Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields

by William B. Seabrook

A lesser-known figure of America's Lost Generation, Seabrook was a prolific traveller and author. 'Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields' is an excerpt from his 1929 book The Magic Island, a folklore-tinged travelogue about Haiti. Therefore, the stories he reproduces are midway between fact and fictionMany of these zombie stories, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

William Buehler Seabrook was a journalist and explorer whose interest in the occult lead him across the globe where he studied magic rituals, trained as a witch doctor, and famously ate human flesh, likening it to veal. Despite his studious accounts of magical practices, he insisted he had never seen anything which could not be explained rationally.

His book on witchcraft is notable for its thoughtful focus on arch-occultist Aleister Crowley, who stayed at Seabrook's home for a short time.

Reviews

[diagnosed bookaholic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story is an excerpt from W. B. Seabrook’s book The Magic Island. It was published in 1929. Although it is predominantly about zombies, it is generally about Haitian folklore. Technically it is a folklore-tinged travelogue about Haiti. It wasn’t a bad short story, but it wasn’t very good either. It wasn’t scary at all or particularly well written. The stories value is in the history as it is one of the original zombie stories. Many of these zombie stories, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before are now extremely scarce.

Genre: Short Story, Horror, Fantasy, Classic
Trigger Warnings: death, gore
Typo Count: 1

“The zombie they say, is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of life - it is a dead body which is made to walk and act and move as if it were alive.” 2

[Patrick Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Supposedly, one of the originators of the zombie archetype. Not bad, but not that good. Racist and culturally illiterate, this story is useful for historical enrichment, but it's definitely not scary and not particularly well-written. If you are a historian, you might like this. If you like good zombie stories, you should just skip this.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the bulk of the story told by Polynice but the ending seemed cheap.

[Lafcadio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Told like a creepy-anecdote style ghost story.

[Netanella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unless you're in to cult fiction, Seabrook is a little known author of the early 20th century. Apparently he was into esoteric travel, voodooism, the occult, cannibalism, and ultimately aligned himself with Satanism. An all around fun guy and someone you could take home to mom, I'm sure.

Regardless of his dinner tastes, Seabrook is one of the earliest to describe the Haitian zombie, which he does in this short tale set in the 1920's. In it, the author is speaking a Haitian acquaintance, Polynice, who discusses with him local tales of the walking dead, or zombies, who are basically used as unpaid manual labor in the can fields. Mindless automatons, they can work all day, require no sustenance or pay, and are locally sourced, apparently. The only issue happens to be if the relatives of the dead person happen to notice that you are using their dearly departed as slave labor. Then things can get ugly. There's also included a second tale of a young, light skinned woman who is married to a much older, darker Haitian who lives in a villa in the mountains, his riches made of the coffee trade. Apparently, the husband's got a few side projects to go along with the java. Both stories are very interesting.

Apparently Seabrook wrote this as non-fiction. I certainly hope not!