From: World Resources Institute <wri@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.vampyres
Date: 08 Jan 93 12:30 PST
Subject: Washington Post - Style Section
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1706700004:000:3337
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!wri    Jan  8 12:30:00 1993


Column: _Why Things Are_  Style Plus Section.
_The_Washington_Post_  Friday, January 8, 1993

"Why did people once upon a time believe in vampires?" by: Joel
Achenbach, Washington Post Staff Writer.

     We are pleased to report that the answer is not simply,
"Because they were a bunch of superstitious num-skulls."  The
strange, chilling truth is tat vampire myths are based, in part,
on real scientific phenomena.  Specifically, they arise from a
misunderstanding of what happens when you drive a stake through
the chest of a corpse.  (This term will be intellectually
stimulating but also kind of yucky.)

     In places such as Bulgaria and Romania, a vampire was not
necessarily a sensuous, pale, Bela Lugosi-like blood-sucker who
roamed around at night hoping to do some "necking."  A vampire was
the spirit of a dead person and could do all kinds of nefarious
things, like alter the weather or prevent a farmer's cows from
giving milk.  (People would say, "Is it raining again?  Damn
vampires!")

     It was pestilence and plague that drove the vampire myth.
According to Paul Barber, author of "Vampires, Burial and Death:
Folklore and Reality," survivors of plague would hunt for a
scapegoat, and the most obvious candidate would be the first
person who had died from the mysterious malady.  This person was
presumed a vampire, and there would be an excited rush to the
grave to exhume the body and kill it again.

     You would think that when the frightened villagers dug up the
body they'd just find a rotting corpse and then would realize the
absurdity of their fears.  Not so, says Barber.  What they'd find
was a fairly well- preserved body, bloated as though gorged with
blood, with blood on its lips.  A corpse in the ground does not
decompose as quickly as one exposed to the elements; the swelling
of the body is caused by gases released by microorganisms; the
blood comes from the lungs, which are squeezed by the bloating of
the body.

     So people would say: "Hey!  This guy must be a vampire!
Where's that darn stake?"  Or whatever.  There are many written
accounts of these incidents, and they are consistent in describing
what happens next:  The vampire killers would drive the stake
through the heart and-lo!-the corpse would appear to spring to
life and utter a cry.  How very scary!

     Are these tales merely fiction?  No, says Barber; they are
describing what really happens.  The move-ment is a normal case of
Newtonian physics as the stake hammers through the body; the cry
comes from air being forced through the throat.

     "The vampire lore was a folk hypothesis intended to account
for the events of death and decomposition," Barber says.  "I don't
think it shows any kind of unintelligent perception of the world.
Their observations are clinically accurate."

     Why are Americans today so enraptured by vampires?  "People
admire their power," says Norine Dresser, author of "American
Vampires:  Fans, Victims and Practitioners."  She adds, "Sometimes
people like to feel powerless.  He takes them under his control.
Sometimes it's great not to be the one in charge."

     But to this day in Eastern Europe, there are people who
prefer to bury their dead "staked," says Dresser.  It's an ounce
of prevention, apparently.  (We intend to ask that we be staked
and cremated, just in case.)