To the Most Exceedingly Accomplished Kathryn Bigelow,
To begin, I must congratulate you on the success of The Hurt Locker, and the critical recognition that it has received since its release. In truth, I wish it was a more financially successful movie in the way that I wish every movie I enjoy was financially successful, since I wish good fortune on the things that I enjoy. What I am pleased about is that the organizations that hand out awards have actually realized the utter and inescapable awesomeness of the film and I firmly believe you should be given the Best Director Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards.
However, the themes and content present in The Hurt Locker are things that seem, to me anyway, to have been present in your films in the past. Namely, dudes ON THE EDGE doing things that are against the rules, resulting in profuse sweating, punches to the face, explosions, and intensely manly conversations between two sweaty and gravely-voiced dudes who are ON THE EDGE. Holy crap, I love this stuff to death. I am not belittling your films in any way, this is the kind of thing I expect from action films and you deliver them in glorious amounts. You combined westerns with vampires in Near Dark, and that was before everyone and their grandma’s second cousin was making vampire movies/TV shows/brain-shriveling “books”. It was graphic and grim and filthy and had Lance Henriksen, President of the Gritty Talkers Club himself, in it. Sure, it also had Bill Paxton, but I won’t hold that against you.
For celluloid’s sake, you have Patrick Swayze throw a dog at Keanu Reeves in one of your movies. HOW CAN I NOT BE IN LOVE?!?!?! It is impossible. You were even able to cast two of the manliest men to ever stare intensely at stuff in the history of cinema, Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, in the woefully underrated K-19: The Widowmaker. Despite the unfortunate choice of having them speak in English with Russian accents (please tell me how this makes sense, I mean, the characters are supposed to be speaking in Russian anyway, wouldn’t it be simpler just to have the actors speak unaccented?), I enjoyed the hell out of this film. It features the only antagonist worthy of the team of Ford and Neeson besides each other (if they were dating, would the tabloids call them Feeson? Harriam?): the laws of physics. Radiation from their own submarine’s reactor bombards them, and they basically tell each and every gamma ray to shove it up its own ionizing ass. That’s right, their steely-eyed gaze changes the fundamentals of the universe. On set, did Harrison Ford ever cause someone to travel through time by punching him or her in the face?
In The Hurt Locker, SSG William James is even more ON THE EDGE than Johnny Utah or Captain Alexei Vostrikov. More importantly, you don’t let the fact that James is supposed to be diffusing bombs prevent you from including numerous and enormous explosions in the film. You gathered a cast of mostly unknown yet universally talented actors and it is a thrill to see them sweat profusely as they get real close to each other’s faces and yell intense things.
Maybe some critics gripe about how The Hurt Locker is just another action film or that it’s another Iraq War movie that hardly anyone saw in the theaters. This is crap. The Hurt Locker is thrilling, it makes its audience pay attention, it gets them involved in its story. It also features nuanced characterization and the revelation of personal anguish in its protagonists as they struggle to survive war without sacrificing their humanity, only to realize, in the case of William James, that he can only feel like a fully-formed human while participating in the humanity-destroy activity of war.
Other, more eloquent individuals have gushed over this film for such reasons, but I wanted to gush over how it’s also pretty badass.
With eternal gratitude,
-John Arminio
P.S. Fuck Avatar.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Inglorious Spell Check – Nitpicking and Overthinking a Tarantino Movie
By now, pretty much everyone who is interested in seeing Inglourious Basterds has done so. As such, I will keep my thoughts on the film’s technical merits to a minimum while attempting to discuss the movie in a larger context (i.e. being complete killjoy). Anyway, Inglourious Basterds, despite its extra-retarded spelling, is skillfully made. The individual sequences are entertaining and it features the best dialogue Quentin Tarantino has written since Pulp Fiction. However, I think it does run long, as twenty minute scene after twenty minute scene can get irritating. I really like Michael Fassbender doing an impersonation of Lawrence Oliver while playing a British spy who resembled Lawrence Olivier and was disappointed that he (a spy personally appointed by Churchill), along with Sgt. Stiglitz (an expert is violence and savagery), just up and die in a bar after talking a lot. Needs more epic deaths for supposedly epic characters. Also, it is kind of illogical how only half of the Basterds have speaking parts or are even seen apart from their introduction. Why even have them in the film? I also found it bothersome that Shoshanna, the main non-Basterd protagonist, never interacts with the Basterds at all, so her burning down of the theater at the end kind of makes the whole mission pointless. The Basterds’ presence at the end only serves to get shots of Eli Roth and the other guy blasting old (unarmed) Nazi dickheads with machine guns. The movie does, however, have an excellent villain in Hans “Jew Hunter” Landa, and all the praise Christoph Waltz has gained from the performance is well-deserved.
The movie does, unfortunately, stir up certain… problems for me; one example being how the Americans are used as the force for righteous vengeance. As if, by virtue of American morality, we have the right to torture, mutilate, and suicide bomb our enemies just because we are better than they. More specifically, that if we were only as brutal as the Nazis, which I guess we have the right to do because we are Americans, the war in Europe could have ended a year earlier, thereby saving millions of lives. As Americans, we have our own history of ethnic cleansing, a history we have mostly denied or chosen to forget (as an example of said denial, Andrew Jackson, the man who instituted many Indian Removal policies and is responsible for the Trail of Tears, graces/disgraces the $20 bill). True, the Indian Wars never achieved the kind of organized butchery that the Nazis, or even the Spanish in their American colonial territories, did, but we were far more “successful” in the long run in eliminating Native Americans and their culture from the face of the Earth than the Nazis were at eliminating the Jews. How much difference is there between an 18 year old soldier in the German Army and an 18 year old soldier at the Sand Creek Massacre (or, for that matter, in the Confederate Army)? The armies and governments those boys served (and they were boys) were responsible for furthering policies of murder, slavery, brutality, etc., whether individual soldiers personally supported those policies or not, so I don’t see why it becomes hilarious when a German boy is killed by an American. Of course, I believe we were on the side of the right during World War II, but even then we were not without our own sins, such as the bombing of Dresden, our refusal to admit Jewish refugees into the country, or the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent.
What most acutely annoyed me while watching the film is not the film itself, as I consider it as more of an indicator of how America views World War II and the Nazis in general. Like in the movie, Nazis have become kind of our go-to bogeymen, just an inhuman villain that serves as a stand-in for what might otherwise be an actual person. It’s ok to kill a Nazi; in fact, it’s hilarious. QT uses the deaths of Germans as comedy or as a means to establish character traits, but rarely makes them actual people. When he does, as in the bar sequence, he uses them as narrative sacrifices to illustrate the ruthlessness of actress/spy Bridget von Hammersmark. I don’t think Inglourious Basterds is the problem, just a symptom of our propensity to re-imagine and re-mold the Nazis to suit our own needs. Other symptoms include Godwin’s Law or any inappropriate comparing of unrelated topics to Hitler and the Nazis (watch any 24 hour news network for about five minutes and you’re likely to see a talking head exhibit an example of this). Hitler was a man, the people that followed him were men, not faceless hordes of disposable Huns. It was humans that executed the Holocaust, not monsters, and I think that such a thing can happen again if we forget that. I believe that we must remember the “how” and the “why” of history, not just the “what,” in order to prevent it from happening again.
These claims perhaps seem to be an outlandish, so I will endeavor to utilize the example of another historical figure turned to a monster. Vlad III (also known as Vlad Tepes/the Impaler and Vlad Dracula) was the Prince of Wallachia once in 1448, again from 1456-1462, and lastly in 1476. As a child, he was held captive with his brother by his enemies and grew to hate them both. As a ruler, he was surrounded by hostile nations, both Christian and Muslim. He resisted the expansionism of the Ottoman Empire, one of the most powerful empires of the time, all while his own territory consisted only of a third of modern-day Romania. He has deservingly earned a reputation for brutality in dealing with his own people and his enemies, yet much of what we know (or think we know) about him comes from pieces of propaganda distributed by his adversaries in Germany and Russia. It seems to me that the life of someone so capable as to fend off invasion from several hosts of foes, yet simultaneously so brutal and undeniably evil that he was willing to impale thousands of his own people, has many lessons to teach us about history and about human nature. However, Vlad has become a literal monster in our collective consciousness: as the vampire Dracula of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. Even the historical Vlad has been distorted, achieving little recognition outside of Romania beyond exaggerated or falsified claims of him enjoying the taste of human blood as he dined amongst his impaled victims. In Romania, he’s sometimes regarded as a national hero and defender of Christendom, which is an equally tragic distortion of truth. I believe it is a great loss of historical perspective that we only think of Vlad only as the bloodthirsty sadist who originated the modern vampire mythos, rather than a cautionary lesson from our past.
While I do not think the same historical alterations that happened in the case of Vlad Dracula will happen to Hitler, especially during our lifetime, I think that a diminishing of the shared tragedy humanity suffered during the Second World War has already occurred. The cliché that history is written by the victors is true and we have cast the war as a great modern crusade for freedom against embodied symbols of tyranny. It is obvious that the threat the Axis posed to the world was both undeniable and terrible, but I believe it has become easy for us to ignore the complex causes and the human cost the war played on the victors and the vanquished, the heroes, the villains, and even the victims. Many people were not confined to any of these categories, while others embodied them all. It lessens the heroism of the people who serve in war to conceive of them as invincible, or to conceive their enemies as faceless hordes of evil. If one is invincible and one’s opponent is undeniably malevolent, then what is heroic about fighting in such a conflict? Veterans are heroic because they encountered their fear and an equally human enemy and overcame them both. War is a dirty business; the dirtiest. I’ve never served in one, but I feel that the vision of war as bloodthirsty fun presented in Inglourious Basterds is as detrimental an illusion as one can have about armed conflict. There is no heroism in carving swastikas into German foreheads for laughs. I’m not suggesting that Tarantino’s film is socially damaging the way something like Birth of a Nation was, just that it is indicative of the way we choose to remember things as more convenient then they may have occurred, which is where the real damage actually takes place.
Why does this movie concern me so much? Why not gripe about the glorified violence in Pulp Fiction or, for a 2009 film, in Zombieland? Wouldn’t that be equally as ridiculous? Isn’t it dangerous to require fiction to be “socially responsible”? All fair questions (and in the case of the latter one, I feel the answer is “yes”), but all I can say is that Inglourious Basterds irritated an idiosyncratic nerve in a purely subjective way. Perhaps it is a testament to the skill of the filmmakers that it inspired me to write a 1,500 word editorial on the way it reflects societal trends. In any case, it would be foolish to hold it against anyone who might disagree with me.
