J.

The Doppelsauger of the Hanover Wends

In the vicinity of Hanover, Germany the Wends ( Western Slavs ) believed in a special type of

vampire which they called the doppelsauger13. This is the revenant of a child who again

sucked his mother’s breasts after he had been weaned. If such a child dies, then in his grave

he consumes his the flesh of his own breasts. Then it preys on the living members of his

family, causing the person to rapidly lose weight.

Preventive measures at the of such a child include:

• Placing a coin between the teeth of the corpse

• Placing a semi-circular board under the chin of the corpse so it cannot reach the

chest

• Making sure that the cloth of its burial garment do not touch the lips of the corpse

K. The Undead in Bavaria

The most common name for undead vampire in Bavaria is blutsauger14. As

recently a belief in the blutsauger was found to still exist in rural parts of

Hungary. The blutsauger is a corpse described with pale skin.

At least according to old Bavarian folklore, a person might become a blutsauger

after dying under the following circumstances:

• Not having been baptized

• Having led an immoral life

• Having been a practitioner of witchcraft or sorcery

• Having eaten an animal killed by a wolf

• Having died by suicide

13
doppelsauger – a German name which literally means “double sucker”
14
blutsauger – literally means “ blood sucker”
 L. The Undead in Scandinavia

Much of what we know about Scandinavian mythology during the time of the Vikings is found in myths

and legends written down in Iceland after the Norwegian descendants on this island, as well as most of

Scandinavia, had been converted to Christianity. Among this literature we find tales concerning the

corporeal undead who dwelled in their burial mounds. In the sagas written in Iceland, the name most

common for such a revenant is draugr. In most of the sagas, such a revenant is not hostile unless its

dwelling place is invaded by mortal seeking treasures buried in the mound. But, in some of the sagas, the

dead person leaves his mound to inflict revenge upon the living who had brought about his death.

In the folklore of Norway recorded during the past two centuries, the draug (note difference in spelling) is

most often a person who drowned in the sea but remains as a living corpse. In most of these tales, the

draug climbs aboard ships or onto the shore to attack the living unless he is repelled. In this later Christian

lore, a recurring theme is that the drowned person became a revenant as the result of not being buried in the

consecrated ground of a church yard cemetery.

M. The Undead in England

During the twelfth century, belief in undead vampires flouriched in many parts

of England.

One the most interesting of these accounts is one of several reported by William

of Newburgh. The revenant in this cases was that of a knight who had served the

lord of Ainswick Castle in Yorkshire . The knight had led a lewd, wicked life. He

died as the result of falling from his roof while spying his own wife engaged in

adultery. After his burial, he was seen again, prowling through the streets and

around the houses in his village. His flesh was rotting and a plague resulted from

the fetid air emitted. The villagers finally destroyed this creature by exhuming

the corpse and cremating it. They found the corpse to be ruddy and swollen.

They attributed this condition to being due to the corpse being bloated with the

blood that it had drunk from his victims. The people then dragged the corpse to a
 place outside their village and cremated it. After that, both the appearances of

the vampire and the plague ended. In this account, William of Newburgh applies

the Latin name sanguisuga15 to the revenant.

N. The Undead in France

Belief in corpses returning from their graves is largely absent in France. But

belief in the werewolf (loups garou ) was prevalent in many parts of France

during the middle Ages. And in there was a combination of the two at this time

in the province of Normandy. This Norman lore is described on pages 107-108

in The Book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring Gould (first published in 1865,

most recently reprinted by Studio Editions, Ltd., in 1995). According to this, a

werewolf is sometimes the revenant of person who died and who was damned

for his sins. After being buried, the corpse eats its way through its burial shroud

and begins to howl. Then the earth above the grave begins to up heave. The

revenant emerges from the earth in the form of a wolf exhaling fetid breath and

surrounded by a phosphorescent glare.

O. The Undead in China

The most general term for the undead vampire in Chinese lore is k'uei and quite often these are blood-

drinkers. Belief in k'uei is usually connected with belief that a living person has two souls, a superior one

called the hun and an inferior one called the p'o. It was believed that a human fetus had a p'o but no hun . A

person receives his hun at birth. Most generally, a k'uei is the result of a person's p'o not leaving his body -

or some remnant of his body such as the skeleton or the skull - after he dies and having the power to

preserve and animate it. When the p'o animates an entire corpse in a Chinese tale, this often occurs before

the corpse is buried. A complete corpse animated by its p'o is called a chiang-shi (also spelled as kiang-

shih, which better reflects the correct pronunciation.)

15
sanguisuga - literary means "blood sucker"
Those who were pre-disposed to become a k'uei include:

• Those who had led dishonest lives.

• Those who had lived sorrowful lives of deprivation.

• Those who committed suicide.

• Those who were not given a proper funeral after they died.

• Those whose corpse, before burial, was exposed to sunlight or moonlight before burial.

• Those whose corpse was jumped over by a cat before burial.

The latter two criteria are especially true for the chiang-shi though all the other criteria apply to it as well.

