American Vampires

by Bob Curran

  Another inscribed rock in Michigan was found at a location named Corpse Pond. In the late 1950s, a group of walkers stumbled across a small clearing in the woods near the Pond (a small lake) and came upon a single stone standing almost at its center. This was covered in crude drawings, which seemed not only to show the position of various constellations in the night sky, but also very crude depictions of little men devouring a large individual. The whole time, the group had the impression that they were being watched from the surrounding woodlands—this seems to be a common sensation in these cases. They left the clearing rather hurriedly. Some time after, several of them attempted to return to the site in order to view the drawings once again—particularly those relating to the constellations—but they could not seem to find either the clearing or the stone again. Several paths that looked familiar seemed to lead nowhere and, although they visited several clearings, there was no large stone, marked with drawings or otherwise, in any of them. They wondered if the stone itself had been moved somehow. Even so, the feeling of being watched in the woodlands still persisted and even out toward the Pond. Old tales of malignant dwarves hiding in the thicket must have seemed all too real.

  With all these variations of vicious, blood-drinking dwarves from various parts of America, the vampire little people of Wyoming and Montana do not seem that unusual, but it is here that many stories of them seem to proliferate. The notion of a dangerous subterranean race lurking among the deep caverns and valleys is a very powerful one, and seems to have made a strong impression of the folklore (and fears) of the area. And if the finds of fossils and remains in the region are to be believed, there may be something in these tales. Perhaps some remnant of an exceptionally ancient elder race waits out there in cowboy country, watching human life with a jaundiced and malignant eye. And as the western wind blows along the canyons and arroyos, across the bare mountains where the stone circles and great Medicine Wheels lie, perhaps it is stirring, ready to reach out to nourish itself on the blood of the intruders within its primal domain.

  CONCLUSION

  What have we learned about vampires? Maybe the first thing is that they are not always what we expect. As we said from the outset of this book, of all the horrors of both fiction and cinema, we believe that we know all there is to know about the vampire-kind. But little could be further from the truth. In many respects, our study of the American Un-dead has served both to illustrate and confirm many of the things that we suggested in our Introduction; perhaps now is a good time to expand upon them slightly. Vampires come in all shapes and sizes, and are not always recognizable. Nor are they the charismatic, handsome nobleman or the voluptuous, beautiful woman that the classic films have led us to expect. Nor are they even the angst-ridden teenager who seems to be so in-vogue at the moment. They can be anyone or anything, from a Melon-Headed orphan to a well in the ground. And it must be remembered that, although some do, not all vampires drink blood. Others may drink human fluids or simply take energy. This widens the options as to exactly what form they can take, and allows them to be chairs, shadows, or reflections in a mirror and growing vines—all non-human entities. We simply don’t know what to expect, so there is no room for complacency.

  Nor are vampires mainly wealthy and cultured dilettantes as they often appear in Dracula or in, say, the works of Anne Rice. In many cases, they are of a low or peasant status—the poor or working classes of society. This is not to say that the genteel or aristocratic vampires—the sort that come from old families—do not exist, just that they are usually the minority. Mainly a community’s response to the threat of vampires centered on those around them, people whom they knew. They were the neighbors who rose from their graves to wander about and who sometimes did harm to their own families or to those around them. They were part of the wandering dead, sometimes known as revenants. So forget the cloak, cape, the grand clothing, and aristocratic ways, and think instead of the homespuns and ragged, mismatched clothing. This was very much the case among the inhabitants of a shunned and eerie place such as Dogtown on the New England coast.

  Western vampires—the types of the Undead with which we are most familiar through films, stories, and comics—were a part of the idea of the returning dead, but did not always drink blood. In some instances, they simply ate what was available, raiding the pantries of the poor in order to feed themselves. They might drink blood, but only as a last resort, and even then only from livestock, or from their own families or relatives. Certainly they were noisy and terrifying, but were often not the malign monsters that are so readily portrayed in books and films. This is not to say, however, that they were not to be feared or that they were not to be discouraged from returning. Even the Blessed Dead had the capacity to do harm to or make demands on the living. After a period in the cold earth, they were bound to be both hungry and thirsty, and their visitations had the capacity to eat their families out of house and home, causing hardship for the living. If interrupted or denied, they might physically attack or cause supernatural harm to the household involved, so it was better to placate them. But there was worse, for they often brought disease in their wake, which could sometimes decimate a household or a community. This notion was common in medieval England and in parts of Europe, but, as we have seen, it was accepted in some parts of 18th and early 19th century New England as well. Vampires were strongly linked in the popular mind with diseases, such as tuberculosis and its attendant symptoms (difficulty breathing during the night, feeling weight on the chest), and it was also thought that they carried plagues such as smallpox and cholera as well. When communities struggled in the face of illness, many often thought that the Undead—the recently buried—were to blame. Such fears were sometimes compounded by dreams and night-time visions of the dead, which usually added strength to the assertions and belief.