The movie does, unfortunately, stir up certain… problems for me; one example being how the Americans are used as the force for righteous vengeance. As if, by virtue of American morality, we have the right to torture, mutilate, and suicide bomb our enemies just because we are better than they. More specifically, that if we were only as brutal as the Nazis, which I guess we have the right to do because we are Americans, the war in Europe could have ended a year earlier, thereby saving millions of lives. As Americans, we have our own history of ethnic cleansing, a history we have mostly denied or chosen to forget (as an example of said denial, Andrew Jackson, the man who instituted many Indian Removal policies and is responsible for the Trail of Tears, graces/disgraces the $20 bill). True, the Indian Wars never achieved the kind of organized butchery that the Nazis, or even the Spanish in their American colonial territories, did, but we were far more “successful” in the long run in eliminating Native Americans and their culture from the face of the Earth than the Nazis were at eliminating the Jews. How much difference is there between an 18 year old soldier in the German Army and an 18 year old soldier at the Sand Creek Massacre (or, for that matter, in the Confederate Army)? The armies and governments those boys served (and they were boys) were responsible for furthering policies of murder, slavery, brutality, etc., whether individual soldiers personally supported those policies or not, so I don’t see why it becomes hilarious when a German boy is killed by an American. Of course, I believe we were on the side of the right during World War II, but even then we were not without our own sins, such as the bombing of Dresden, our refusal to admit Jewish refugees into the country, or the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent.
What most acutely annoyed me while watching the film is not the film itself, as I consider it as more of an indicator of how America views World War II and the Nazis in general. Like in the movie, Nazis have become kind of our go-to bogeymen, just an inhuman villain that serves as a stand-in for what might otherwise be an actual person. It’s ok to kill a Nazi; in fact, it’s hilarious. QT uses the deaths of Germans as comedy or as a means to establish character traits, but rarely makes them actual people. When he does, as in the bar sequence, he uses them as narrative sacrifices to illustrate the ruthlessness of actress/spy Bridget von Hammersmark. I don’t think Inglourious Basterds is the problem, just a symptom of our propensity to re-imagine and re-mold the Nazis to suit our own needs. Other symptoms include Godwin’s Law or any inappropriate comparing of unrelated topics to Hitler and the Nazis (watch any 24 hour news network for about five minutes and you’re likely to see a talking head exhibit an example of this). Hitler was a man, the people that followed him were men, not faceless hordes of disposable Huns. It was humans that executed the Holocaust, not monsters, and I think that such a thing can happen again if we forget that. I believe that we must remember the “how” and the “why” of history, not just the “what,” in order to prevent it from happening again.
These claims perhaps seem to be an outlandish, so I will endeavor to utilize the example of another historical figure turned to a monster. Vlad III (also known as Vlad Tepes/the Impaler and Vlad Dracula) was the Prince of Wallachia once in 1448, again from 1456-1462, and lastly in 1476. As a child, he was held captive with his brother by his enemies and grew to hate them both. As a ruler, he was surrounded by hostile nations, both Christian and Muslim. He resisted the expansionism of the Ottoman Empire, one of the most powerful empires of the time, all while his own territory consisted only of a third of modern-day Romania. He has deservingly earned a reputation for brutality in dealing with his own people and his enemies, yet much of what we know (or think we know) about him comes from pieces of propaganda distributed by his adversaries in Germany and Russia. It seems to me that the life of someone so capable as to fend off invasion from several hosts of foes, yet simultaneously so brutal and undeniably evil that he was willing to impale thousands of his own people, has many lessons to teach us about history and about human nature. However, Vlad has become a literal monster in our collective consciousness: as the vampire Dracula of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. Even the historical Vlad has been distorted, achieving little recognition outside of Romania beyond exaggerated or falsified claims of him enjoying the taste of human blood as he dined amongst his impaled victims. In Romania, he’s sometimes regarded as a national hero and defender of Christendom, which is an equally tragic distortion of truth. I believe it is a great loss of historical perspective that we only think of Vlad only as the bloodthirsty sadist who originated the modern vampire mythos, rather than a cautionary lesson from our past.
While I do not think the same historical alterations that happened in the case of Vlad Dracula will happen to Hitler, especially during our lifetime, I think that a diminishing of the shared tragedy humanity suffered during the Second World War has already occurred. The cliché that history is written by the victors is true and we have cast the war as a great modern crusade for freedom against embodied symbols of tyranny. It is obvious that the threat the Axis posed to the world was both undeniable and terrible, but I believe it has become easy for us to ignore the complex causes and the human cost the war played on the victors and the vanquished, the heroes, the villains, and even the victims. Many people were not confined to any of these categories, while others embodied them all. It lessens the heroism of the people who serve in war to conceive of them as invincible, or to conceive their enemies as faceless hordes of evil. If one is invincible and one’s opponent is undeniably malevolent, then what is heroic about fighting in such a conflict? Veterans are heroic because they encountered their fear and an equally human enemy and overcame them both. War is a dirty business; the dirtiest. I’ve never served in one, but I feel that the vision of war as bloodthirsty fun presented in Inglourious Basterds is as detrimental an illusion as one can have about armed conflict. There is no heroism in carving swastikas into German foreheads for laughs. I’m not suggesting that Tarantino’s film is socially damaging the way something like Birth of a Nation was, just that it is indicative of the way we choose to remember things as more convenient then they may have occurred, which is where the real damage actually takes place.
Why does this movie concern me so much? Why not gripe about the glorified violence in Pulp Fiction or, for a 2009 film, in Zombieland? Wouldn’t that be equally as ridiculous? Isn’t it dangerous to require fiction to be “socially responsible”? All fair questions (and in the case of the latter one, I feel the answer is “yes”), but all I can say is that Inglourious Basterds irritated an idiosyncratic nerve in a purely subjective way. Perhaps it is a testament to the skill of the filmmakers that it inspired me to write a 1,500 word editorial on the way it reflects societal trends. In any case, it would be foolish to hold it against anyone who might disagree with me.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Nightmare Before Nietzsche: Existentialism and Conformity in The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas has, in the sixteen years since its release, become a stop-motion classic, worshipped by throngs of Hot Topic-shoppers and animation enthusiasts alike. It seems peculiar that the story of a man who tries something new, fails, then goes back to the community and tasks that he attempted to escape in the first place has become such a touchstone for adolescent counterculture (or at least Disney-manufactured counterculture).
The story opens with the community of Halloweentown celebrating the victorious triumph of the latest Halloween, exhorting their king (the Übermensch in this example), Jack Skellington. He embodies everything the town admires, namely, the ability to frighten various beings in the most severe manner possible. He appears to be the master of himself, the master of all he, and his community, value. However, it is revealed shortly thereafter that Jack is disheartened and anxious. He is bored with the routine of Halloween and wishes for something different. He has no passion (something that Friedrich Nietzsche and the other existentialists saw as essential in making life worth living) for his existence. Thus, he is a slave to his own weaknesses rather than a master of said passions, and a true Übermensch cannot be a slave to anything, even himself.
No one knows my inner pain.
After wandering away from his home, he discovers something beyond his previous knowledge: another world, and he becomes obsessed with realizing its manifestation in Halloweentown. In the film, his obsession is Christmas, but it can be substituted for any Other World that one can looks to for comfort, be it an afterlife or a socialist Utopia. All of these were equally abhorrent to Nietzsche and Albert Camus. It is also curious as to why Skellington is even enamored with Christmas in the first place. He comes from a community that values death, decay, and the inspiration of horror in all people unfortunate enough to encounter them, yet Jack sees the illogical joy of Christmas and wants it for his own. Even though he is the sovereign of the darkest holiday around, he wants to become the bringer of Christmas joy and other values totally at odds with his own world. Nietzsche’s oft-misquoted decree that “God is dead” is a proclamation that the modern world (i.e. the 19th Century) has no use for God or traditional Christian morality. That time is over and those values are no longer relevant. In a similar way, Jack holds on to his Other World even though it, to Halloweentown, never existed or is “dead.” This will only bring misery.
Oh, pretty colors and candy canes and little children full of cheer!
Jack attempts to explain, examine, and understand Christmas through various rational means. First, he wants to convince the Citizens of Halloweentown to accept his vision of the Other World while rationally explaining its virtues. Rationality fails him, as the existentialists knew it would (I guess), and he resorts to using the aesthetics of Halloween (the world they know) to convince the townsfolk of the merits of Christmas (the Other World).
For Nietzsche, the only thing that matters is “The Aesthetic” since there is no “Other World,” there is only the here and now. For Jack, he must transform Christmas so that it conforms to his community's aesthetic for it to even interest them (for example, he describes Santa as a giant red lobster king named "Sandy Claws"). Jack then attempts to grasp Christmas for himself through science, which is an equally useless task. Proving something that is, as Jack sings, "invisible but everywhere" is not something done with beakers and Bunsen burners, or with any empirical method. For Søren Kierkegaard, the self-hating Christian Dane existentialist, science was undeniably admirable but useless for proving ethereal matters like faith, God, or the Other World. He'd have a thing or two to say to scientific creationists, by the way. Anyhow, Jack's scientific ventures into his own Other World ultimately fail. He cannot rationally prove Christmas in the same way he cannot explain it to Halloweentown.
Skellington enlists the help of "the professor" (the wheelchair-bound Dr. Finkelstein) to assist him. In a sense, this only deepens the irrationality of the situation, as the good doctor is not a scientist dedicated to the improvement of society, but is a self-serving, immoral curmudgeon who spends his time making humanoid creations to serve his personal fancies. Most prominent of these is Sally, by far the most rational and morally-centered inhabitant of Halloweentown. She constantly exhorts, practically begs, Jack to abandon his quest to take over Christmas, but he rejects these rationalities with close-minded enthusiasm.
Totally NOT evil:
The results of Halloweentown's Christmas are predictably disastrous. The aesthetics of the Halloweentown, Christmas Town, and the human world they encroach on cannot coexist and they threaten to destroy each other. Santa is kidnapped, Jack is blown out of the sky, and, for the citizens of Earth, Christmas has become a carnival of the delightfully macabre, complete with shrunken heads and carnivorous Jack-in-the-Boxes. To restore all worlds to their proper aesthetics, Jack must retake the mantle of the Pumpkin King and master himself as well as his subjects (particularly the ghastly Oogie-Boogie, Santa Claus' captor).
After his victorious conquering of his foe, Jack resumes his role as King of Halloweentown, only this time with renewed enthusiasm and vigor. He claims to already have great ideas for next Halloween and his subjects are just as willing to follow him as before. His attempts to create a new identity for himself, to break from conformity and his Sisyphean existence as Ruler of the Morbid, have been failures. He is back to being what he was born to be: himself (in this case, the Pumpkin King). His self-conquest, the suppression of his desires for something beyond his life, has made him an Übermensch.
Nietzsche, along with Kierkegaard, detested any sort of herd mentality, and it would seem that Jack’s return to his previously-detested life of macabre monotony is merely a re-submergence into such thinking. However, Jack, as the ruler of Halloweentown, is outside of the heard, rather, he is the leader of it. If anything, he was more under the influence of a herd mentality when he was enamored with Christmas Town. He saw something bright and sparkly and new and wanted to be a part of it, was willing to change everything about himself to do so. He made himself as much a part of the herd of Santa Claus as the people of Halloweentown were members of his own. It was only through his re-taking of the Pumpkin King crown (and being blowed up real good) that this way of thinking was shook from him like so much fake snow on a department store Christmas tree.
