a particular issue; at worst, it is an expression of condescending arrogance toward other people’s beliefs or practices. As a scientist, Dr. Cannon should have humbly declined to answer inquiries about alleged Voodoo or ‘witchcraft phenomena’ which he had personally not investigated. Indeed, a methodical, unbiased and thorough investigation could very well have revealed the true cause of death in all the listed cases. But then and again, it is a matter of priority. Voodoo, as far as we know, was not Dr. Cannon’s bag of tea. He showed no particular interest in personally investigating these reports that came from far-flung places. To a disparate set of unsubstantiated reports, he offered only a general explanation that was unfortunately erroneous. Here is how he approaches the subject in paragraph 2:
“First, with regard to South America. Apparently Soares de Sousa was first to observe instances of death among the Tupinambas Indians, death induced by fright when men were condemned and sentenced by a so-called ‘medicine man.’ ....Thus the chief or medicine man gains the reputation of exercising supernatural power. And by intimidation or terrifying augury or prediction he may cause death from fear.
“In paragraph 3 and 4, he continues:”
“Also in New Zealand there are tales of death induced by ghostly power.
“In Brown’s New Zealand and its Aborigines there is an account of a Maori woman who, having eaten some fruit, was told that it had been taken from a tabooed place; she exclaimed that the sanctity of the chief had been profaned and that his spirit would kill her. The incident happened in the afternoon; the next day (at) about 12 o’clock she was dead....
“In paragraph 5, Dr. Cannon’s report becomes even more illogical. He writes:
"Dr. S. M. Lambert of the Western Pacific Health Service of the Rockefeller Foundation wrote to me that on several he had seen evidence of death from fear. In one case there was a startling recovery. At a mission at Mona Mona in North Queensland were many native converts, but on the outskirts of the Mission was a group of non-converts including one Nebo, a famous witch doctor. The chief helper of the mission was Rob, a native who had been converted. When Dr. Lambert arrived at the Mission he learned that Rob was in distress and that the missionary wanted him examined. Dr. Lambert made the examination and found no fever, no complaint of pain, no symptoms or signs of disease. He was impressed, however, by the obvious indications that Rob was seriously ill and extremely weak. From the missionary he learned that Rob had a bone pointed at him by Nebo and was convinced that in consequence he must die. Thereupon Dr. Lambert and the missionary went for Nebo, threatened him sharply that his supply of food would be shut off if anything happened to Rob and that he and his people would be driven away from the Mission. At once Nebo agreed to go with them to see Rob. He leaned over Rob’s bed and told him that it was all a mistake, a mere joke — indeed, that he had not pointed a bone at him at all. The relief, Dr. Lambert testifies, was almost instantaneous; that evening Rob was back at work, quite happy again, and in full possession of his physical strength....”
“This story, as reported, would be laughable, unless one takes it for granted that the ‘Vooodoo death’ designation was not intended to indicate a connection with Voodoo in the first place. Indeed, in the absence of a necessary connection with Voodoo, the Voodoo label seems to simply convey the sense of something weird and incomprehensible, as previously stated. By that account, a ‘Voodoo death’ would be any death that challenges the intelligence of educated people, or cannot be readily explained on the basis of known facts about the case.
“But the most absurd report about a supposedly unexplained psychic phenomenon among ‘primitive people’ has to be this one, in paragraph 8. It is impossible not to crack a laugh at this obvious and comic display of bias!”
“Dr. J.B. Cleland, Professor of Pathology at the University of Adelaide, has written to me that he has no doubt that from time to time the natives of the Australian bush do die as a result of bone being pointed at them, and that such death may not be associated with any of the ordinary lethal injuries. In an article which included a section on death from malignant psychic influences, Dr. Cleland mentioned a fine, robust tribesman in Central Austral who was injured in the fleshy part of the thigh by a spear that had been enchanted. The man slowly pined away and died without any surgical complication which could be detected. Dr. Cleland cites a number of physicians who have referred to the effects of bone pointing and other terrifying acts. In his letter to me he wrote, “Poisoning is, I think, entirely ruled out in such cases among our Australian natives. There are very few poisonous plants available and I doubt whether it has ever entered the mind of the central Australian natives that such might be used on human being.”
“Clearly, with that kind of reasoning, it is fair to say that a serious argument in support of the ‘Voodoo death’ theory is totally lacking. In fact, Dr. Cannon’s article should not have been published in any respectable scientific journal. It is hard to comprehend how a senior, highly accomplished researcher could have succumbed to such simplistic and biased analyses. To echo the view that native people are too dumb to realize that the poisons they use to kill animals in the jungle could also be used to kill humans, to dismiss poisoning as a possible cause of death when it appears to be the most reasonable assumption, and to suggest instead that ‘malignant psychic influences,’ alone, are responsible for these people’s death is truly the heights of absurdity.
“In his concluding remarks Dr. Cannon writes:
“The suggestion which I offer is that ‘voodoo death’ may be real, and that it may be explained as due to shocking emotional stress — to obvious or repressed terror.”
