Fact , Fiction Or Myth You Deside....

Facts:

The folklore of the vampire has only a slight connection with the fiction, much the way the folklore of ghosts has little to do with the movie Ghostbusters. Most people aren't aware that, throughout European history, there have been extensive and detailed accounts of bodies in graveyards being dug up, declared to be vampires, and killed. I took some years out of my life to study these accounts and find out what in the world could have caused people to set out to kill dead bodies. And here we encounter our first real/non-real boundary: the digging up of the bodies was unquestionably real -- indeed, beyond any doubt. We know this because we have a vast array of evidence to that effect, both archaeological and documentary, including highly detailed accounts written by literate outsiders, who gave information that they could not possibly have made up. For example, unless you are a forensic pathologist, you probably don't know that decomposing bodies may undergo a process called "skin slippage," in which the epidermis flakes away from the dermis. The following account, from the eighteenth century, tells of the exhumation of a man named Peter Plogojowitz and remarks on this phenomenon: "The hair and beard -- even the nails, of which the old ones had fallen away -- had grown on [the corpse]; the old skin, which was somewhat whitish, had peeled away, and a new fresh one had emerged under it. . . . Not without astonishment, I saw some fresh blood in his mouth, which, according to the common observation, he had sucked from the people killed by him." When we see remarks about skin slippage, we know that the author has either

(a) read a text on forensic pathology or

(b) looked at, or heard about, a decomposing corpse.

For now, let's slow down and look carefully at the observations in the account we have quoted:

"The hair and beard have grown on the corpse." Sorry, this just doesn't happen, even though many people believe it even today. It can appear to happen, however, because the skin may shrink back after death and make hair and beard more visible.

"The nails have fallen off and new ones have grown." The nails do in fact fall off as a body decomposes. The Egyptians were aware of this and dealt with it either by tying the nails to the fingers and toes or by putting metal thimbles over the tip of each finger or toe. The "new nails," according to Thomas Noguchi, former medical examiner for Los Angeles, were probably an interpretation of the nail bed.

"The old skin has peeled away and new skin has emerged under it." This is skin slippage: epidermis and dermis. Many accounts remark also on the "ruddy" or "dark" color of the corpse, a phenomenon that may be caused by decomposition and a variety of other things as well. Contrary to popular belief, the face of a corpse is not necessarily pale at all, since pallor results from the blood draining from the tissues. If the person was supine when he or she died, the face of the corpse may be pale; if prone, the face may be dark. Those parts of the corpse that are lower than the rest may be gorged with blood that, having lost its oxygen, is dark and causes the skin to appear dark as well. And the parts that are under pressure -- where the weight of the body is distributed -- may be light in color because the (now dark) blood has been forced away from the tissues. The dark coloration resulting from the saturation of the tissues with blood is called "livor mortis" or "lividity." It is this phenomenon that allows medical examiners to determine whether a body has been moved after death: If lividity is present where it shouldn't be, or not present where it should, then the body has been moved.

"There is fresh blood at the mouth." The adjective "fresh" is less puzzling if we suppose that the author hasn't actually tested the blood for freshness. What he was surely observing, and confused by, was the fact that the blood was liquid. This was remarked on many times by people who observed such exhumations. It is simply not unusual. In fact, blood normally coagulates at death, then either remains coagulated or becomes liquid again.1 The reason the blood migrates to the mouth is that the body, as it decomposes, bloats from the gases produced by decomposition, and this bloating puts pressure on the lungs, which are rich in blood and deteriorate early on, so that blood is forced to the mouth and nose.

And did you notice that we were just told why people believed that the dead sucked blood from the living? The standard theory about death was that it came from the dead, and when people dug up the first victim of an epidemic and found that he had blood at his mouth, they concluded that he had sucked the blood from the other people who had died. "Not without astonishment," says our author, "I saw some fresh blood in his mouth, which, according to the common observation, he had sucked from the people killed by him." Moreover, the bloating of the body was taken for evidence that it was full to bursting with the blood of its victims.

So we have cleared up an old mystery merely by paying attention to the people who, centuries ago, tried to tell us about it. From here on things will be easier: If our informants tell us that the vampire "came to life and cried out" when they drove a stake through him, we shall accept the observation and reject the conclusion: Yes, a body would "cry out" if you drove a stake into it, because doing so forces air past the glottis -- but this is not because the body is still alive. Among modern medical examiners, there is remarkable agreement on both points.