Jack's downfall originates from his constant self-examination, his obsession with who he is and why, and is acquiescence to the herd mentality of both his fellow citizens and Christmas Town. The other residents of Halloweentown are content with their endless task of frightening whomever they come across in their own charming Addams Family-like way. They live in the moment; they live for the terror they inspire. When Jack becomes interested in the how, the why, and his own personal motivations, he ventures from his home in hopes of finding "something new." Kierkegaard called this sort of self-destruction the "curse of consciousness," and it is also reflected in Camus' last novel, The Fall. In this book, the main character is a seemingly exemplary (like Jack) individual who falls from grace, though not quite as literally as Jack does in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Camus strangely had little interest in the effects of artillery shells on Santa's sleigh.
Destroying childhood, one believer at a time:
At one point, Sally says to Jack, "you don't look like yourself" when he dresses as Santa Claus. The aesthetic of his new role is a foreshadowing of the disaster to come. Skellington is donning the clothes of something other than himself and the result is destructive to his own identity and to Christmas. The idiom "Hell is doing the same thing over and over again" is anathema to the philosophy of Nietzsche as well as Albert Camus. For Camus, one could live for an eternity on the memory of a single moment. For Nietzsche, one becomes an Übermensch when he (and Nietzsche certainly envisioned the Übermensch as a male) has mastered himself to such a degree that he would gladly choose to live his life over again for all eternity. Tedium is not an issue; it is life that is worth living, no matter what form. Jack Skellington has overcome the view that his existence is tedium and is enthralled with the prospect of living it forever.
Here we see a walrus in a cravat ponder how much better he is than everyone else:
So, why has The Nightmare Before Christmas become such a touchstone film for throngs of angsty adolescents? Why do they wear merchandise for a movie that exhorts one to accept one's station in life and to not strive for anything beyond it? Again, the answer can be understood with aesthetics. For fans of the movie, the aesthetic of ghouls, ghosts, and creatures of the night supersede any "message" that may be "behind" the film. There is nothing behind the film for those enjoying it, there is just the film itself, it is just something to be experienced. While I don't buy into much of existentialist philosophy or enjoy the literature I've read, I do think this movie is pretty good, despite its association with Hot Topic and Disney. Better I just watch it and be satisfied with my existence.
Yes, I am aware that this very essay is an example of the very over-examination that brings about Jack Skellington's fall. Oh well.
The story opens with the community of Halloweentown celebrating the victorious triumph of the latest Halloween, exhorting their king (the Übermensch in this example), Jack Skellington. He embodies everything the town admires, namely, the ability to frighten various beings in the most severe manner possible. He appears to be the master of himself, the master of all he, and his community, value. However, it is revealed shortly thereafter that Jack is disheartened and anxious. He is bored with the routine of Halloween and wishes for something different. He has no passion (something that Friedrich Nietzsche and the other existentialists saw as essential in making life worth living) for his existence. Thus, he is a slave to his own weaknesses rather than a master of said passions, and a true Übermensch cannot be a slave to anything, even himself.
No one knows my inner pain.
After wandering away from his home, he discovers something beyond his previous knowledge: another world, and he becomes obsessed with realizing its manifestation in Halloweentown. In the film, his obsession is Christmas, but it can be substituted for any Other World that one can looks to for comfort, be it an afterlife or a socialist Utopia. All of these were equally abhorrent to Nietzsche and Albert Camus. It is also curious as to why Skellington is even enamored with Christmas in the first place. He comes from a community that values death, decay, and the inspiration of horror in all people unfortunate enough to encounter them, yet Jack sees the illogical joy of Christmas and wants it for his own. Even though he is the sovereign of the darkest holiday around, he wants to become the bringer of Christmas joy and other values totally at odds with his own world. Nietzsche’s oft-misquoted decree that “God is dead” is a proclamation that the modern world (i.e. the 19th Century) has no use for God or traditional Christian morality. That time is over and those values are no longer relevant. In a similar way, Jack holds on to his Other World even though it, to Halloweentown, never existed or is “dead.” This will only bring misery.
Oh, pretty colors and candy canes and little children full of cheer!
Jack attempts to explain, examine, and understand Christmas through various rational means. First, he wants to convince the Citizens of Halloweentown to accept his vision of the Other World while rationally explaining its virtues. Rationality fails him, as the existentialists knew it would (I guess), and he resorts to using the aesthetics of Halloween (the world they know) to convince the townsfolk of the merits of Christmas (the Other World).
For Nietzsche, the only thing that matters is “The Aesthetic” since there is no “Other World,” there is only the here and now. For Jack, he must transform Christmas so that it conforms to his community's aesthetic for it to even interest them (for example, he describes Santa as a giant red lobster king named "Sandy Claws"). Jack then attempts to grasp Christmas for himself through science, which is an equally useless task. Proving something that is, as Jack sings, "invisible but everywhere" is not something done with beakers and Bunsen burners, or with any empirical method. For Søren Kierkegaard, the self-hating Christian Dane existentialist, science was undeniably admirable but useless for proving ethereal matters like faith, God, or the Other World. He'd have a thing or two to say to scientific creationists, by the way. Anyhow, Jack's scientific ventures into his own Other World ultimately fail. He cannot rationally prove Christmas in the same way he cannot explain it to Halloweentown.
Skellington enlists the help of "the professor" (the wheelchair-bound Dr. Finkelstein) to assist him. In a sense, this only deepens the irrationality of the situation, as the good doctor is not a scientist dedicated to the improvement of society, but is a self-serving, immoral curmudgeon who spends his time making humanoid creations to serve his personal fancies. Most prominent of these is Sally, by far the most rational and morally-centered inhabitant of Halloweentown. She constantly exhorts, practically begs, Jack to abandon his quest to take over Christmas, but he rejects these rationalities with close-minded enthusiasm.
Totally NOT evil:
The results of Halloweentown's Christmas are predictably disastrous. The aesthetics of the Halloweentown, Christmas Town, and the human world they encroach on cannot coexist and they threaten to destroy each other. Santa is kidnapped, Jack is blown out of the sky, and, for the citizens of Earth, Christmas has become a carnival of the delightfully macabre, complete with shrunken heads and carnivorous Jack-in-the-Boxes. To restore all worlds to their proper aesthetics, Jack must retake the mantle of the Pumpkin King and master himself as well as his subjects (particularly the ghastly Oogie-Boogie, Santa Claus' captor).
After his victorious conquering of his foe, Jack resumes his role as King of Halloweentown, only this time with renewed enthusiasm and vigor. He claims to already have great ideas for next Halloween and his subjects are just as willing to follow him as before. His attempts to create a new identity for himself, to break from conformity and his Sisyphean existence as Ruler of the Morbid, have been failures. He is back to being what he was born to be: himself (in this case, the Pumpkin King). His self-conquest, the suppression of his desires for something beyond his life, has made him an Übermensch.
Nietzsche, along with Kierkegaard, detested any sort of herd mentality, and it would seem that Jack’s return to his previously-detested life of macabre monotony is merely a re-submergence into such thinking. However, Jack, as the ruler of Halloweentown, is outside of the heard, rather, he is the leader of it. If anything, he was more under the influence of a herd mentality when he was enamored with Christmas Town. He saw something bright and sparkly and new and wanted to be a part of it, was willing to change everything about himself to do so. He made himself as much a part of the herd of Santa Claus as the people of Halloweentown were members of his own. It was only through his re-taking of the Pumpkin King crown (and being blowed up real good) that this way of thinking was shook from him like so much fake snow on a department store Christmas tree.
Jack's downfall originates from his constant self-examination, his obsession with who he is and why, and is acquiescence to the herd mentality of both his fellow citizens and Christmas Town. The other residents of Halloweentown are content with their endless task of frightening whomever they come across in their own charming Addams Family-like way. They live in the moment; they live for the terror they inspire. When Jack becomes interested in the how, the why, and his own personal motivations, he ventures from his home in hopes of finding "something new." Kierkegaard called this sort of self-destruction the "curse of consciousness," and it is also reflected in Camus' last novel, The Fall. In this book, the main character is a seemingly exemplary (like Jack) individual who falls from grace, though not quite as literally as Jack does in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Camus strangely had little interest in the effects of artillery shells on Santa's sleigh.
Destroying childhood, one believer at a time:
At one point, Sally says to Jack, "you don't look like yourself" when he dresses as Santa Claus. The aesthetic of his new role is a foreshadowing of the disaster to come. Skellington is donning the clothes of something other than himself and the result is destructive to his own identity and to Christmas. The idiom "Hell is doing the same thing over and over again" is anathema to the philosophy of Nietzsche as well as Albert Camus. For Camus, one could live for an eternity on the memory of a single moment. For Nietzsche, one becomes an Übermensch when he (and Nietzsche certainly envisioned the Übermensch as a male) has mastered himself to such a degree that he would gladly choose to live his life over again for all eternity. Tedium is not an issue; it is life that is worth living, no matter what form. Jack Skellington has overcome the view that his existence is tedium and is enthralled with the prospect of living it forever.
Here we see a walrus in a cravat ponder how much better he is than everyone else:
So, why has The Nightmare Before Christmas become such a touchstone film for throngs of angsty adolescents? Why do they wear merchandise for a movie that exhorts one to accept one's station in life and to not strive for anything beyond it? Again, the answer can be understood with aesthetics. For fans of the movie, the aesthetic of ghouls, ghosts, and creatures of the night supersede any "message" that may be "behind" the film. There is nothing behind the film for those enjoying it, there is just the film itself, it is just something to be experienced. While I don't buy into much of existentialist philosophy or enjoy the literature I've read, I do think this movie is pretty good, despite its association with Hot Topic and Disney. Better I just watch it and be satisfied with my existence.
Yes, I am aware that this very essay is an example of the very over-examination that brings about Jack Skellington's fall. Oh well.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
I Never Drink...Wine, Part Two
As promised, this is the continuation of my previous little essay, detailing the folk origins of vampires and vampire-like beasts and spirits from other cultures. I spent more time on this entry than any other blog, so you better comment on how fucking fascinating it is or I’ll fornicate with your ear canal.
Anyway, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of malevolent spirits who feed on humans in some fashion, but not all of these are vampiric. I try to limit my examples to creatures who exhibit several of the following similarities to European vampires: is a risen corpse rather than merely an evil spirit, feeds on blood or “life force” specifically rather than just on humans in general, is associated with graveyards or the underworld, is vulnerable to religious practices/symbols or other weaknesses of vampires, is associated with an animal humans generally consider malevolent, has the ability to transform itself, has superior mental faculties/powers, is at home at night and vulnerable to daylight, and has underlying sexual implications in its feeding. Of course, requiring all of these would be rather limiting, so I try and keep the list to creatures that exhibit at least a few of these traits.