By the corpse being exposed to moonlight or sunlight, the p'o acquires positive energy called yang which

gives it the power to animate the corpse, but it then nourishes itself on the blood of living people and other

corpses. In most Eastern European countries there is also found the belief that a corpse will become a

vampire if an animal jumps over it. The Chinese explanation is that the nature of the animal is transmitted

to the p'o. In the case of a cat jumping over the corpse, the tiger-nature of the cat is transferred to the p'o.

In some Chinese tales, a chiang-shih looks exactly like the person did before he or she died. But there are

significant exceptions.

I've found two versions of a tale where four men traveling together stop at an inn. The innkeeper has no

regular room available for them but gives them quarter in a room or barn where the corpse of the

innkeeper's daughter or daughter-in-law has been placed, awaiting for burial. One of the four could not

sleep. The man still awake sees the corpse comes to life and the man who is still awake sees the corpse

stooping over his sleeping companions one by one. The man awake manages to flee outside. But the

chiang-shih pursues him. The man hides behind a willow tree. The chiang-shih finds him and attacks him.

The man dodges and the chiang-shih grips the tree instead. The man then faints. In the morning, the man
regains consciousness. The corpse of the dead woman is found next to the tree with her fingernails stuck in

the tree. The man's three companions are found dead where they were sleeping.

In another tale, the wife of teacher named Liu wakes in the morning and finds that her husband who had

been sleeping next to her is dead - his head is missing and the bed is drenched in blood. She reports this to

the local authorities who then accuse her of murder and put her in jail. She remained there for months. The

mystery was finally solved as the result one of the villagers finding a neglected grave on a hillside. A coffin

was laid bare next to it with the lid slightly raised.

This villager summoned the rest of the community. When the coffin lid was raised, the corpse was found

within resembling the dead person when he was still alive except that it was covered with white hair.

Between its arms, it held the head of Liu. The head of Liu could not be pulled from the arms of the corpse.

After they cut off the corpse's arms, fresh blood gushed from them and their stumps. But there was not a

drop of blood to be found in Liu's head. It had been sucked dry by the vampire.

In many tales where a chiang-shih haunts the vicinity of its grave, a cave, or its open coffin found in a

cemetery or alongside a lonely road on a moonlit night, the chiang-shih is often described as being covered

with white or greenish-white hair and very long fingernails. Its face is sometimes described as being white

or black. In some of these tales, the chiang-shih is able to fly through the air.

In one tale, a man walking down a country road at night finds an open coffin in the middle of the road. He

realized that it must be the coffin of a chiang-shih. He filled the coffin with rocks and broken pottery. Then

he retreated to the loft of a nearby barn to observe the coffin and see what would happen there next. About

an hour after midnight, the corpse tried to climb back into the coffin. Finding the coffin filled with rocks

and debris, the corpse became angry and its eyes began to blaze. In the moonlight, this chiang-shih saw the

traveler in the loft and went to the barn. The man feared that he was trapped in the loft and jumped out the

window into a tree. But the chiang-shih could not climb the ladder to the loft and went outside where it

spotted the man after he climbed down from the tree. The chiang-shih pursued the man. The man finally

escaped by jumping into a stream and swimming to the other shore. The chiang-shih could not cross

running water. The chiang-shih stood near the stream screaming and gesticulating in anger. Then it jumped
into the air three times, turned into a wolf, and ran off. This tale is given in Lust for Blood by Olga Hoyt

(Scarborough House, 1984).

In all the tales I've read where a chiang-shih was destroyed, the method was to cremate the corpse.

Sometimes this was preceded by a ritual of exorcism performed by a Taoist priest or

magician.

Not all chiang-shih are ghoulish in appearance or manner when outside

their graves. According to one tale, in 1761 A.D., the twenty sixth year of

the Kien-lung period, there was a time of drought in Peking and its vicinity.

During this time, a courier was dispatched with an urgent message from one

general to another in a different city. On the way, while he was in a lonely

place, a storm suddenly brewed up and the rain poured heavily upon him. The courier took shelter in the

pavilion of a post house. Here a lovely young woman joined him. She invited him to her house. The courier

followed her, tied his horse to a post outside her house, and went inside. The woman treated him first with

tea. They spent the night together enjoying each others embraces in bed. But when cock crowed the woman

suddenly got out of bed , put on her clothes, and left. The exhausted courier fell asleep. When he awoke

again, he found himself on a tomb stone in the open pain. There were no buildings nearby. He found his

horse tied to a tree.

Frightened, he quickly untied his horse, mounted it, and road off. When he reached his destination, he was

many hours late. Under interrogation, he told what had happened to him on the way. The general had the

tomb investigated. It turned out to that of a young unmarried woman who had hung herself out of shame

after it was discovered that she was no longer a virgin. Her specter had enticed and seduced travelers

coming through the vicinity of her tomb. And it was suspected that her specter was the cause of the

drought. The general ordered the tomb opened. There, inside, rested the woman’s corpse still undecayed,

plump and rosy in completion, but covered with white hair. This corpse was then cremated. The drought

ended the next day and the tomb was no longer haunted.
 P. The Undead in India

Hindu names for the vampiric undead include:

• Vetala

• Bhuta

• Gayal

• Churel

The vetala is essentially a vampiric demon or a demi-god. But a vetala sometimes takes possession of a

corpse and animates it.