“This conclusion, it should be noted, comes through as a blatant contradiction, for if it is clear that fear alone is the ultimate cause of the reported deaths, then, implicitly, Voodoo — that is, the spirit of the Gods or move lwa — has nothing to do with their occurrence. ‘Voodoo death,’ therefore, is misnomer. Clearly, then, the term ‘Voodoo death’ does not convey any scientific information, and should not have been coined. If Dr. Cannon were truly convinced that fear alone could cause death in primitive people, then, in support of his theory, he should have tried to identify the specific characteristic(s) or factor (possibly an unidentified gene) that is unique to primitive people and makes them unduly susceptible to fear. But then, one must recognize that, back then, medical science was not that far advanced!
To be sure, Cannon did acknowledge that similar cases of death secondary to ‘shocking emotional stress’ had also been observed in Europe during the Spanish Civil war. But in those cases the ‘Voodoo death’ terminology would not apply, since, as everyone would admit, Voodoo is not a part of the European experience. In the end, then, one would have to agree that ‘Voodoo-death,’ as a concept or terminology, is meaningless since Voodoo, the alleged agent provocateur is not implicated in the act (death) it is supposed to have provoked. Apparently, it all depends on whether one is dealing with a primitive or civilized specimen. If a European soldier drops dead in the course of a hellish encounter with the enemy, and his post-mortem examination miraculously shows no visible trace of injury to account for his death, that one would label ‘death due to fear.’ (The lad was just scared and his heart gave out.) If, on the other hand, an Aborigine drops dead at the sight of a bone being pointed at him, and there is no visible injury on his/her body, that one would call a case of ‘Voodoo death,’ even though the cause of death, in both cases, is assumed to have been sheer terror or overwhelming fear.
“It is only sad that this terminology was picked up some forty years later and expounded by yet another Harvard scientist, Dr. Wade Davis, into a psychogenic theory of zombification that he used to explain how Haitians use fear in the form of Voodoo curse to initiate the process leading to the creation of zombies (Davis, p199-202).”
“I get the point about ‘Voodoo death’ being an empty suit in terms of its meaning,” said Jim, “but if Voodoo death is only a spurious phenomenon, why, then, should it matter to cardiologists, as you stated at the start of your argument.”
“This is a very good question. You see, American medicine, in recent years, has made tremendous strides toward inclusiveness in health care. Diversity in medicine has become a popular buzz-word among medical educators across the country. Everyone now recognizes that we are living in a global, multicultural world. Good medical care has come to imply a certain familiarity with and respect for indigenous cultures. This has become all the more urgent since the world is getting smaller by the day, and competition has reached global proportions thanks to the technological revolution. The better acquainted a physician is with the culture of his potential patients, the better equipped he will be to deal with their problems and survive in an increasingly competitive world. It is therefore a matter of Darwinian imperative: only the fittest will survive.
“Others will argue that ‘Voodoo death’ is out there because people believe in the power of Voodoo; therefore, it is endowed with reality. And, they say, it is not just the ‘primitive people’ who believe that invisible spirits lurk around, often as the agents of evil. Fairly civilized, highly educated people often share also in those beliefs. Besides, the news out of Harvard University is that ‘Voodoo death may be real,’ which lends institutional, if not scientific credibility to the people’s credulity. Physicians must therefore be sensitive to the cultural background of the people they come in contact with, if anything, for the sake of communication and the ability to interact ethically with their clients.
“Cardiologists, on the other hand, know that apparently healthy and energetic people do, sometimes, drop dead without warning. They are also keenly aware that structural or genetic abnormalities of the heart or of the cardiovascular system can remain silent or undiagnosed until a stress supervenes and triggers a cascade of physiologic and pathologic responses ending in sudden death. The identification of these hidden or silent pathologies in the general population is indeed a daily concern for the cardiologist. From a practical point of view, there is no difference between someone pointing a sharp bone at you in the jungles of Timbuktu, and someone brandishing a gun at you in the New York subway if it is quite obvious to you that neither the bone-pointer nor the gun-wielder has a friendly disposition toward you. Both situations can be expected to generate a surge of adrenaline, which, in the presence of a critical, yet silent cardiac abnormality may trigger a fatal sequence of events. Whatever the case may be, it would not be appropriate to say that the victim died as a result of fear, since fear alone cannot cause a cardiac or cerebral injury. ‘Overwhelming joy,’ I might add, can trigger the same deadly outcome, as when the father of the bride collapses and dies during the nuptial ceremonies, in church, upon hearing the groom’s ‘I do.’ It’s not the emotion, but the silent cardiac abnormality that is deadly.
“In other words, a psychic phenomenon has never been shown to be a primary cause of death. Post-mortem examination of people who collapse and die in the context of an emotional or stressful situation almost invariably reveals an underlying pathological or genetic abnormality that accounts for the catastrophic event.
“Thus, ‘Voodoo death,’ whatever its connotation, whether it substitutes for death by fear, death by intimidation or by any other psychological factor, is meaningless. Under any circumstances, it has no place in the modern medical lexicon. It is hoped that people will come to recognize that this Voodoo death theory is absurd, and will stop using it to advance their own erroneous argument about real zombies’ existence in Haiti.”
“Wow! Rey,” Jim opined, “You sound like a real Professor. You’re intense! Are you Haitian?
1. Wade Davis, Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie, University of North Carolina Press, 1988