  In many parts of the world, vampirism has been also strongly linked to witchcraft and sorcery. In many African cultures, this is still the case, but it was also the notion in many early English, Irish, and European societies. For example, in Holland, the idea of the nachtmerrie were not uncommon. These people were usually considered to be witches and their appearances were counted as part of their witchcraft. But it was not simply a case of drinking the blood of a vulnerable sleeper, for such appearances were meant to terrify or to do physical harm to the person involved. Of course, like the succubus of Greek mythology, the appearance might have a sexual element to it, and the sleeper might awaken exhausted and out of sorts after uninvited and unwanted sexual attention and exertions during the night. The purposes of such nocturnal visitations, then, were often much more complex than first appearance, and the notions of witchcraft and evil-doing were usually pretty much to the fore.

  When a vampire was discovered, it was not simply enough to drive a wooden stake through its body as it lay in its coffin. Such a spectacular device, though certainly employed in some parts of the world, has more to do with film and television scenarios than with actual folk belief. The process was nevertheless a risky one—certain rituals had to be performed; the stake might have to be of a certain type of wood (which varied depending on the location), and if these were not observed, or the wood happened to be of the wrong type, then the activity was incredibly dangerous. The vampire might rise and destroy the would-be slayer. However, in many communities, the only sure way to destroy a vampire was to burn it (or at least burn its heart). First, though, it had to be established that the corpse in question actually was a vampire. Such investigations were usually carried out shortly after the body had been interred (which is usually when there had been outbreaks of alleged vampirism).

  Normally, if the coffin was opened, the corpse had an unnatural freshness about it, or it might be bloated with blood. There might also be dried blood around the mouth, signaling that it had been drinking from victims. These signs were often taken as incontrovertible proof that the cadaver in question was indeed a vampire. But, there were other explanations for these signs. Chemical elements both in t
he body and perhaps in the earth in which the coffin had been buried might have acted as a kind of preservative, keeping the body fresh in appearance. Furthermore, gasses that build up in the body following death may give the body a flaccid or bloated appearance, while the leakage of internal fluids (including blood) may dry around the nostrils and mouth. This might serve to give the impression that the corpse had been drinking blood, and in a number of medieval (and slightly later) societies, it was interpreted as such. Indeed, none of these qualifications were known, and the vampire hunters were called on to destroy the creature as one of the Undead.

  In some cases, the vampire could be staked, but sometimes, this was not enough to destroy it completely. The creature might only be suspended, and if the stake were to be removed, it might rise again (this has actually formed the basic plot of some vampire films). Some of the dead were also pinned down in their coffins using iron nails; some have had a large stone weighted on their chest in order to hold them in the ground.

  Between 2005 and 2009, archaeologists investigating the site of a Bishop’s Palace at Kilteasheen, Knockvicar, near Lough Key in County Roscommon, Ireland, were digging into an extensive, but previously unknown, medieval graveyard containing at least 137 skeletons from the early medieval period. Two of these skeletons were of particular interest, because they were “deviant burials” (burials laid out in a different way to normal interments). One was of a young man, and one was a more elderly individual, both dated from around the 8th century. Interestingly, the skulls of both bodies had large rocks rammed into their mouths, and it had been done with some force, possibly after they were dead. These stones might have been placed there to prevent evil spirits from entering and reanimating the bodies, perhaps as vampires. Strangely enough, this was not an uncommon practice for the period, as similar skeletons have also been found in parts of England. Rocks, stoppers, and bits of cloth have been found in the mouths of some corpses, possibly for the same purpose. It is thought that the Kilteasheen “vampire corpses” might have been suicides or some form of anti-social figures within the community. Such people were especially susceptible to the visitation of evil spirits, and might rise as vampires in order to torment the countryside. This explanation would tie in with some of the medieval manuscripts from the same period that have been found, which hint at an underlying fear of the returning dead. Plague victims were also susceptible to the attentions of dark and evil spirits. Their weakened condition often made them prey to malevolent forces, which were always wandering about. However, there were other reasons for the supposed evil of vampirism in a small community. According to folklore, the activity of incest was a sure way of drawing evil spirits after death. In isolated communities, incest may have been more common than we assume, however, many of those who practiced it appear to be werewolves rather than vampires. Anyone who had been suspected of such practices might be nailed down in the coffin after death, or have their mouths stuffed in order to prevent dark spirits from entering their bodies and causing them to rise.