The term bhuta is sometimes applied in a way that includes all of the Hindu vampiric demi-gods, demons,

and undead. But its special meaning is the revenant of a man who died under such circumstances as:

• Dying by accident.

• Dying by execution as a criminal.

• Committing suicide.

In some regions of India, a Hindu who dies under such circumstances is apt to be buried instead of being

given a proper funeral where the body is cremated. (It is interesting that in some European countries where

the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith prevails there was a time when a person who died in such

circumstances was also suspected of becoming undead vampire. At least in the cases of death by suicide

and of death by execution as a criminal, he was apt to be buried outside the consecrated grounds of the

regular cemetery without having been given a proper Christian funeral.) The bhuta often satisfies its

appetite by eating the intestines and excrement it finds in other corpses. But it also attacks humans, causing
them to become sick, and death often results.

The term gayal is used by the Punjab and some other regions of India to mean the revenant of a man who

dies such circumstances as:

• Dying unmarried.

• Dying without an heir.

He is thus deprived by custom of being given a proper funeral in which his body is cremated. His body is

simply buried without ceremony. The gayal preys upon his relatives and the sons of his neighbors. The

methods to get rid of this pest include exhuming the body and giving it a proper funeral in which it is

cremated. Another way is to place cups around the grave containing a mixture of milk and water from the

Ganges River as an offering to appease it. Burning lamps

might also be placed around the grave. To protect male children from the gayal, a necklace of coins was

sometimes placed around their necks.

The churel is the revenant of a woman who dies under such circumstances

as:

• Being pregnant

• Giving birth to a child.

• Being in her period of menstruation on a holy day.

• Belonging to a low caste or the out of caste Untouchables.

The basic form of the churrel is sometimes described as having reversed feet and no mouth. According to

another description, she has long, pendant breasts, sharp long teeth, unkempt hair, and a black tongue. But
she can appear as a beautiful young woman who seduces young men and keeps them enthralled, draining

them of their vitality, until they prematurely become gray-haired old men. She preys mainly upon her

relatives. The ways to prevent or get rid of a churrel include:

• Piercing the thumb and fore-fingers of the corpse with nails.

• Binding the the toes of the corpse together with an iron ring.

• Breaking the legs of the corpse above the ankles.

• Burying the corpse the corpse face downwards.

• Burying the corpse in a special place such as one near the house which was always in shadow at

high noon.

• Fixing an iron nail at each of the four corners of the burial site.

• Placing millet or mustard seeds, or thorns or iron nails, in the grave itself and/or on the ground

above the grave.

• Placing millet or mustard seeds on the road between the grave and her former home.

• Placing millet or mustard seeds, or thorns or iron nails on the thresholds of her former home.

• Ritual offerings and rites of exorcism performed at the site of the grave.

Sometimes the corpse was cremated. But then a ball of thread is burned with it in belief that the woman's

spirit will be so occupied with unwinding the ball that she will forget the gripe she has with her relatives.

The practices involving millet or mustard seeds had to do with notion that the revenant became pre-

occupied with counting these. The same practices and belief here concerning seeds and such occurs in

Eastern Europe and, at least to some degree, in many other parts of the world.

Q. The Undead in Malaysia

The undead in Malaysia includes most notably:

• The Langsuir

• The Pontianak
The langsuir is the revenant of a woman who died while giving birth to a child or died from shock when

she discovered that this child was stillborn. She preys upon infants by sucking their blood. She may appear

as a night owl with long claws. In this form she can sometimes be seen sitting and hooting upon a roof-tree.

But she can also appear as a beautiful woman dressed in a green robe. In this latter form, she has

beautifully long fingernails and long hair that reaches down to her ankles. Her beautiful long hair conceals

a hole behind her neck through which she sucks the blood of infants.

There are tales in which a man catches her, cuts off her fingernails and long hair, and then stuffs these into

the hole in the back of her neck. She then becomes subdued and the man marries her and has children by

her. But then such a tamed langsuir must be kept away from dancing and merry-making. If she participates

in such activity, she will revert back to her previous nature and fly away.

The ways to prevent a woman who has died in childbirth or from shock of discovering that the child was

stillborn include:

• Putting glass beads into the mouth of the corpse.

• Placing needles into the palms of the corpse.

• Placing the egg of a hen in each arm pit.

According to Malaysian lore, such a woman will not transform into a langsuir until forty days after burial.

It is interesting that in many localities in Eastern Europe it was also believed in that a dead person did not

become a vampire until forty days after he or she was buried.

The pontianak is the stillborn child of a langsuir . He also sucks the

blood of living infants and appears in the form of a night owl with long

claws. The ways to prevent a stillborn child, whose mother also died at his stillbirth, from

becoming a pontianak match the ways his mother is prevented from becoming a langsuir.

R. The Undead in The Philippines

According to some Philippine lore, an infant who dies under certain conditions may become a vampire

called the tianak, or patianiak.

In the article “Philippine (Tagalog) Superstitions” by Fletcher Gardner (Journal of American Folk-Lore vol.