Vetala: A spiritual vampire-like being from Hindu mythology. A vetala, a creature trapped between the realms of life and the afterlife, is a spirit that inhabits and animates corpses, controlling them. Due to the vetala’s power, the corpse will not decay while “possessed” and will be used as a tool for the demonic creature. The vetala is also able leave the corpse at any time. Other than its undead nature, a number of similarities exist between the vetala and western vampires: they are known to inhabit graveyards; they hang upside down and are associated with bats; because of their supernatural nature, they possess greater-than-normal incite on human nature and human behavior; and they are vulnerable to religious ceremonies and symbols, though the legend obviously refers to Hindu mantras, rather than the Christian crucifix.
A vetala:
Lamia (Bulgarian mythology): A creature with several heads (which, of cut off, will grow back again and again) that usually feeds on the blood of young women. In some cases, the beast is said to have wings and is usually thought to live in caves or underground. Though the Lamia is traditionally seen as genderless, it is usually represented as female. The lamia is basically a hodgepodge of other, more well-established mythological creatures, continuing the ancient Bulgarian tradition of contributing nothing to society (except, of course, excellent Quidditch players). Not to be confused with the Basque “species” of nymph, the lamiak (singular – lamia).
Lamia (Greek Mythology): Although universally feminine, Lamia is a Greek version of the bogeyman; a woman with a human torso and a serpent below the waist who feeds on children. She may also have an erotic interest in feeding on men. In more recent folk traditions, changing from the singular Lamia to simply the name of the type of beast (“a lamia”), she has become known to be slovenly and stupid, driven by the need to feed on human blood. Like the lamia of Bulgaria, they are associated with damp, underground places. Due to the close proximity of the two countries, the Greek version is probably the origin of the Bulgarian. Modern lamia are sometimes blamed for crib death; children are said to have been “strangled by the lamia.” In folktales, the lamia resembles an ogress who feeds on human flesh and is often presented as an obstacle to the tale’s hero, who must steal something from her or obtain some information.
Lamia (singular), in the titular painting by Herbert Draper:
The Lilin (singular - “lili”): Female demons of Babylonian mythology similar to a succubus in that they are female spirits who drain the life force from their victims. They hunt at night to prey on men and pregnant women. Later, the creatures were adapted to Judaism as Lilith, the mythological first wife of Adam, became the progenitor of the lilin after mating with Samael, the Talmudic precursor to Lucifer. From this point onward, all European legends associated with vampirism were closely linked with the Devil, even the sexual nature of the vampire can be found here.
Lilith, represented here with subtle symbolism by John Collier, deriving sexual pleasure from wrapping herself in a giant serpent:
Akhkharu: A Sumerian precursor to the lilin. The akhkharu, like the lilin, is a malevolent female spirit who hunted at night, but the Sumerian version feasted on actual blood rather than “life force.”
Shtriga – A witch from Albanian folklore that sucks the life force or blood out of children, the younger the better (high five), during the night, then moves on to another child the next night. Once all a family's children have been fed upon, the shtriga moves to a neighboring family and begins to feed on them. The only way to stop the shtriga’s curse or to cure its victims is to kill the creature itself. In order to do so, one would have to lure a shtriga into a church on Easter Sunday, then hang a cross of bone could be hung on the church’s entrance, trapping the vampiric witch inside. The creature could then be seized and destroyed as it attempts to exit the church. Also, after a shtriga feeds, it generally goes into the forest to vomit up its victim’s blood (as to why, I have not idea). A silver coin dipped in the regurgitated blood, then wrapped in a cloth would become an amulet that would permanently protect its bearer. The shtriga is closely related to the Romanian strigoi and the Roman Strix, both etymologically and in behavior.
Strigoi: Synonymous with moroi; usage usually depends on the region, with “moroi” being more common in rural eras. The strigoi, creatures from Romanian mythology, are the evil souls of the dead who have risen from the grave to haunt the living. They are closely related to Romanian werewolves, the pricolici and vârcolaci, who exhibit similar behaviors, but the strigoi maintain a phantasm-like version of their former physical bodies rather than of a large wolf or dog. Basically vampiric witches, they come in living (Strigoi viu) and undead (Strigoi mort) varieties. Proving that ginger people really do have no souls, the strigoi are said to have ginger hair, blue eyes, and two hearts. The term is mostly likely derived from the Latin “strix,” a shrieking vampiric bird.
Strix: As mentioned before, the strix is a bird-like monster of ancient Roman mythology. It feeds on human flesh and blood like a traditional vampire, but rather than being creatures of the dead, they are the product of metamorphosis. The first recorded story involving the strix is found in the myth of Polyphonte, whose sons were turned into wild beasts as a punishment for cannibalism. Polyphonte herself became a beast that "cries by night, without food or drink, with head below and tips of feet above, a harbinger of war and civil strife to men." Consistent physical descriptions are hard to come by, however, with Roman scientist/philosopher Pliny the Elder admitting he has little knowledge of them. Other writers, from Ovid to Saint Isidore, 7th Century Archbishop of Seville, have written about the strix; Ovid creating his own myth about the creature attacking a legendary king in his cradle, and Isidore documenting the monster as a part of his efforts to preserve classical culture. The creature’s namesake and behaviors were probably disseminated throughout the Roman Empire and gave rise to the previously mentioned strigoi and shtriga, as well as others, I’m sure. Whether this is the origin of the traditional European vampire, that is difficult to determine. The origin of the strix, however, is thought to be the unearthly, screeching sound of the European Scops Owl, which is said to be more akin to a “spooky horse whinny” than a hooting owl. As you can see, it’s a terrifying creature:
“I shall feast upon your flesh. Ya, rly.”
Vrykolakas: An animated corpse or, depending on who you ask, a non-corporeal ghost of modern Greek folklore who can leave its grave on any day except Saturday. I guess the undead observe the Sabbath. They are created when a person dies participating in a sacrilegious act (auto-erotic asphyxiation ftw!), is excommunicated, buried in unconsecrated ground, or, especially, eaten the flesh of a sheep that has been wounded by a werewolf. Some versions of the myth state that a werewolf could become a vrykolakas after being killed, though the vrykolakas is very resilient and can only be slain by fire or by a lightning strike. Suspected corpses are to be impaled, beheaded, and incinerated immediately as the creature becomes more and more powerful the longer it remains in living death. Though the vrykolakas lacks to blood-sucking characteristics of a vampire, the two have become intertwined over time to the point where the word “vampire” is sometimes translated into Greek as “vrykolakas” and that a modern Greek might think of Dracula as a vrykolakas. The creature, biting the neck, traditionally kills its victims by sitting on them, which results in the quarry being smothered. Much in the same way as the incubus and succubus of medieval demonology, the vrykolakas was a folkloric explanation for the then-misunderstood phenomenon of sleep paralysis.
Mormo: More Greek nonsense. Mormo is a minor goddess in ancient Greek mythology who bit children. Later, she became a bogeyman-like vampire creature who drank the blood of misbehaving children.
Manananggal – In Filipino (ew) folklore, the manananggal is an evil flesh-eating, blood-drinking witch that is repulsed by garlic. It normally takes the form of a beautiful woman, but detaches its upper torso, which sprouts huge bat-like wings and flies away, in order to feed. The detached torso will enter the homes of pregnant woman and use an elongated, tubular tongue to suck out the blood of the mother and child or, in a more gruesome twist, the heart of the unborn fetus. It is in the detached state, however, that the manananggal is at its most vulnerable. If one were to find the lower portion of the creature’s body, garlic, ash, or salt could be rubbed over it, making it impossible for the manananggal to rejoin its lower half, effectively killing it as the beast cannot survive daylight in its separated state. Incidentally, a manananggal can create others by tricking humans into drinking its blood, much like the transformation process of some European vampire myths.
Manananggal, by Christopher Andrew Bennett, courtesy of Google image search (because I’m so creative and resourceful):
Pontianak – In Indonesian folklore, a pontianak is the vengeful spirit of a woman who died in childbirth. The ghost will appear as a beautiful woman accompanied by the scent of flowers, but upon her return from the dead, she sets about terrorizing entire villages and “unwary” men. Note to Indonesians: stop trying to have sex with the undead. To avenge her own death, the pontianak, like the manananggal, mostly feeds on pregnant women and newborn children.
A poster from one of the many films based on the pontianak. Undoubtedly better than King Kong:
Langsuir - A Malaysian twist on the pontianak, the langsuir possesses its victims, sucking blood from inside his or her own body. Like the pontianak, a langsuir is always a woman who died in childbirth, though its appearance, rather than that of a beautiful woman, is far more menacing. The apparitions are usually described as having long fangs and hair, red eyes, sharp claws, a rotten face, and wearing a white robe.
Artist’s rendering:
Hopping Corpse (Chinese: jiangshi, literally “stiff corpse”): A human becomes a hopping corpse when that person’s soul remains in the physical body after death. The hopping corpse, its arms permanently outstretched, is forced to hop rather than walk due to being afflicted with rigor mortis. The myth originated from the folkloric practice of "Traveling a Corpse over a Thousand Li" (Li being a distance of about 500 meters). The legend concerns family members or companions who had died far away from home and did not have enough money to pay for the corpse to be transported home for burial. Those close to the deceased would then pay a Taoist priest to train the corpse to hop its own way back home. Traditionally, the jiangshi feeds on the qi (life force) of its victims but influences from the Western vampire has spurred the adoption of a “blood-sucking jiangshi” as a different variety of hopping corpse. The psychology behind the jiangshi is a reflection of the Chinese revulsion of the Qing Dynasty (also known as the Manchu Dynasty). The Manchu were from what is today northeastern China (Manchuria), a region that, before the Qing conquest in the first half of the 17th Century, was not associated with mainland China. The Han Chinese, the ethnic majority in China, viewed their Manchu rulers as inhuman monsters, sucking the life out of the “real” China. It is not surprising that the hopping corpse is universally dressed in traditional Manchu attire. The Chinese tradition of keeping a raised wooden block on the floor of an entrance to a household has its roots in warding off the jiangshi. This practice also calls to mind the European belief that vampires cannot enter a household without first being invited inside.
Traditional Manchu dress:
A child-like jiangshi, seen in one of its many depictions in Hong Kong cinema. They appear to be attracted to guys who sport a huge unibrow.
Succubus/Incubus: Although not typically associated with vampires, these medieval demons do share some characteristics with the living dead bloodsuckers. Both varieties of demon are malevolent creatures of the night who prey upon unsuspecting humans while they sleep. Like many of the vampire-like creatures listed here, both incubi and succubi drain the life force of their victims, oftentimes to the point of death. Like vampires, there is a sex-charges fluid exchange, with the succubus taking semen from its male victims and the incubus depositing semen in its female victims. Sometimes both creatures are one in the same, merely different forms. The incubus/succubus has a female form that drains semen from men, then turns into its male form to impregnate women to create children more susceptible to demonic influence. Other times, the succubus transfers the semen to the incubus, while still other versions give the incubus the ability to impregnate women on its own. These stories were inventions, as stated earlier, to explain sleep paralysis. In addition, succubi served as early cautionary tales against casual sexual encounters with strange women. The incubi provided a woman who had been the victim of a real-life sexual assault a way to prevent the humiliation of becoming pregnant out of wedlock. As bizarre as it may seem, it was more socially acceptable to be raped by a demon than by a real human, since rape victims were often looked upon with the same disdain as adulterers.
A succubus-like vampire:
Medieval European vampire-like undead that may or may not be related to vampire legends –
- Revenant: A corpse of medieval legend which has risen from the grave to haunt the living. Not to be confused with a zombie-like mindless cadaver, the revenant is a very personal and goal-oriented ghoul, intent on tormenting specific humans. A revenant is created when a wicked or heretical person dies, especially when they are subjected to improper burial. If this is the case, they will come back to plague those that had wronged them in life, often spreading disease among the living. If a person is a suspected revenant, the corpse should be exhumed and decapitated, burned, and/or its heart removed from its body. This more focused version of a ghost seems like a precursor to vampires, but most medieval scholars dismiss this notion, despite their similarities; revenants originated in Western European folktales rather than the Eastern Slavic regions where vampires first came into being.
-Mullo/Mulo: Literally translated as “one who is dead,” the mullo/mulo is a Gypsy (Roma) apparition that lives in the mountains and haunts/sucks the blood of the living, especially concentrating on relatives who performed an improper burial on the deceased or stole his/her possessions. The ghost lacks bones and has no middle finger on either hand, which I guess is scary to gypsies.
Vampires (actual vampires): Perhaps the only thing ever invented by Slavic peoples, the legend of what we know as the Vampire probably began with Europe’s most conquerable ethnicity. From the middle ages until the re-imagining of the creatures in the 19th century, a vampire was a monstrous creature, as hideous as one would expect a re-animated corpse to be. However, there were stories where, for example, a man would meet and have sex with a strange, beautiful woman, only to wake and find himself sharing a bed with a long-dead cadaver. These stories were perhaps the beginnings of the vampire’s evolution from a bloodsucking, bloated corpse into the [gross oversimplification ahead] high-society sex machines of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice.
The origins of these Slavic tales have their roots in cultures varying from the Ancient Romans to the fruit and vegetable-fearing gypsies. Tracing the beginnings of any legend, particularly one as pervasive as vampires, is destined to be a nebulous undertaking, especially for someone using Wikipedia as a major source for information. For example, the Russian anti-pagan text entitled Word of saint Grigoriy, written sometime between the 11th and 12th centuries, describes polytheistic Russians making sacrifices to vampires. Whether the accounts are accurate or were merely created to serve as anti-pagan propaganda, the presence of these stories demonstrate that vampires were pervasive enough in Slavic culture to be used as propaganda as early as the 11th Century. Gypsy peoples, as stated earlier, have their own beliefs on vampires, but since I do not know their precise migratory patterns (the first written account of gypsies occurred around 800 AD near the then Byzantine-controlled region of Thrace, possibly originating from as far away as India), I cannot state which culture influenced whom. In all likelihood, it is a combination of mutual influence, an expression of common fears, and the assimilation of older legends like the Hindu Vetala, the Roman strix, etc. The commonalities in the various vampiric legends from different parts of the world represent a culmination of humanity’s fear of everything we perceive as unnatural in the natural world. The dead have not only risen from the grave, defying all inherent laws of nature and God, but seek to feed on the living, possibly their loved ones, to either kill them or drag them into the living death. No matter what culture one is from, few things are as terrifying as the prospect of the corpse of a once-cherished relative coming after you in the night to force you into a fluid exchange…but then again, what do I know?
In any case, Slavs believed that vampirism was caused by a variety of circumstances such as being born with a caul (unbroken amniotic sac), teeth, or a tail; suffering an “irregular” death; or being the subject of improper burial rituals. If a body is buried under the suspicion of becoming a vampire (a “high-risk” candidate I suppose), along with the perennial crucifix, a wooden block is placed under the chin to prevent the carcass from eating its own burial shroud. Sawdust, grain, or seeds can also be placed at the grave site. Upon waking, a vampire is compelled to count each grain, seed, etc., which will hopefully take the entire night, killing the abomination at dawn. The ever-present stake to the heart could also be used, but it was traditionally used to keep the vampire nailed to the ground rather than to kill it. Echoing a gag from an Evil Dead film, a scythe was sometimes placed just above the corpse’s neck so it would decapitate itself if it were to sit up. Hilarious! The abhorrence of garlic and the urge to count grain are common traits of many Slavic monsters. In fact, garlic was so prevalent in Slavic culture that it was sometimes distributed at churches in order to determine if a vampire was among them. The congregation was then expected to eat the vegetable and those that did not were considered vampires.
Count Orlak from Nosferatu, probably the closest thing to a traditional vampire ever portrayed in film:
Romanian vampire legends are most likely an outcrop of the Slavic traditions, as Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries and was part of the Ancient Roman Empire’s frontier for many centuries. The ways to become a vampire are similar to the Slavic routes, though more elaborate. These include being born with a caul (I guess mucus-covered membranes are a tool of the devil), with extra hair, with an extra nipple, out of wedlock, or too early; a black cat crossing the mother’s path while she is pregnant; dying before baptism; being the seventh child of the same sex from the same mother; and finally, being born of a mother who does not eat salt during pregnancy. I really can’t figure that one out, but medieval Europeans loved to blame women, along with the Jews, for everything, so I guess it’s just one more thing that will send them and their undead-spewing vaginas to Hell. I’ll go with it. Of course, there is also the ever-present risk of being bitten by a vampire, which is a guaranteed sentence to share the creature’s fate, if one survives.
In Romanian legend, the first sign of a vampire stalking a village is the rampant death of livestock. Along with witches, vampires are likely to be roaming the Earth on Saint George’s Day, April 22nd, a night where all manner of malevolent creatures travel about. On this night especially, one prevents a vampire attack by rubbing the livestock and windows with garlic. More permanent anticipatory measures include placing a thorny rose branch over a grave, taking extra care to bury the deceased, preventing animals from approaching the dead, and burning a baby’s caul before the child has a chance to eat it. In some cases, bodies are routinely disinterred to check for vampirism; a child dug up three years after death, a young person after five years, and an adult after seven years. If a body shows signs of being not quite dead, the usual staking takes place along with decapitation and stuffing the mouth with garlic. In some cases, the body is dismembered and the various parts soaked in water to be given to family members as a cure. I do not know how this “cure” was administered.
The last major culture to contribute to what became Bram Stoker’s version of the vampire was the Roma people. No coincidentally, the attendants who serve Dracula and help transport him to England in Stoker’s novel are gypsies. India, the traditional birthplace of the Roma people, has many blood-sucking supernatural beings ingrained in its myths, folktales, and religion. Besides the already-discussed vetala, the pishacha are flesh-eating demons of Hindu mythology and the bhutas are the ghosts of men who have died violent deaths, wandering the Earth animating corpses. The Hindu and Buddhist (Buddhism was still prominent in India at the time the Roma emigrated) beliefs in reincarnation held that people who had led unholy or violent lives could be karmicly punished by coming back as one of these evil spirits. Supernatural blood-drinking was so ingrained in Hindu belief that Kali, the Hindu goddess of annihilation/deconstruction, is heavily associated with the practice. A version of Kali survives in some gypsy societies as “Sara,” also known as the “Black Goddess” or “Black Kali/Cally.” It should be emphasized that Kali is not an evil deity, but has only earned that reputation through the graphic images associated with here. Still, most metal goddess ever:
As for the beliefs on vampires, people who were disfigured, especially if they were missing a finger or had limbs similar to those of animals are believed to be vampires. If a person died alone or hidden or if a corpse became prematurely bloated, the body is susceptible to vampirism. As curious as it may sound, gypsy vampiric legends were not kept to humans. For example, pumpkins and watermelons (yes, pumpkins and watermelons) that are kept ten tens after Christmas may become vampires. However, even the Roma people find these creatures non-threatening and do not fear them, as melons and squashes have no teeth. There are even some legends concerning vampiric agricultural tools. In case you think I’m making this up, here is an account written by Balkans historian, folklorist, and ethnographer Tatomir P. Vukanović: “The [Gypsies] in [Kosovo] destroy pumpkins and melons which have become vampires … by plunging them into a pot of boiling water, which is then poured away, the vegetables being afterwards scrubbed by a broom and then thrown away, and the broom burned.” Incidentally, this has nothing to do with the tradition of making Jack O’-Lanterns on Halloween, as that custom is Celtic in origin.
A victim of the terrible Pumpkin Scourge:
Roma tales concerning protecting oneself and one’s village are perhaps the most elaborate among all traditional vampire lore. Making the task especially difficult is the fact that most people, or at least most gypsies, cannot see vampires. According to Tatomir P. Vukanović, they could only be seen "by a twin brother and sister born on a Saturday who wear their drawers and shirts inside out." A village could guard itself from an undead attack "by finding a twin brother and sister born on a Saturday and making them wear their shirts and drawers inside out. This pair could see the vampire out of doors at night, but immediately after it saw them it would have to flee, head over heels." Corpses suspected of vampirism are buried with stakes or steel needles through the heart; bits of metal placed over the eyes, ears, and fingers; and a branch of hawthorn (a type of shrub) stuffed into the sock or used as a stake. Boiling water could be poured over the body and it could also be, as is very common, decapitated and burned. Other legends talk of hiring a dhampir, a half-vampire half-human, or a moroi, a ghost sometimes associated with energy vampirism or lycanthropism, to dispose of the greater menace. I do not know how one would go about hiring supernatural beings, nor do I know how the gypsies rid themselves of them. The fact that tradition recommends the use of werewolf-like ghosts and the half-undead to dispose of vampires demonstrates how menacing some cultures find the creatures.
Perhaps the one of the reasons why these folktales and legends became so propagated, and how writers like Bram Stoker came to be fascinated in them, can be traced to the “Vampire Craze” of the first half of the 18th Century. The two most famous cases are that of Peter Plogojovitz and Arnold Paole, Serbian peasants who died and supposedly returned from the dead to kill their fellow villagers. Plogojovitz died in 1725 and was followed in quick succession by nine other peasants who died of a short, virulent disease or diseases. Before dying, the victims would claim to have been “throttled” by Plogojovitz during the night. According to local tradition, the same village had been obliterated by a vampire centuries ago when Serbia was still under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Overcome by fear, the villagers disinterred Plogojovitz’s body, which was found to be in “vampiric condition,” and promptly drove a stake through its heart and burned it. The whole procedure was observed by an official of the Austrian government, who declared Plogojovitz a genuine vampire and condoned the desecration. Understanding of the decomposition process at the time was very limited, which accounts for Plogojovitz being mistaken for the undead. For a more detailed description of why people thought decomposing corpses were in fact vampires, see my previous blog entry.
