Duppy Conquerors, Rolling Calves and Flights to Zion

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Henriques, Julian F.. 2019. Duppy Conquerors, Rolling Calves and Flights to Zion. In: Steve Goodman; Toby Heys and Eleni Ikoniadou, eds. AUDINT—Unsound:Undead. Falmouth: Urbanomic Media Ltd, pp. 147-150. ISBN 9781916405219 [Book Section]

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Abstract or Description

In Jamaica, a duppy is a spirit or ghost of a dead person. They are undead, but unlike their cousins the zombies from the nearby Caribbean island of Haiti, they maintain individual agency. Duppies usually take human form, though their feet are said to point backwards, in order to confuse anyone trying to track their footprints. They come out at night and are said to congregate under cottonwood trees. In Bob Marley’s Duppy Conqueror the proverbial hero fights back against these ghosts – of his vanquished enemies perhaps? – and “bullbucka” (bullies). “Yes mi friend, me der ‘pon street again… So if you a bullbucka, let me tell you this/ I'm a duppy conqueror, conqueror…” Not surprisingly the duppy has also been a popular figure in novels and poems as well as song.

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