19 (1906)), it is said to be called the tianak or patianiak , and is described as “the soul of an unbaptized

child living again in a new body in the forest, sucking the blood of any unfortunate woman whom it may

find asleep, or who, in compassion, may give it suck.”

But the article continues: “By Padre Ortiz, the Spanish word duende , or goblin, is used as a synonym for

Patianak. The whole subject is confused and need elucidation. It is likely that a more detailed study would

find the fundamental idea overlaid with a mass of local tradition.”

One of my own Filipino correspondents still living in the Philippines wrote to me in 1998 that the “tiyanak

” is a “creature who appears to be a crying baby in the woods. Unsuspecting passersby will think it to be an

abandoned baby and will bring it home. Once inside, it will change into its original grotesque shape and

attack the inhabitants while they sleep.”

V. Determining a vampire and other beliefs

A. vampire physiology:

• blood – vampires drink blood to survive

• fangs – they use long fangs to suck the victim’s

blood

• hair – continues to grow even if he/she has already

been buried

• strength – their strength is no match for any mere

mortal

• fingernails – like the hair, it also grows even after

burial
 • reproduction

• senses – they have sharper senses than any human

• shape-shifting – they can copy anyone a common

tactic used in order to escape the enemy or even

lure them to their death

• skin – usually pale

B. Unusual conditions of corpses:

• Lack of rigor mortis.

• Growth of hair and/or fingernails following burial.

• Red, fluid blood found in internal organs, especially the heart and liver.

• Dry blood in places indicating that blood had flowed from the mouth, nostrils, and/or ears.

• Blood spurting out of the heart when it is pierced by a stake or other sharp instrument.

• The corpse being ruddy and swollen.

• The corpse moaning or bellowing when a stake is hammered into its chest.

Findings on the Unusual Conditions of corpses:

In the light of this modern empirical data, none of the "unusual conditions" appear to be so unusual.

As any undertaker today knows, any corpse will loses its stiffness (rigor mortis) after a certain period

of time.

The apparent growth of hair and finger nails is due to the skin shrinking back from these.

Blood in the vessels actually does de-coagulate though under chemical and microscopic analysis it is

obviously different from truly fresh blood.

 The bloating and ruddiness of the corpse is due to gases released by bacteria fermenting material in the

intestines and various other material, These gases inflate the torso of the corpse.

The moaning or bellowing by a corpse when a stake is driven into its chest is no doubt due to gases

being forced out of the torso, across the vocal cords in the neck, and out the mouth. The effect is sort of

like the one you get when you sit on the novelty device for practical jokes known today as the

"whoopee cushion." Of course, the effect on a person pounding a stake into the heart of a corpse must

have been quite more shocking.

Above all, modern research has revealed that the rates and ways by which a corpse can eventually

decay are many, and the time involved can be surprisingly long.

C. Vampire Plagues

In those parts of Europe where there was belief in undead vampires, such vampires were often blamed for

being the cause of an epidemic. In many cases, the first person to die of a contagious disease was suspected

of being a vampire. But in some others cases, a person who died for some other reason but who was

suspected of becoming a vampire due to other circumstances might be accused as the prime cause of the

epidemic. Often it was hoped that by exhuming the corpse of the original vampire and treating it by such

means as staking it, decapitating it, cremating it, etc., that the epidemic would then end. But, when this

failed, more dead victims of the epidemic were exhumed, and when such a corpse was found to be in an

"unusual condition" it, too, was treated by such means. Perhaps when such practices first originated, the

basic principle was, as the old adage goes, "If you don't succeed the first time, try, try again." But in

recorded cases there is closely associated with this belief that the victim of a vampire is apt to become a

vampire after his death.

D. The Vampire's Bite, Blood Drinking, Soul Sucking, and Heart Eating

The "fresh blood" found in the corpse of an alleged vampire and/or ruddiness of the face or trunk of the

corpse, was sometimes, if not quite often, taken to be the blood of his victims.

"The persons whose blood had been sucked found themselves in a pitiable state of languor, weakness, and

lassitude...At the place where these persons are sucked, a blue spot is formed; the part whence the blood is

drawn is not determinate, sometimes it is in one place, sometimes in another. It is a notorious fact, attested

by the most authentic documents, and passed or executed in the sight of 1,300 persons, all worthy of

belief."

On page 32 of in his book Vampires, Death, and Burial (Yale University Press, 1988, Paul Barber gives

other examples of vampire bites associated with blood sucking together with his source of information for

each:

• Among the Russians, they leave a small wound in the area over the heart. Source: Lowenstimm,

Aug. Aberglaube und Strafrecht. Berlin, 1897. p. 96.

• Among the Kashubes, it is said that the vampire chooses the area of the left breast. Source:

Mannhardt, W. "Uber Vampyrismus", Zietschrift fur deutshe Mythologie und Sittenkunde 4

(1859), p. 260.

• In Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) they bite on the nipple. Source: Mannhardt, W., same article as

above, p. 264.

• In the district of Krain in Romania, vampires both suck blood and create new vampires by doing

so. Source: Mannhardt, W., same article as above, p. 264.

