WAUKEGAN – Students blended green and purple face paint to create the look of deep bruises underneath their eyes. They also plastered bright red face paint around their mouths, constructing the look of a zombie fresh after a bloody meal.  

These makeup tutorials were part of the two-hour long "Zombie Club" meeting at the Waukegan Public Library held Aug. 28.  The meeting centered on the succession of zombies, from their origins to modern day society, and zombies as a popular theme in literature.

Zombie origins stemmed out of religious or spiritual beliefs.  The first zombie myths began in West Africa, where, according to local beliefs, a dead person can be revived by a bokor, or sorcerer, who maintains control over the zombie.  From there came the Haitian myth, which believed that a living person could be turned into a zombie by two special powders being introduced into the blood stream. These powders were said to induce a death-like state in which the will of the victim would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor.  Next came the Chinese legends of zombies, which believed that a a "jiang shi," also known as a hopping vampire or zombie, existed. The jiang shi hid in coffins or caves during the day and hopped around at night, killing living creatures and absorbing their "qi" (life essence).