Arnold Paole’s circumstances were similar to Plogojovitz in that his alleged vampirism was confirmed by an Austrian official. Before returning to his home village of Medveda, Paole had been an outlaw/bandit/”freedom fighter” (known as a hajduk) operating in Ottoman territory. He stated that while in the Turkish-controlled areas of the Balkans, he came under the plague of a vampire but cured himself by eating soil from the creature’s grave and smearing himself with its blood. Sometime around 1725-1726, Paole broke his neck and perished. Twenty to thirty days later, four people claimed to have been assaulted by the deceased man and died shortly thereafter. The locals consulted another hajduk who supposedly had experience in such matters. He advised them to disinter Paole’s body and drive a stake through his heart, instructions the villagers soon followed, repeating the procedure with Paole’s “victims.” A second and much more prolific epidemic occurred in the same village in 1731 in which seventeen people of various ages and phases of health died after brief and intense maladies, some after only one or two days. Several victims reported having been assaulted by those that had died before them, one going so far as to claim she smeared herself in “vampire” blood to protect herself. The citizens of Medveda surmised that the second plague began because the first victim(s) had eaten beef from cattle that Paole had drank from while he was under the living death. When the Austrian authorities heard of these new deaths, they sent more authorities to investigate. With the help of local gypsies (always a good idea) and town elders, the bodies were unearthed and examined. Twelve were officially declared to be in “vampiric condition.” By the 1740s, many prominent physicians and thinkers (most notably, the usually critical French writer/philosopher Voltaire) were swayed into believing these vampire “outbreaks” were fact. The debate was quite controversial in Europe at the time and was only prolonged by villagers digging up one corpse after another. Fed up with the dispute, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria sent Gerhard van Swieten, a personal physician to the royal family, to determine the legitimacy of the claims. He promptly found that vampires did not exist, which resulted in laws forbidding the desecration of bodies, for any purpose.
Similar instances occurred in New England as late as the 19th Century, with the most famous case being that of nineteen year old Mercy Brown, who died in 1892. Her father, with the help of the family physician, dug up her body and removed her heart, thinking her to be a vampire (though the term was never officially used). Tuberculosis, then called consumption, commonly took the lives of several members of one family or village due to its highly contagious nature. Many people looked to a supernatural cause as the answer for the tragedy the disease could inflict. Documents concerning the Mercy Brown incident were found among Bram Stoker’s personal effects and probably inspired much of the plot in his novel Dracula.
As Stoker’s novel became one of the most recognized stories in Western fiction, his sexually charged vision of the vampire became one the public began to use to replace the revolting ghoul-like creature of yore. With the portrayal of The Count by this guy…
…the vampire’s future was sealed. Lugosi’s brilliant embodiment of Dracula would become the blueprint and reference point for all vampires to come. In less than half a century Stoker and Lugosi has transformed the vampire from a superstition of infinitely knotted origins (that was used to explain the tragedy of tuberculosis) into a malevolent Transylvanian nobleman whose appetite was matched by his charms. Of course, the “creature of the night” has evolved far beyond Dracula, for better or for worse, but The Count remains one of the most recognizable villains and supernatural beings in the Western world.
Anyway, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of malevolent spirits who feed on humans in some fashion, but not all of these are vampiric. I try to limit my examples to creatures who exhibit several of the following similarities to European vampires: is a risen corpse rather than merely an evil spirit, feeds on blood or “life force” specifically rather than just on humans in general, is associated with graveyards or the underworld, is vulnerable to religious practices/symbols or other weaknesses of vampires, is associated with an animal humans generally consider malevolent, has the ability to transform itself, has superior mental faculties/powers, is at home at night and vulnerable to daylight, and has underlying sexual implications in its feeding. Of course, requiring all of these would be rather limiting, so I try and keep the list to creatures that exhibit at least a few of these traits.
Vetala: A spiritual vampire-like being from Hindu mythology. A vetala, a creature trapped between the realms of life and the afterlife, is a spirit that inhabits and animates corpses, controlling them. Due to the vetala’s power, the corpse will not decay while “possessed” and will be used as a tool for the demonic creature. The vetala is also able leave the corpse at any time. Other than its undead nature, a number of similarities exist between the vetala and western vampires: they are known to inhabit graveyards; they hang upside down and are associated with bats; because of their supernatural nature, they possess greater-than-normal incite on human nature and human behavior; and they are vulnerable to religious ceremonies and symbols, though the legend obviously refers to Hindu mantras, rather than the Christian crucifix.
A vetala:
Lamia (Bulgarian mythology): A creature with several heads (which, of cut off, will grow back again and again) that usually feeds on the blood of young women. In some cases, the beast is said to have wings and is usually thought to live in caves or underground. Though the Lamia is traditionally seen as genderless, it is usually represented as female. The lamia is basically a hodgepodge of other, more well-established mythological creatures, continuing the ancient Bulgarian tradition of contributing nothing to society (except, of course, excellent Quidditch players). Not to be confused with the Basque “species” of nymph, the lamiak (singular – lamia).
Lamia (Greek Mythology): Although universally feminine, Lamia is a Greek version of the bogeyman; a woman with a human torso and a serpent below the waist who feeds on children. She may also have an erotic interest in feeding on men. In more recent folk traditions, changing from the singular Lamia to simply the name of the type of beast (“a lamia”), she has become known to be slovenly and stupid, driven by the need to feed on human blood. Like the lamia of Bulgaria, they are associated with damp, underground places. Due to the close proximity of the two countries, the Greek version is probably the origin of the Bulgarian. Modern lamia are sometimes blamed for crib death; children are said to have been “strangled by the lamia.” In folktales, the lamia resembles an ogress who feeds on human flesh and is often presented as an obstacle to the tale’s hero, who must steal something from her or obtain some information.
Lamia (singular), in the titular painting by Herbert Draper:
The Lilin (singular - “lili”): Female demons of Babylonian mythology similar to a succubus in that they are female spirits who drain the life force from their victims. They hunt at night to prey on men and pregnant women. Later, the creatures were adapted to Judaism as Lilith, the mythological first wife of Adam, became the progenitor of the lilin after mating with Samael, the Talmudic precursor to Lucifer. From this point onward, all European legends associated with vampirism were closely linked with the Devil, even the sexual nature of the vampire can be found here.
Lilith, represented here with subtle symbolism by John Collier, deriving sexual pleasure from wrapping herself in a giant serpent:
Akhkharu: A Sumerian precursor to the lilin. The akhkharu, like the lilin, is a malevolent female spirit who hunted at night, but the Sumerian version feasted on actual blood rather than “life force.”
Shtriga – A witch from Albanian folklore that sucks the life force or blood out of children, the younger the better (high five), during the night, then moves on to another child the next night. Once all a family's children have been fed upon, the shtriga moves to a neighboring family and begins to feed on them. The only way to stop the shtriga’s curse or to cure its victims is to kill the creature itself. In order to do so, one would have to lure a shtriga into a church on Easter Sunday, then hang a cross of bone could be hung on the church’s entrance, trapping the vampiric witch inside. The creature could then be seized and destroyed as it attempts to exit the church. Also, after a shtriga feeds, it generally goes into the forest to vomit up its victim’s blood (as to why, I have not idea). A silver coin dipped in the regurgitated blood, then wrapped in a cloth would become an amulet that would permanently protect its bearer. The shtriga is closely related to the Romanian strigoi and the Roman Strix, both etymologically and in behavior.
Strigoi: Synonymous with moroi; usage usually depends on the region, with “moroi” being more common in rural eras. The strigoi, creatures from Romanian mythology, are the evil souls of the dead who have risen from the grave to haunt the living. They are closely related to Romanian werewolves, the pricolici and vârcolaci, who exhibit similar behaviors, but the strigoi maintain a phantasm-like version of their former physical bodies rather than of a large wolf or dog. Basically vampiric witches, they come in living (Strigoi viu) and undead (Strigoi mort) varieties. Proving that ginger people really do have no souls, the strigoi are said to have ginger hair, blue eyes, and two hearts. The term is mostly likely derived from the Latin “strix,” a shrieking vampiric bird.
Strix: As mentioned before, the strix is a bird-like monster of ancient Roman mythology. It feeds on human flesh and blood like a traditional vampire, but rather than being creatures of the dead, they are the product of metamorphosis. The first recorded story involving the strix is found in the myth of Polyphonte, whose sons were turned into wild beasts as a punishment for cannibalism. Polyphonte herself became a beast that "cries by night, without food or drink, with head below and tips of feet above, a harbinger of war and civil strife to men." Consistent physical descriptions are hard to come by, however, with Roman scientist/philosopher Pliny the Elder admitting he has little knowledge of them. Other writers, from Ovid to Saint Isidore, 7th Century Archbishop of Seville, have written about the strix; Ovid creating his own myth about the creature attacking a legendary king in his cradle, and Isidore documenting the monster as a part of his efforts to preserve classical culture. The creature’s namesake and behaviors were probably disseminated throughout the Roman Empire and gave rise to the previously mentioned strigoi and shtriga, as well as others, I’m sure. Whether this is the origin of the traditional European vampire, that is difficult to determine. The origin of the strix, however, is thought to be the unearthly, screeching sound of the European Scops Owl, which is said to be more akin to a “spooky horse whinny” than a hooting owl. As you can see, it’s a terrifying creature:
“I shall feast upon your flesh. Ya, rly.”
Vrykolakas: An animated corpse or, depending on who you ask, a non-corporeal ghost of modern Greek folklore who can leave its grave on any day except Saturday. I guess the undead observe the Sabbath. They are created when a person dies participating in a sacrilegious act (auto-erotic asphyxiation ftw!), is excommunicated, buried in unconsecrated ground, or, especially, eaten the flesh of a sheep that has been wounded by a werewolf. Some versions of the myth state that a werewolf could become a vrykolakas after being killed, though the vrykolakas is very resilient and can only be slain by fire or by a lightning strike. Suspected corpses are to be impaled, beheaded, and incinerated immediately as the creature becomes more and more powerful the longer it remains in living death. Though the vrykolakas lacks to blood-sucking characteristics of a vampire, the two have become intertwined over time to the point where the word “vampire” is sometimes translated into Greek as “vrykolakas” and that a modern Greek might think of Dracula as a vrykolakas. The creature, biting the neck, traditionally kills its victims by sitting on them, which results in the quarry being smothered. Much in the same way as the incubus and succubus of medieval demonology, the vrykolakas was a folkloric explanation for the then-misunderstood phenomenon of sleep paralysis.
Mormo: More Greek nonsense. Mormo is a minor goddess in ancient Greek mythology who bit children. Later, she became a bogeyman-like vampire creature who drank the blood of misbehaving children.
Manananggal – In Filipino (ew) folklore, the manananggal is an evil flesh-eating, blood-drinking witch that is repulsed by garlic. It normally takes the form of a beautiful woman, but detaches its upper torso, which sprouts huge bat-like wings and flies away, in order to feed. The detached torso will enter the homes of pregnant woman and use an elongated, tubular tongue to suck out the blood of the mother and child or, in a more gruesome twist, the heart of the unborn fetus. It is in the detached state, however, that the manananggal is at its most vulnerable. If one were to find the lower portion of the creature’s body, garlic, ash, or salt could be rubbed over it, making it impossible for the manananggal to rejoin its lower half, effectively killing it as the beast cannot survive daylight in its separated state. Incidentally, a manananggal can create others by tricking humans into drinking its blood, much like the transformation process of some European vampire myths.
Manananggal, by Christopher Andrew Bennett, courtesy of Google image search (because I’m so creative and resourceful):
Pontianak – In Indonesian folklore, a pontianak is the vengeful spirit of a woman who died in childbirth. The ghost will appear as a beautiful woman accompanied by the scent of flowers, but upon her return from the dead, she sets about terrorizing entire villages and “unwary” men. Note to Indonesians: stop trying to have sex with the undead. To avenge her own death, the pontianak, like the manananggal, mostly feeds on pregnant women and newborn children.
A poster from one of the many films based on the pontianak. Undoubtedly better than King Kong:
Langsuir - A Malaysian twist on the pontianak, the langsuir possesses its victims, sucking blood from inside his or her own body. Like the pontianak, a langsuir is always a woman who died in childbirth, though its appearance, rather than that of a beautiful woman, is far more menacing. The apparitions are usually described as having long fangs and hair, red eyes, sharp claws, a rotten face, and wearing a white robe.
Artist’s rendering:
Hopping Corpse (Chinese: jiangshi, literally “stiff corpse”): A human becomes a hopping corpse when that person’s soul remains in the physical body after death. The hopping corpse, its arms permanently outstretched, is forced to hop rather than walk due to being afflicted with rigor mortis. The myth originated from the folkloric practice of "Traveling a Corpse over a Thousand Li" (Li being a distance of about 500 meters). The legend concerns family members or companions who had died far away from home and did not have enough money to pay for the corpse to be transported home for burial. Those close to the deceased would then pay a Taoist priest to train the corpse to hop its own way back home. Traditionally, the jiangshi feeds on the qi (life force) of its victims but influences from the Western vampire has spurred the adoption of a “blood-sucking jiangshi” as a different variety of hopping corpse. The psychology behind the jiangshi is a reflection of the Chinese revulsion of the Qing Dynasty (also known as the Manchu Dynasty). The Manchu were from what is today northeastern China (Manchuria), a region that, before the Qing conquest in the first half of the 17th Century, was not associated with mainland China. The Han Chinese, the ethnic majority in China, viewed their Manchu rulers as inhuman monsters, sucking the life out of the “real” China. It is not surprising that the hopping corpse is universally dressed in traditional Manchu attire. The Chinese tradition of keeping a raised wooden block on the floor of an entrance to a household has its roots in warding off the jiangshi. This practice also calls to mind the European belief that vampires cannot enter a household without first being invited inside.
Traditional Manchu dress:
A child-like jiangshi, seen in one of its many depictions in Hong Kong cinema. They appear to be attracted to guys who sport a huge unibrow.
Succubus/Incubus: Although not typically associated with vampires, these medieval demons do share some characteristics with the living dead bloodsuckers. Both varieties of demon are malevolent creatures of the night who prey upon unsuspecting humans while they sleep. Like many of the vampire-like creatures listed here, both incubi and succubi drain the life force of their victims, oftentimes to the point of death. Like vampires, there is a sex-charges fluid exchange, with the succubus taking semen from its male victims and the incubus depositing semen in its female victims. Sometimes both creatures are one in the same, merely different forms. The incubus/succubus has a female form that drains semen from men, then turns into its male form to impregnate women to create children more susceptible to demonic influence. Other times, the succubus transfers the semen to the incubus, while still other versions give the incubus the ability to impregnate women on its own. These stories were inventions, as stated earlier, to explain sleep paralysis. In addition, succubi served as early cautionary tales against casual sexual encounters with strange women. The incubi provided a woman who had been the victim of a real-life sexual assault a way to prevent the humiliation of becoming pregnant out of wedlock. As bizarre as it may seem, it was more socially acceptable to be raped by a demon than by a real human, since rape victims were often looked upon with the same disdain as adulterers.
A succubus-like vampire:
Medieval European vampire-like undead that may or may not be related to vampire legends –
- Revenant: A corpse of medieval legend which has risen from the grave to haunt the living. Not to be confused with a zombie-like mindless cadaver, the revenant is a very personal and goal-oriented ghoul, intent on tormenting specific humans. A revenant is created when a wicked or heretical person dies, especially when they are subjected to improper burial. If this is the case, they will come back to plague those that had wronged them in life, often spreading disease among the living. If a person is a suspected revenant, the corpse should be exhumed and decapitated, burned, and/or its heart removed from its body. This more focused version of a ghost seems like a precursor to vampires, but most medieval scholars dismiss this notion, despite their similarities; revenants originated in Western European folktales rather than the Eastern Slavic regions where vampires first came into being.
-Mullo/Mulo: Literally translated as “one who is dead,” the mullo/mulo is a Gypsy (Roma) apparition that lives in the mountains and haunts/sucks the blood of the living, especially concentrating on relatives who performed an improper burial on the deceased or stole his/her possessions. The ghost lacks bones and has no middle finger on either hand, which I guess is scary to gypsies.
Vampires (actual vampires): Perhaps the only thing ever invented by Slavic peoples, the legend of what we know as the Vampire probably began with Europe’s most conquerable ethnicity. From the middle ages until the re-imagining of the creatures in the 19th century, a vampire was a monstrous creature, as hideous as one would expect a re-animated corpse to be. However, there were stories where, for example, a man would meet and have sex with a strange, beautiful woman, only to wake and find himself sharing a bed with a long-dead cadaver. These stories were perhaps the beginnings of the vampire’s evolution from a bloodsucking, bloated corpse into the [gross oversimplification ahead] high-society sex machines of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice.
The origins of these Slavic tales have their roots in cultures varying from the Ancient Romans to the fruit and vegetable-fearing gypsies. Tracing the beginnings of any legend, particularly one as pervasive as vampires, is destined to be a nebulous undertaking, especially for someone using Wikipedia as a major source for information. For example, the Russian anti-pagan text entitled Word of saint Grigoriy, written sometime between the 11th and 12th centuries, describes polytheistic Russians making sacrifices to vampires. Whether the accounts are accurate or were merely created to serve as anti-pagan propaganda, the presence of these stories demonstrate that vampires were pervasive enough in Slavic culture to be used as propaganda as early as the 11th Century. Gypsy peoples, as stated earlier, have their own beliefs on vampires, but since I do not know their precise migratory patterns (the first written account of gypsies occurred around 800 AD near the then Byzantine-controlled region of Thrace, possibly originating from as far away as India), I cannot state which culture influenced whom. In all likelihood, it is a combination of mutual influence, an expression of common fears, and the assimilation of older legends like the Hindu Vetala, the Roman strix, etc. The commonalities in the various vampiric legends from different parts of the world represent a culmination of humanity’s fear of everything we perceive as unnatural in the natural world. The dead have not only risen from the grave, defying all inherent laws of nature and God, but seek to feed on the living, possibly their loved ones, to either kill them or drag them into the living death. No matter what culture one is from, few things are as terrifying as the prospect of the corpse of a once-cherished relative coming after you in the night to force you into a fluid exchange…but then again, what do I know?
In any case, Slavs believed that vampirism was caused by a variety of circumstances such as being born with a caul (unbroken amniotic sac), teeth, or a tail; suffering an “irregular” death; or being the subject of improper burial rituals. If a body is buried under the suspicion of becoming a vampire (a “high-risk” candidate I suppose), along with the perennial crucifix, a wooden block is placed under the chin to prevent the carcass from eating its own burial shroud. Sawdust, grain, or seeds can also be placed at the grave site. Upon waking, a vampire is compelled to count each grain, seed, etc., which will hopefully take the entire night, killing the abomination at dawn. The ever-present stake to the heart could also be used, but it was traditionally used to keep the vampire nailed to the ground rather than to kill it. Echoing a gag from an Evil Dead film, a scythe was sometimes placed just above the corpse’s neck so it would decapitate itself if it were to sit up. Hilarious! The abhorrence of garlic and the urge to count grain are common traits of many Slavic monsters. In fact, garlic was so prevalent in Slavic culture that it was sometimes distributed at churches in order to determine if a vampire was among them. The congregation was then expected to eat the vegetable and those that did not were considered vampires.
Count Orlak from Nosferatu, probably the closest thing to a traditional vampire ever portrayed in film:
Romanian vampire legends are most likely an outcrop of the Slavic traditions, as Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries and was part of the Ancient Roman Empire’s frontier for many centuries. The ways to become a vampire are similar to the Slavic routes, though more elaborate. These include being born with a caul (I guess mucus-covered membranes are a tool of the devil), with extra hair, with an extra nipple, out of wedlock, or too early; a black cat crossing the mother’s path while she is pregnant; dying before baptism; being the seventh child of the same sex from the same mother; and finally, being born of a mother who does not eat salt during pregnancy. I really can’t figure that one out, but medieval Europeans loved to blame women, along with the Jews, for everything, so I guess it’s just one more thing that will send them and their undead-spewing vaginas to Hell. I’ll go with it. Of course, there is also the ever-present risk of being bitten by a vampire, which is a guaranteed sentence to share the creature’s fate, if one survives.
In Romanian legend, the first sign of a vampire stalking a village is the rampant death of livestock. Along with witches, vampires are likely to be roaming the Earth on Saint George’s Day, April 22nd, a night where all manner of malevolent creatures travel about. On this night especially, one prevents a vampire attack by rubbing the livestock and windows with garlic. More permanent anticipatory measures include placing a thorny rose branch over a grave, taking extra care to bury the deceased, preventing animals from approaching the dead, and burning a baby’s caul before the child has a chance to eat it. In some cases, bodies are routinely disinterred to check for vampirism; a child dug up three years after death, a young person after five years, and an adult after seven years. If a body shows signs of being not quite dead, the usual staking takes place along with decapitation and stuffing the mouth with garlic. In some cases, the body is dismembered and the various parts soaked in water to be given to family members as a cure. I do not know how this “cure” was administered.