• In Romania, the bite is in never on the neck but usually on the chest over the heart. More rarely,

the victim is bitten over the eyes. Source: Cremene, Adrien. Mythologie du Vampire en Roumanie

. Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 1981, p. 100.

And the belief is that so long as the heart contains And the belief is that so long as the heart contains

blood, so long will that of the immediate family who are suffering from consumption; but if the heart is

burned, that the patient will get better. And to make the cure certain, the ashes of the heart and liver

should be eaten by the person afflicted In this case [note: that of Mercy Brown] the doctor does not

know if that latter remedy was resorted to or not.

E. Frequent Handicaps that vampires have to deal with:

• Inability to enter a dwelling not unless invited to come in

• Inability to cross the water

• Reflection not seen in a mirror

• Aversion to garlic

• Impeded by the branch of a thorny plant

• Vulnerable to bullets

• Aversion to wolfs bane

• Compulsions regarding grains, seeds, knots, etc.

VI. Possible ways of killing a vampire:

• Putting a wooden stake through its heart

• Cremation

• Decapitation

These are the common ways of exterminating a vampire yet there are more

methods in eliminating them. Some are already mentioned in the earlier

information gathered.
 VII. Vampirism

Folkloric vampirism is not a curse, but damnation. People who sin are the ones

cursed to be vampires. The victims of vampires can also become vampires, as if the

taint were transferable. Step 2 lists many types of people slated to rise from the dead

as vampires, including witches, excommunicated (people thrown out of the church),

suicides and murderers. Some things, like a nun stepping over a body, cause people

to rise from the grave.

Only a "curse" from the church-- excommunication, no last rites, and no baptism-- could "cause" a

vampire. If a person were to curse another person, a restless afterlife might be a possible option, though it is

far more likely a witch would trap the soul on earth-- making the person a ghost-- or enslave the reanimated

body-- a zombie-- than make the person a vampire, who was generally uncontrollable and caused more

harm to the local people than he did to himself. As of yet, I have heard of no one becoming a vampire

because some individual put a curse on them. However, with literary vampires, anything is possible.

As for reversing vampirism, there is no hope for the person who is already a vampire. Precautions can be

taken in life, but once someone rise as a vampire, they're stuck as one until someone takes care of the

problem.

VIII. Greek Accounts of the Vrykolakas

The vrykolakas is one of several non-human beings which people the lives of Greek peasants and bring

them fear. I use the term non-human rather than the more common supernatural, because these beings are

often the very essence of nature to the extent of being vulnerable through natural means. The vrykolakas

himself can be killed by the stroke of lightning, and consumed by fire.

The vrykolakas is the animated corpse which can leave its grave every day except Saturday. He can be seen

mainly by the alaphroiskiotoi , the light-shadowed; but he may also be visible to the ordinary man. There is
no agreement in my texts as to the form of the vrykolakas; apparently, though he starts out as a dead human

body, he can change his form, or even enter the body of an animal. In quoting accounts of the vrykolakas

alone, I draw a line which was not firmly drawn by my informants. The attitude toward all non-human

beings was the same, in general, and overshadowed distinctions of species. All non-human beings were

generally referred to as stoechoia (spirits, non-human beings). At times an informant began with the

announced intention of telling me about neraides (fairies, water-fairies), and ended by recounting an

experience with a vrykolakas ; this, in spite of the fact that the neraides were golden-haired and seductive,

and were fearfully coveted by the young men. This confusion of the different non-human beings is common

principally among my Arcadian informants; and it is from the Arcadians that I got the most vivid accounts

of such beings, and for whom such experiences were most immediate.

The vrykolakas is the devil. The people hear about him in church and are afraid. No, I never heard of a

vrykolakas drinking blood. These tempters (paraphrase for devils), whom people call vrykolakas, kill

people. That's why people fear them. When they said to us that in such and such a place a stanchion comes

out, whew! we would never go that way; we feared those beings.

My father would see these beings when he walked at night with my mother; my mother saw nothing.

He looks like a man, like a dog, like anything. He comes out at night. When people die of a contagious

disease, and no one will go near them and they bury them without a priest, without anything, they become

vrykolakas.

In other places, in other villages, the vrykolakas would appear. But in our village, on the outside of the

church, they had drawn--I never saw it--the outline of a wolf. And when anyone from another village

became a vrykolakas, they would take earth from under the sketch of the wolf and would strew it all the

way to the grave of the vrykolakas. And the wolf would go and eat the vrykolakas, and he would disappear.
Presumably, the vrykolakas would go to the houses and would eat whatever provisions were at hand. And

the people would hear voices which they recognized as the voices of those who had died.

Either they had sinned; or the people would leave the dead alone, and some cat or dog would go by and

give him a demon soul. That is why, they say, they kept watch over the dead. They would not leave the

dead alone; neither do they now.

They had this shape; one side of the body would be a human body, but the other side was entirely empty.

They were open on one side.

These people believe that the vrykolakas does mischief. You know what I mean. He goes to the houses and

eats different kinds of food, of dough. And to put an end to his torture, they go and perform a liturgy, and

they go to his grave, and I don't know what they throw to him, and he stops coming out. The priest does

something, he prays and this one doesn't come out again.