  In order to dispose of a vampire, certain procedures had to be followed. According to Romanian lore, the head had to be struck from the body using a sexton’s or gravedigger’s shovel. The mouth then had to be stuffed with garlic—considered to be a deterrent to the vampire kind—and placed away from the decapitated corpse. As a final act, the heart then had to be cut out and burned. In some cases, the entire body was burned, and those involved had to be sure that it was completely reduced to ashes. The removal of the heart, as we have seen, was, in fact, a common feature in New England vampire cases, and was considered the only proper way to completely destroy the Undead. If this was not carried out, then the revenant would return at some point and perhaps menace its loved ones or the wider community.

  Vampirism might also be linked with some physical deformity. Those who were strange either in appearance or in their ways might be candidates to become vampires when they died. Although there is no evidence of this among the Kilteasheen “vampire corpses,” it was well known in folkloric circles that this belief existed. A physical deformity could very well be the outward sign of inner evil. People who were so deformed had to be viewed with some suspicion—they could be witches, vampires, werewolves, or some other evil thing. When they were interred, therefore, precautions had to be taken against their return from the dead. Such deformities might be natural, but latterly others might be scientifically induced through clandestine experimentation as the legend (or urban myth) of Ohio’s Melon Heads illustrates. Even if such creatures were “created” by scientific means, this in no way diminished their evil, nor the terror of their presence. The Melon Heads, for example, had been bred to drink blood in some secret laboratory, and their physical grotesqueness only added to their menace. In fact, the scientific element adds a certain amount of viciousness to these individuals. Deformity (whether natural or scientifically induced), witchcraft, and possible violence (whether actual or supernatural), were all interlinked. It is worth noting that in many South American societies, witchcraft and vampirism are inextricably connected.

  One other element that characterized possible vampirism was poverty. As we have seen in some American settlements, such as Dogtown on Cape Ann, those who lived on the fringes of “normal” society, those who didn’t work, and those who were anti-social, were often believed to become vampires. Those who were destitute or idle were almost certainly agents of the Devil, because God would look after and provide for his own. And, in any case, man had been put on the earth to work and provide for himself; to ignore that was to defy the Divine Will, so those who were poor and who did not work were counted as sinners.

  There is also the common belief that, after being bitten by a vampire, one automatically becomes a vampire. This idea is, of course, one of the staples of vampire films, and it is even used to some extent in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But although it may be the case in some folklore tales, it cannot always be readily accepted—not even as a rule of thumb. Visitations from the Undead, or from beings such as the nachtmerrie, are certainly dangerous (and may ultimately be potentially fatal), but they do not usually actively increase their numbers by turning their victims into creatures such as themselves in the style of books and films. They may, however, have the power to do physical and lasting harm. Having said that, of course, there are some folkloric tales, told within certain cultures, concerning the victims of such attentions, who have become part of the retinue of the walking dead. And in some cultures, it is believed that those who are sometimes visited at night by supernatural creatures are doomed to eventually become such creatures themselves. These people might take on some of the attributes that are readily associated with the night-walking dead: marbled skin, sunken eyes, and a gaunt and haggard expression. Such appearances might be attributed to the advance of some disease such as tuberculosis, but within certain beliefs this is viewed as the transformation of the victim into something resembling his or her attacker—one of the supernatural Undead. Indeed, in some cases—such as those in 17th and 18th century New England—it was extremely easy to make such a direct connection. And there was, in fact, a further connection in the dreams and imaginings of the alleged victims. Those who experienced fevers and illnesses sometimes dreamt of dead relatives during the hours of darkness, and thus the dead were blamed for intervening in the illnesses of the living (and perhaps even causing them). When they died, it was down to the dead relatives, and there was a suggestion that they might become very similar creatures. The idea that the trait of vampirism might be passed on some strain of virulent disease became accepted in some communities, although not all. Apart from a few exceptions, there is little to suggest that the walking dead multiply through biting or infecting their victims.

  Although in books and on screen, vampires seem to be our most familiar horror and the ones that are most easily dealt with, they are a much more complex entity than this would suggest. Vampirism is also a much more complicated and diverse subject than we might at first think. It is co
ncerned not only with drinking blood, but with drawing or leeching energy, vitality, and “goodness” from various sources. And in this, vampires can often take many forms. So not only must we guard against the night-walking dead, but we must also be careful of the chairs we sit on, the vines we cultivate, the wells from which we drink, and the mirrors we look into—vampires may be everywhere, and certainly not in forms with which we are familiar. And yet, all are based in the cultures and in the beliefs of the peoples where they are to be found.