From: cgc2646@usl.edu (Cech Claude G)
Newsgroups: alt.vampyres
Subject: Re: Vampire Victims Needed for TV Interview!
Date: 8 Oct 92 02:07:51 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Southwestern Louisiana


    I wrote a bit earlier -

>But don't try to build existence or non-existence proofs over a
>figment of a (script-) write  Mythological vampires are
>not good role models.      

Unfortunately, our system acts up every once in a while and randomly inserts
garbage or deletes stuff (or garbage, depending on your POV).  That first
sentence should end:  
   figment of a (script-) writer's imagination.

And like many others, I must admit that I'm getting tired of the do-they-
don't-they thread (about as exciting as the Deckard-as-replicant thread on
alt.cult-movies, which has been beaten _way_ past the point of death.  Hmmmm.
If it's way past...Nah!).  So, let's ring a bit of a change on this theme.   
To wit -
	Vampires (the mythological beasts, not the novel or film types)
	come in a wide variety of different shapes, customs, etc.,
	depending on which culture's mythology you want to examine.
If you want, take that as relevant to the do-they? thread.  But, the point
I want to introduce here is that the wide-spread concept of SOMETHING like
a vampire coupled with the radically different prototypes of same one finds
across the world seems to knock out explanations of post-death changes (as in
Barber's book) or disease as the start of the myth.  Particularly with respect
to a rare disease such as those we've been talking about, the probability of
its having been misconstrued in so many regions in the same way is slim.
(Would all victims of P. discover for themselves that drinking blood appears
to bring some relief?  Not bloody likely!)  Similarly, in clutures that burn
bodies or expose them to predators rather than burying them (or that embalm
same), the changes Barber talks about aren't that likely to have initiated
the legends.

That is NOT to say that disease and/or burial practices couldn't have been
interpreted to lend credence and support to a vampire legend that was
already in place!

So, from where do vampires spring?  A general feature is blood drinking.
(Think of scriptures, and of Dracula's refrain:  "For the blood is the
life!")  Why should blood and life be so inextricably intertwined?  Death
is very often accompanied by the loss of blood (through the mouth, or due
to bodily injuries).  Along with the loss of breath, then, we have a loss
of a liquid present at death.  Given most people's fear of death and dying,
it hardly seems surprising that we should build a mythos around the dead
who come back looking for what can give them new life.  (Even in Homer,
the dead have to drink blood in order to converse with the living.)  And
of course, they can only obtain that blood from the living, by depriving
the living of it.  (Why don't we have vampires who suck air, you say?
Haven't you ever heard of people who refuse to let cats in with newborns?)
So, of course, vampires were regarded as an evil.  Whether they were
embedded in a religious mythology or not, they were the enemy.  And for
me, that's why they are so interesting:  At some level, they represent
our deepest fears.  They are our modern mythology, beasts so frightening
that many people nervously laugh off the very concept (while crossing their
fingers or themselves).  Of course, what this has to say about the Romantic
Vampire of fiction, I don't know...

Scratch a myth, and find a neurosis...

Cheers -
		Claude