He has exactly the body of a man such as he had before death. But he is only a phantasm. He is only like a

kind of air. He has no tangible body.

IX. Bioarcheological and Biocultural Evidence for the New England Vampire folk

belief

Many cultures have developed folk beliefs to explain the natural phenomena associated with death and

disease (Aries, 1981). The folk belief in vampires, found in many cultures, incorporates interpretations of

death and disease. The vampire image found in contemporary Euro American culture is based solely on

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1983), an image that varies significantly from historic European and American

vampiric folk beliefs. Eighteenth century European peasants believed that the appearance of the vampire in

the grave (i.e., bloated chest, long fingernails, and blood draining from the mouth) meant that the vampire

was draining life from the living. We now know these changes to be the result of postmortem

decomposition (Barber, 1988; Mann et al., 1990; Micozzi, 1992). Further, the high number of deaths
resulting from disease epidemics was also blamed on vampires. To stop the epidemic, vampires were

sought out and "killed" by various methods (Perkowski, 1989). The term vampirism has also entered the

psychiatric literature to explain pathologic behaviors similar to those of the mythical vampire, particularly

ingestion of blood and necrophagic and cannibalistic activities (McCully, 1964; Prins, 1984; Vanden Bergh

and Kelly, 1964). The clinical manifestation of erythropoietic protoporphyria, also known as Gunther's

Disease, and its variants have also been cited as an explanation for the vampire belief (Prins, 1985). This

autosomal dominant disorder causes increased excretion of protoporphyrin and results in redness of the

eyes and skin, a receding of the upper lip, and cracking of the skin when exposed to sunlight.

American vampire folk beliefs, which were particularly strong in 19th century New England, contained

some European features. The New England folklore is consistent in its incorporation of tuberculosis and

examination of the body of the vampire for putative signs of life. Following the death of a family member

from consumption (i.e., tuberculosis), other family members began to show the signs of tuberculosis

infection. According to the New England folk belief, the "wasting away" of these family members was

attributed to the recently deceased consumptive, who returned from the dead as a vampire to drain the life

from the surviving relatives. The apostrophic remedy used to kill the vampire was to exhume the body of

the supposed vampire and, if the body was un-decomposed, remove and burn the blood-filled heart or the

entire body.

A. Skeletal Evidence

The pathological conditions observed in the burials from the Walton Cemetery reflect lives of physical

labor, including osteoarthritis and an unhealed femoral neck fracture in an elderly female. One case of

particularly heavy dental calculus was observed.

The complete skeleton of a 50- to 55-year-old male interred in a stone-lined grave is of particular interest

for this report. Two observations regarding this skeleton are of note: 1) the postmortem rearrangement of

the skeletal remains, and 2) pale pathological evidence of a probable pulmonary tuberculosis infection.
Upon opening the grave, the skull and femora were found in a "skull and crossbones" orientation on top of

the ribs and vertebrae, which were also found in disarray. On the coffin lid, an arrangement of tacks spelled

the initials "JB-55", presumably the initials and age at death of this individual.

Pathological conditions evident in this skeleton included healed fractures and active infectious processes.

Healed fractures were observed on the lateral half of the right clavicle (with a bony callus extending to the

scapula), the right eighth rib, and the left second rib. Mild osteoarthritis was seen in most large joints and

most lower vertebrae. Some lower vertebrae also exhibited Schmorl's nodes. The particular surface of the

left femoral medial condoles presented an area of crenulated bone 30 mm in diameter, probably traumatic

in origin. Focal lytic activity had destroyed an area of bone approximately 40 mm in diameter at the

articulations of the left metatarsals and cuneiforms.

Periostitis was present on the distal half of the left tibia and the distal two thirds of the left fibula.

Periostatic lesions of the left second, third, and fourth ribs were also observed. These lesions were whitish-

gray and pitted in appearance, and were located on the visceral rib surface near the rib head adjacent to the

pleura. The lesions, respectively 30 mm, 35 mm, and 25 mm in length, comprise an area of approximately

30 cm mediolaterally and 45 cm superiorly-inferiorly when considered in anatomical position. The lesions

are similar to those described by Kelley and Micozzi (1984) as most likely being associated with primary

pulmonary tuberculosis.

Differential diagnoses for rib lesions include typhoid, phylogenic osteomyelitis, syphilis, pleurisies, and

other types of non-specific chronic respiratory disease (Kelley and Micozzi, 1984). If the rib and foot

lesions are taken as one entity, an additional differential diagnosis is blast mycosis, although this fungus is

not normally found in Connecticut (Mann and Murphy, 1990). Periostitic reaction resulting from the

fracture of the left second rib can be ruled out because the healed fracture shows no osseous activity around

the fracture site, which is located 11 cm from the lesion.

Regardless of the specific infectious etiology of pulmonary disease in this individual, symptoms of a
chronic pulmonary infection severe enough to induce rib lesions would have probably included coughing,

expectoration of mucous, and aches and pains of the chest. Such symptoms, if not actually caused by

pulmonary tuberculosis, would likely have been interpreted as consumption by 19th century rural New

Englanders.

