In an earlier post to this thread, I shared some information about different meanings for the word "zumbi". I also shared some information about the moko jumbie stilt dancers.

It appears that moko jumbies (Caribbean stilt dancers) are considered to be the same as zombies (dead people who act under the influence of an evil person) much of the time but not all of the time. But it appears that wasn't the original meaning in the Caribbean of "moko jumbies".

Compare these two Wikipedia excerpts:

"A moko jumbie (also known as "moko jumbi" or "mocko jumbie") is a stilts walker or dancer. The origin of the term may come from "Moko" (a possible reference to an African god) and "jumbi", a West Indian term for a ghost or spirit that may have been derived from the Kongo language word zumbi. The Moko Jumbies are thought to originate from West African tradition brought to the Caribbean... The Moko arrived in Trinidad by "walking all the way across the Atlantic Ocean from the West coast of Africa, laden with many, many centuries of experience, and, in spite of all inhuman attacks and encounters, yet still walks tall, tall, tall. (John Cupid, Caribbean Beat)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moko_jumbie

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"A zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead...

There are several possible etymologies of the word zombie. One possible origin is jumbie, the West Indian term for "ghost".[1] Another is nzambi, the Kongo word meaning "spirit of a dead person."[1] According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word entered English circa 1871; it's derived from the Louisiana Creole or Haitian Creole zonbi, which in turn is of Bantu origin.[2] A zonbi is a person who is believed to have died and been brought back to life without speech or free will.[3] It is akin to the Kimbundu nzúmbe ghost.

According to the tenets of Vodou, a dead person can be revived by a bokor or Voodoo sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Vodou snake god Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kongo word nzambi, which means "god". There also exists within the voudon tradition the zombi astral which is a human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power."

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Here's a link to a YouTube video of moko jumbie dancers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5sQ-jizTRo

-snip-

Here's a link to a YouTube video of traditional West African stilt dancer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7H9f0paCCo&feature=related
Dan (Ivory coast/Liberia)

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And here's a link to a YouTube video of Caribbean stilt dancer at the 2006 International Festival at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUGijRZwYpg