Bocor

“The bokor who knows the magic can make anyone a zombi—a Haitian living abroad, a foreigner.”

The corpse is buried in all solemnity, and two days later, at dead of night, the bocor digs it up, stops feeding it salt, and has himself a zombie.

A bòkò is an entrepreneur, and has a reputation as a man who will “work with both hands,” that is, for healing and revenge.

It seemed to him that he was […] surrendering all agency and becoming hers to command, as if she were a Haitian bokor and he at lunch at Bergdorf Goodman had been administered the so-called zombie's cucumber which confused his thought processes and made him her slave for life.