No other cases of tuberculosis were noted in the remains from the cemetery. Two burials are believed to be

related to "JB." Both burials, a 45- to 55-year-old female and a 13- to 14-year-old sub adult, were buried in

a manner similar to "JB" and had the initials "IB-45" and "NB-13" spelled, respectively, in tacks on the

coffin lid.

B. The Vampire Belief

The New England vampire belief in based on a folk interpretation of the physical appearance of the

tuberculosis victim and the transmission of tuberculosis. As the name consumption implies, the disease

caused sufferers to "waste away" and "lose flesh," despite the fact that they remained active, desirous of

sustenance, and maintained a fierce will to live (Brown, 1941). This dichotomy of desire and "wasting

away" is reflected in the vampire folk belief: The vampire's desire for "food" forces it to feed off living

relatives, who suffer a similar "wasting away."

The vampire folklore tradition is also consistent with modern knowledge of the transmission of

tuberculosis. Many of the historic accounts indicate that family members living in close association became

infected with the disease before or soon after the death of the "vampire." Tuberculosis is notorious for being

transmitted between individuals of different generations living under crowded conditions, a situation

common in rural 19th century New England farming communities (Hawke, 1988). Seasonal periods of low

nutrition and the unsanitary conditions of 18th and 19th century farming compounds increased the

opportunity for transmission of tuberculosis between family members (Clark et al., 1987; Kelley and

Eisenberg, 1987). Although there is no evidence of tuberculosis in the remaining Walton cemetery
skeletons, an 1801 narrative of Griswold history indicates that during the 25 years preceding the account

"consumptions have proved to be mortal to a number" (Phillips, 1929).

C. Killing the Vampire

The method of dispatching a vampire, also known as an apotropaic remedy, centers around the destruction

of the vampire's body. In the New England folklore, if blood is found in the heart of the exhumed vampire,

the apotropaic remedy was to burn the heart, in the process ridding the family of the vampire's actions.

Most historic accounts indicate that upon exhuming the vampire, the body was found undecomposed and

that blood was present in the heart. Barber's (1988) examination of the vampire belief in Europe indicates

that the appearance of a vampire in the grave (i.e., bloating, hair and fingernails growing after death, the

evidence of "blood" in the heart and chest) is attributable to the process of postmortem decomposition.

In the present case, however, the action is focused on the skeletal remains. Taphonomically, the physical

arrangement of the skeletal remains in the grave indicates that no soft tissue had been present at the time of

rearrangement; no heart remained in the body. We hypothesize that, in the absence of a heart to be burned,

the apotropaic remedy was the place the bones in a "skull and crossbones" arrangement. In support of this

hypothesis, we note that decapitation was a common European method of dispatching a dead vampire, and

that the Celts and Neolithic Egyptians were known to separate the head from the body, supposedly to

prevent the dead from doing harm (Barber, 1988).

D. Historical Evidence

The final piece of evidence is this historic newspaper account (Wright, 1973): "In the May 20, 1854 issue

of the Norwich (Connecticut) Courier, there is an account of an incident that occurred at Jewett [City], a

city in that vicinity. About eight years previously, Horace Ray of Griswold had died of consumption.

Afterwards, two of his children--grown-up sons--died of the same disease, the last one dying about 1852.

Not long before the date of the newspaper the same fatal disease had seized another son, whereupon it was

determined to exhume the bodies of the two brothers and burn them, because the dead were supposed to
feed upon the living; and so long as the dead body in the grave remained undecomposed, either wholly or

in part, the surviving members of the family must continue to furnish substance on which the dead body

could feed. Acting under the influence of this strange superstition, the family and friends of the deceased

proceeded to the burial ground on June 8, 1854, dug up the bodies of the deceased brothers, and burned

them on the spot."

This account places the vampire belief in the Jewett City/Griswold area just after the time span of the

Griswold cemetery. The excellent preservation of the vampire skeleton indicates that it was probably buried

toward the latter time period for the cemetery (ca. 1800-1840), thus placing the internment of this

individual close to the time of the above account. The town of Griswold was settled just after 1812, in part

by emigrants from Western Rhode Island, who were, according to local tradition, uneducated and "vicious"

(Phillips, 1929). Note in Table 1 that several vampire accounts are also located in Western Rhode Island.

The Rhode Island belief was examined by Stetson (1898), who relates that the Rhode Islanders he

interviewed did not consider their practice to be vampirism but rather believed it was a way to protect

living relatives from potential vampiristic actions of a deceased consumptive.

E. Conclusions on findings

We present the following explanation for the bioarcheological and pale pathological evidence found in the

grave in the Walton Cemetery. An adult male (J.B.) died of either tuberculosis or a pulmonary infection

interpreted as tuberculosis (consumption) by his family. Several years after the burial, one or more of his

family members contracted tuberculosis. They attributed their disease to the fact that J.B. had returned from

the dead to "feed" upon them. To stop the progress of their disease, the body of the consumptive J.B. was

exhumed so that the heart could be burned. Upon opening the grave, the family saw that the heart had

decomposed. With no heart to burn, the bones of the chest were disrupted and the skull femora placed in a

"skull and crossbones" position. This interpretation is based on three pieces of evidence: 1) the postmortem

rearrangement of skeletal elements; 2) pale pathological evidence of tuberculosis or a chronic pulmonary

infection producing similar physical manifestations; and 3) an historical account of the vampire folk belief
from the same time and place as the skeleton under examination.

