Umthwebulo is when a person is taken by a witch using witchcraft to become umkhovu, a mindless zombie. Umkhovu is a person that has been bewitched to do the witches' evil bidding. It is usually a person that died in a very peculiar and suspicious way, but the family has accepted the death and has laid the person to rest. However, it is not really the person being laid to rest, it is their shadow self. Sometimes, a familiar (a conjured spirit) enters the body for optics. After a while, the buried body is dug up and the person is awakened and fed harmful medicines to make them forget about their old life. When the person has forgotten about their past life, they are put to work. Thereafter, a passed a nail is put on the crown (a place known ukhakhayi in Zulu) making the person a zombie.