The vampire lore did not die when people worked out forensic pathology: by that time it had become part of literature. The folkloric vampires had been peasants, but in the eighteenth century, authors were still reluctant to make peasants into major characters in stories, so the fictional vampire was moved into the upper classes. By the time of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), he had became a pallid count, rather than the ruddy peasant of the folklore. Along the way, Linnaeus named a Central American bat after the European vampire, since the bat lived on blood, and the fiction writers, noting this, added the bat to the store of their motifs. This is why, in modern movies, vampires are apt to turn into bats in the night, when they need to go somewhere quickly.

Oddly, when this material became fiction, it once again became "fact," for nowadays the media keep digging up not just scholars and pseudoscholars who talk about the folklore but also people who actually claim to be vampires. The scholars and the vampires are brought together by their common fate: The media trot them out every year around Halloween. The modern "vampires" derive their inspiration not from the perfectly good material from folklore, which in fact has been sadly neglected, but from the fiction, perhaps because it is more dramatic and coherent. The folklore is about cantankerous peasants who come back as spirits to torment their nearest and dearest, and this simply doesn't translate into a glamorous lifestyle. So our modern "vampires" drive hearses, cap their canine teeth, and wear cloaks when they go out at night. None of these things has anything whatever to do with the folklore of the vampire -- even the canines are an artifact of the fictional tradition. Some modern "vampires" claim a taste for blood and tell stories of raids on bloodbanks and of obliging friends who let them open a vein.

Quote

"Listen to them: the children of the night. What sweet music they make!" ~ Vlad Dracula,

"How do we seem to you? Do you find us beautiful, magical? Our white skin, our fierce eyes? 'Drink' you ask me, do you have any idea of the thing you will become?"

~ Louis,

"Interview with the Vampire"

In America today, we are surrounded by borrowed images. People from all over the world flock here, and bring with them a background of cultures and beliefs, filled with imagery reflecting those ideas. Often times, these elements take on a life of there own in the cauldron known as the American "melting pot," and through interaction with their new surroundings, evolve into something quite different from their original form, becoming an integral part of our culture. Perhaps one of the most fascinating figures to undergo this process is that of the vampire. With its original association with evil, disease, and death, it is surprising that this creature of the dark has garnered the appeal it has in American culture today. Indeed, our fascination with something that was once feared seems to indicate that the vampire's function in today's society is fundamentally different from that which it was originally.

To unravel the mystery of why such a change could have occurred, we must understand the nature of the transformation of the "old" vampire into what it is today. This requires us to first look at the past to establish the nature of the pre-existing vampire and then to the present to understand precisely which elements changed, contributing to its apparent transformation. It has been established that the vampire image we know today came from the English literary vampire, which has its origins in Slavic traditions. Therefore it is fundamental that vampires in past Eastern European situations be studied to establish an understanding of the vampire that existed before it was eventually introduced into American culture. In doing so, proceeding with caution is essential, for the word vampire can refer to a wide range of images and phenomena, depending on the context in which it is used. Because of this, it is often difficult to isolate what is meant by the term vampire, especially when it is applied to two different times and places, which is what must be done. Consequently, a working definition should be closely followed when calling something a vampire to ensure that equivalent concepts are being compared. Since vampires of both past and present will be examined, our definition must be one that includes and describes vampires of the Slavs, but allows us to filter out elements in today's society that are not directly comparable to the Slavic vampire.

Conceptually, the vampire can be divided into two main parts -- the image of the vampire itself, and its psychological and/or social functions. As stated earlier, the ultimate goal is to understand both past and present social roles of the vampire in order to shed light on its apparent functional transformation. In an attempt to do this, these roles will be derived from pre-existing data. Consequently, the definition of the vampire should not make any assumptions about its social role. If it were to, we would be pre-judging and/or misjudging the subject of our investigation. Instead, the definition must focus on other elements that we can find in both cultures, namely, those concerning the image itself. Focusing on the image of the vampire enables us to isolate it in both cultures for further analysis.

The definition must account for some degree of variability, since the image has changed somewhat over time, and even varies within each culture. But it must set a boundary to what can be accepted as a vampire and what cannot. Professor Jan Perkowski, a member if the University of Virginia's Slavic Department, has done extensive research concerning the Slavic vampire, and has come up with the following general definition for such creatures. A Slavic Vampire is "a reanimated corpse which returns at night to prey on the living."

Note that this definition fits our specifications quite well. It focuses on the image of the vampire, not its social function, and is specific enough to limit which beings of Slavic folklore can be included in our analysis. Furthermore, it is broad enough to allow some variation in the vampire image, so that in addition to application to vampires of the past, it can be applied as our definition of what comprises the vampire image today. In this fashion, we are assured that when deriving a social function for each image that we label a vampire, we are using truly comparable images. This is crucial, since it would not be surprising if two different images had different social functions. What is surprising is that very different social impacts are potentially implemented by the same image, namely that of the Slavic and present day American vampire. Consequently, the term vampire, henceforth, will refer to the image of a reanimated corpse which returns at night to prey on the living.

