This chapter traces the origins of the zombie in popular Haitian beliefs. The etymology of the word “zombie” and earliest textual references to the term reveal its evolution from a proto-zombie in African legends about spirit theft, to a living dead figure symbolizing enslavement in colonial Saint-Domingue around the time of the Haitian Revolution, to a symbol of the Duvalier dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on both early colonial sources referring to the zombie and on more contemporary Haitian and global North scholarship on the figure, the first section explores the transatlantic roots of the zombie whereas the second section examines its specific meaning within Haiti. While the bodily zombie in Haiti is tied to Vodou beliefs about the soul, recent studies have explored medicalized interpretations of the zombie (created by a powder). Although the corporeal living dead or kò kadav, a body robbed of part of the soul, is most commonly known outside of Haiti, this chapter also explores the idea of a zonbi astral or spirit zombie. Ultimately, this chapter shows how the zombie became associated with the living dead, and how it continues to be understood in Haiti today.