X. Conclusion:

According to my research regarding vampires and other creatures related to it, I came to

realize that proving they once walked this planet was somewhat the challenging part. Yet, it’s

hard for me to convince those skeptics to believe in everything that I have mentioned here.

But despite all the doubts and unsolved mysteries, I have to admit that I believe that vampires

had once existed. I may not be sure if vampires still exist but I certainly believe that they did

so once.

I'm not sure what constitutes a vampire nowadays-- certainly they aren't walking dead

bodies-- but they aren't just people who drink blood. That's a person with a blood fetish and a

romantic notion living out fictional fantasies. I think that vampires were just a different

species of human... an evolutionary track. That's why I'm not too sure if there still are some

out in hiding.

So why is there such fascination with this evil blood-sucking creature? Many today might say

that it is the immortality and power the vampire seems to posses that fascinates them: the

ability to see the great changes of civilization over time and to be able to influence, even to

direct the future. Yet these qualities are also present in other mythical creatures or people,

such as sorcerers like Merlin, who lived for several centuries, or Faust who sold his soul to

the devil for riches, knowledge and youthful looks. Others have suggested that the fascination

has more to do with the vampire's bestial and hungry look, its ability to turn into a bat and the

fact that it tends to hunt and stalk it victims before killing. Through these acts and images, we

perceive a lifestyle that is seen by society to be evil and unnatural, thus to enter into such acts

would be a rebellion against human society. Again through this characteristic can be seen in

other creatures such as the mythical werewolf, and so this seems to be an unlikely source for
the fascination.

It seems more likely that the answer lies in the nickname attributed to modern vampires, that

of blood-sucker, for this is their one unique characteristic. That they acquire their power from

human blood fascinates us. Most would agree that this is a sexually motivated act for several

reasons. Firstly, when we think about the act of taking blood we imagine the picture of the

young innocent woman being bitten by the vampire on the neck, an image given to us by

numerous Dracula films. This can be seen to symbolise much, such as the wish to remove or

destroy innocence, the sensuality involved in the penetration of a woman's neck and the desire

to take without consent.

Furthermore the blood has been seen to symbolise much more, as discussed in a Freudian

argument which compares blood with semen and suggests that similar guilt or elation can be

brought about by the discharge of either.

Yet the fascination with blood can be traced back to more ancient ideas for example: Ulysses

in "The Odyssey" used blood to converse with the dead, by pouring it onto the lifeless body.

Once consumed the host was again given the power of speech. This illustrates the primitive

idea that blood was a life liquid which could transmit life to the dead. The Aborigines

believed that blood was the strength of life which feeds and nourishes the soul. The

connection between blood and the soul is even stronger in other primitive races, where the

belief is that the soul is contained within the blood and that the divine spirit is the blood of

God. This idea led to the use of blood in religious ceremonies. The Aztec people had many

rituals, including the releasing and drinking of blood as well as human sacrifice which was

seen as an honour. Other rituals were seen to include an elemental concept of the transfer of

'soul stuff' by close contact with the flesh and blood. This connection between blood life and

the soul can be seen in the Bible at the last supper, where Jesus offered his blood to the
apostles saying "this is my blood which shall be given up for you". Even here the sacrifice of

blood and life are connected resulting in the freeing of the soul.

This idea of a connection between blood and the soul can be seen in the modern day vampire

tale by Anne Rice which portrays the drinking of blood as sexual ecstasy, coming from the

sharing of body and soul, making it the ultimate pleasure, greater than that of any sexual act.

Our morbid fascination with the vampire may be due to these and many other factors but the

ultimate reason for our fascination with this mythical creature must be their similarity to us in

their looks, biology and actions.

All of these are a product of my mind alone and this only means that other people’s opinion

about this certain topic is out of the question. Like I said earlier, writing this doesn’t prove

anything to anyone. Other people maybe skeptics nor believers, all of this are part of the great

mysteries of life. Vampires, fact or fiction? The answer lies within you.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Dracula: Prince of many faces: his life and times by Radu R. Florescu and Raymond

T. McNally

• In search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and vampires, also by Raymond T.

McNally and Radu Florescu.

• Chupacabra Home Page by Tito Armstrong

• Dead End by Daemonox

• GRAVELY MISTAKEN: Haunt of Vamphyri

• Strigois Tomb
• Living Vampires by Inanna Arthen

• Loup-Garou ( Werewolf ) Legends of Old Vincennes by Anna C. O’Flynn

• Myths about bats by Atalanta and Susano Pendragonne

• Temple of Luna by Greg Lutherman

• Vampnet Publishing

• Vampyres Unveiled

• Werewolf Legends from Germany by D.L. Ashliman

.