Now that we can isolate vampires across time and place by a working definition, we must find a way we can determine the social role a vampire image plays in a given society. First of all, a complete description of the account in which the vampire image appears should be documented. Such things as a description of the vampire, its activity pattern, it's origin, and how one can detect, protect, or destroy it should be included. Perkowski, in studying the Slavic Vampire, devised an outline of analysis to be applied to individual accounts of Slavic vampires, which includes these items as well as others. It can be referred to for this step, though its importance is diminished in the sense that individual testimonies are not being evaluated. Rather a general overall image event in a society is described to the fullest extent. Nonetheless, the more details concerning Perkowski's outline that can be filled (especially those listed above), the more complete our knowledge of the vampire will be. One must remember, however, the level of detail will be limited by social constraints. Our description of the vampire should be applicable to the majority of vampires in a given culture, to ascertain the image at a social level. This means that some of the elements listed above can only be referred to in the most general sense, given the great diversity of vampire accounts.

Once a description of the image is documented, we are ready to proceed with analysis. I propose that the social function of a vampire can be derived from the context in which it is presented, which I will refer to as the vampire's paradigm. Within each paradigm are two components. One is the source by which the vampire image is transmitted within the community it effects. In other words, how would a person living in a community with vampires come to know about them? By what means is news of the vampire spread? This could include but not be limited to written sources, the media, and oral transmission. The second component of the paradigm is the reason for its transmission. This includes issues such as : Why did transmission take place?, What is the motivation to state an existence of a vampire? or Was there anything notable about the situation in which the vampire was presented?

Myth

Interview With A Vampyre

Is There A True "American Vampire" Myth?

© 1994 - Andy Rose. Permission to reprint is granted freely

The European settlers and African slaves brought the vampire mythology of their homelands to the New World. In some cases these myths became intertwined as settlers from many backgrounds melded into a single nation. While Native American mythology has some very fascinating monsters, some of them being flesh-eaters, others being shape-changers, none are true bloodsuckers. Yet, there is a true "American vampire," one born of this young nation, one found only here in America. This vampire is much more than a meld of the beliefs of the Native Americans and those of our forefathers.

The true "American Vampire" would have to be that of Hollywood. Let me explain:

The vampire has been portrayed in Hollywood, since the original filming of Dracula (Tod Browning) to the recent filming of Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola) as a creature of the night who is suave, debonair, quite beautiful and hypnotically seductive. This vampire is a desirable creature, one that many mortals would become, yet in the ancient myths of other cultures, the vampire is an ugly, vile, evil creature, one that no mortal would choose to become. While it is true that an Irishman wrote the novel that began it all, the story gave birth to two distinct interpretations of the vampire Dracula.

F.W. Murnau (a German) created the first surviving film adaptation of the novel. In his "Nosferatu -- Eine Symphonie des Garuens" the Count was not suave, handsome, or even desirable. Count Orlock was ugly, with pointy ears, a bald head, and large pointy incisors. The vampire held true to the European myths, at least in physical appearance.

Tod Browning brought a new image to the vampire with his filming of Dracula. Bela Lugosi portrayed the Count as a handsome creature of the night. He was very suave and debonaire, speaking in his Hungarian accent, hypnotizing women with his stare, and moving in a slow, yet smooth manner. Women all over America fell in love with this Count Dracula, men all over America desired to be this Count Dracula. The Hollywood Vampire was born, a creature of myths from the old world blended with the American dream of beauty, sexual irresistibility, and immortality.

Rarely has Hollywood portrayed the vampire as a despicable and ugly revenant. We have seen them become hideous creatures when exposed to sunlight or when hit with a bit of holy water. The body of the immortal is perfect and the behavior seductive. However, you will be hard pressed to find any legend, regardless of origin, that paints this picture of the vampire. In a few cases, such as the Dearg-Due of Ireland, the vampire is a beautiful female that uses her beauty to seduce her victims. In most cases though the vampire is a walking corpse. It is not beautiful. It has no intelligence. He is no more than a re animated corpse that feeds on the blood of the living to sustain his re animated form.

The vampire we all know and love today has been created and refined over the years by Hollywood. Movies such as Dracula, The Lost Boys, The Hunger, and Dance of the Damned have continually fed the legend of the vampire as a desirable, beautiful creature of the night.

Hollywood (as well as America's fiction writers) has, in fact, created a true American Vampire by combining the old myths (yes, staking the vampire, garlic, crosses, sunlight, native soil, and the like are found in the old myths) and the American dream of power, beauty, sexual irresistibility, and immortality. That vampire has become the "True American Vampire."

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