The last major culture to contribute to what became Bram Stoker’s version of the vampire was the Roma people. No coincidentally, the attendants who serve Dracula and help transport him to England in Stoker’s novel are gypsies. India, the traditional birthplace of the Roma people, has many blood-sucking supernatural beings ingrained in its myths, folktales, and religion. Besides the already-discussed vetala, the pishacha are flesh-eating demons of Hindu mythology and the bhutas are the ghosts of men who have died violent deaths, wandering the Earth animating corpses. The Hindu and Buddhist (Buddhism was still prominent in India at the time the Roma emigrated) beliefs in reincarnation held that people who had led unholy or violent lives could be karmicly punished by coming back as one of these evil spirits. Supernatural blood-drinking was so ingrained in Hindu belief that Kali, the Hindu goddess of annihilation/deconstruction, is heavily associated with the practice. A version of Kali survives in some gypsy societies as “Sara,” also known as the “Black Goddess” or “Black Kali/Cally.” It should be emphasized that Kali is not an evil deity, but has only earned that reputation through the graphic images associated with here. Still, most metal goddess ever:
As for the beliefs on vampires, people who were disfigured, especially if they were missing a finger or had limbs similar to those of animals are believed to be vampires. If a person died alone or hidden or if a corpse became prematurely bloated, the body is susceptible to vampirism. As curious as it may sound, gypsy vampiric legends were not kept to humans. For example, pumpkins and watermelons (yes, pumpkins and watermelons) that are kept ten tens after Christmas may become vampires. However, even the Roma people find these creatures non-threatening and do not fear them, as melons and squashes have no teeth. There are even some legends concerning vampiric agricultural tools. In case you think I’m making this up, here is an account written by Balkans historian, folklorist, and ethnographer Tatomir P. Vukanović: “The [Gypsies] in [Kosovo] destroy pumpkins and melons which have become vampires … by plunging them into a pot of boiling water, which is then poured away, the vegetables being afterwards scrubbed by a broom and then thrown away, and the broom burned.” Incidentally, this has nothing to do with the tradition of making Jack O’-Lanterns on Halloween, as that custom is Celtic in origin.
A victim of the terrible Pumpkin Scourge:
Roma tales concerning protecting oneself and one’s village are perhaps the most elaborate among all traditional vampire lore. Making the task especially difficult is the fact that most people, or at least most gypsies, cannot see vampires. According to Tatomir P. Vukanović, they could only be seen "by a twin brother and sister born on a Saturday who wear their drawers and shirts inside out." A village could guard itself from an undead attack "by finding a twin brother and sister born on a Saturday and making them wear their shirts and drawers inside out. This pair could see the vampire out of doors at night, but immediately after it saw them it would have to flee, head over heels." Corpses suspected of vampirism are buried with stakes or steel needles through the heart; bits of metal placed over the eyes, ears, and fingers; and a branch of hawthorn (a type of shrub) stuffed into the sock or used as a stake. Boiling water could be poured over the body and it could also be, as is very common, decapitated and burned. Other legends talk of hiring a dhampir, a half-vampire half-human, or a moroi, a ghost sometimes associated with energy vampirism or lycanthropism, to dispose of the greater menace. I do not know how one would go about hiring supernatural beings, nor do I know how the gypsies rid themselves of them. The fact that tradition recommends the use of werewolf-like ghosts and the half-undead to dispose of vampires demonstrates how menacing some cultures find the creatures.
Perhaps the one of the reasons why these folktales and legends became so propagated, and how writers like Bram Stoker came to be fascinated in them, can be traced to the “Vampire Craze” of the first half of the 18th Century. The two most famous cases are that of Peter Plogojovitz and Arnold Paole, Serbian peasants who died and supposedly returned from the dead to kill their fellow villagers. Plogojovitz died in 1725 and was followed in quick succession by nine other peasants who died of a short, virulent disease or diseases. Before dying, the victims would claim to have been “throttled” by Plogojovitz during the night. According to local tradition, the same village had been obliterated by a vampire centuries ago when Serbia was still under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Overcome by fear, the villagers disinterred Plogojovitz’s body, which was found to be in “vampiric condition,” and promptly drove a stake through its heart and burned it. The whole procedure was observed by an official of the Austrian government, who declared Plogojovitz a genuine vampire and condoned the desecration. Understanding of the decomposition process at the time was very limited, which accounts for Plogojovitz being mistaken for the undead. For a more detailed description of why people thought decomposing corpses were in fact vampires, see my previous blog entry.
Arnold Paole’s circumstances were similar to Plogojovitz in that his alleged vampirism was confirmed by an Austrian official. Before returning to his home village of Medveda, Paole had been an outlaw/bandit/”freedom fighter” (known as a hajduk) operating in Ottoman territory. He stated that while in the Turkish-controlled areas of the Balkans, he came under the plague of a vampire but cured himself by eating soil from the creature’s grave and smearing himself with its blood. Sometime around 1725-1726, Paole broke his neck and perished. Twenty to thirty days later, four people claimed to have been assaulted by the deceased man and died shortly thereafter. The locals consulted another hajduk who supposedly had experience in such matters. He advised them to disinter Paole’s body and drive a stake through his heart, instructions the villagers soon followed, repeating the procedure with Paole’s “victims.” A second and much more prolific epidemic occurred in the same village in 1731 in which seventeen people of various ages and phases of health died after brief and intense maladies, some after only one or two days. Several victims reported having been assaulted by those that had died before them, one going so far as to claim she smeared herself in “vampire” blood to protect herself. The citizens of Medveda surmised that the second plague began because the first victim(s) had eaten beef from cattle that Paole had drank from while he was under the living death. When the Austrian authorities heard of these new deaths, they sent more authorities to investigate. With the help of local gypsies (always a good idea) and town elders, the bodies were unearthed and examined. Twelve were officially declared to be in “vampiric condition.” By the 1740s, many prominent physicians and thinkers (most notably, the usually critical French writer/philosopher Voltaire) were swayed into believing these vampire “outbreaks” were fact. The debate was quite controversial in Europe at the time and was only prolonged by villagers digging up one corpse after another. Fed up with the dispute, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria sent Gerhard van Swieten, a personal physician to the royal family, to determine the legitimacy of the claims. He promptly found that vampires did not exist, which resulted in laws forbidding the desecration of bodies, for any purpose.
Similar instances occurred in New England as late as the 19th Century, with the most famous case being that of nineteen year old Mercy Brown, who died in 1892. Her father, with the help of the family physician, dug up her body and removed her heart, thinking her to be a vampire (though the term was never officially used). Tuberculosis, then called consumption, commonly took the lives of several members of one family or village due to its highly contagious nature. Many people looked to a supernatural cause as the answer for the tragedy the disease could inflict. Documents concerning the Mercy Brown incident were found among Bram Stoker’s personal effects and probably inspired much of the plot in his novel Dracula.
As Stoker’s novel became one of the most recognized stories in Western fiction, his sexually charged vision of the vampire became one the public began to use to replace the revolting ghoul-like creature of yore. With the portrayal of The Count by this guy…
…the vampire’s future was sealed. Lugosi’s brilliant embodiment of Dracula would become the blueprint and reference point for all vampires to come. In less than half a century Stoker and Lugosi has transformed the vampire from a superstition of infinitely knotted origins (that was used to explain the tragedy of tuberculosis) into a malevolent Transylvanian nobleman whose appetite was matched by his charms. Of course, the “creature of the night” has evolved far beyond Dracula, for better or for worse, but The Count remains one of the most recognizable villains and supernatural beings in the Western world.
I Never Drink...Wine, Part One
In celebration of Halloween, I decided to write about one of the most celebrate symbols of the holiday in modern culture and horror fiction: the vampire. Although not traditionally associated with the holiday (by “traditionally,” I mean the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain and the Norse celebration of the Elven Blót; for more information on those holidays, see my entry on the holiday itself done last October), vampires have becomes an-ever present icon, not just on Halloween, but in a much larger cultural context. Due to the luminal nature of vampire legends, I feel it is appropriate for this time of year. However, I will concentrate on the historic origins of the bloodsucking undead rather than the modern representations. I will complete an entry on the folk origins of the vampire soon enough. I find the legend much more interesting when people actually believed in it, rather than now, when people play dress-up and discuss Anne Rice novels at goth clubs.
The earliest appearance of the word “vampire,” at least an etymological descendant of it, occurred in a 1047 letter to a Novgorodian prince (Novgorod being a province in Northwestern Russia, north of Moscow and seat of power in medieval Russia), addressing him as an “Upir Lichyj” (Wicked Vampire). In the strictest sense, the term “vampire” refers to the Eastern European legend of the undead coming back to life and sucking the blood of the living. This legend became so propagated in Europe, even during the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment, that corpses were frequently decapitated before burial…just to make sure. Regardless, the reason why the walking dead fiend is so prevalent in our culture is undoubtedly Bram Stoker’s masterful reworking of the Eastern European legend, mixing it with real-life accounts of, most famously, Vlad Tepes/the Impaler (who called himself Vlad III Dracula), and Elizabeth Bathory, nicknamed The Blood Countess. Many of you know the crimes with which these figures have been accused of (I believe I’ve written about them as well). Lady Bathory was supposed to have killed as many as 600 young girls, using their blood (either by bathing or drinking) to keep her youth. Vlad Tepes has been charged with acts ranging from the murder of foreign dignitaries, to cannibalism, to mass executions and torture.
Each of these villainous historical figures are purported to have committed the greatest of cultural taboos: cannibalism, at least in some form. The historical Dracula was accused of dining on his victims amongst those he executed by means of impalement. Bathory was said to actively bathe in the blood of young virginal girls, as well as drinking the liquid, in order to preserve her beauty. Because of the already-present fear of vampires prevalent in Eastern Europe, these deeds undoubtedly struck a chord with the Transylvanian populace, who lived in fear of folk legends as if they were factual. The vampire is the apex of everything inhuman in our fears and imaginations. It defies death, the ultimate eventuality of life, which holds a special finality for the almost universally Christian Romania of medieval Europe. It is able to control our minds and thoughts as it seeks the supreme sin of cannibalism. It is not a mindless slave, uncontrollable beast, or malicious trickster like some other traditional folk villains; it is a cold, absolutely evil being beyond the bounds of life and death, and by implication, beyond the control of God. Whether one believes on Heaven and Hell or karma-driven reincarnation, if a being cannot die, it cannot be exposed to the divine justice of the afterlife. Combined with this, the act so sucking fluid through a bite to an erogenous zone had an inherent sexual connotation that became terrifying in the context of the vampire. This made a vampire attack akin to a rape, and what could be worse than being (song title coming up) raped by the undead? When actual humans began to show similarities in behavior to creatures who are able to defy natural laws in order to pursue malevolent ends, it surely struck a cord with the local populace. Bram Stoker recognized these innate fears and wrote them into his landmark novel. Granted, his Dracula bears little resemblance to the historical Vlad, but Stoker did spend many years studying vampire legends and probably incorporated the bloodthirst present in his vampires from Lady Bathory.
The Countess Bathory – Bathing in the blood of the innocent since 1585
There are those who believe that Vlad and Countess Bathory are the victims of not only propaganda by their contemporaries, but also the continuation of their exaggerated deeds by modern scholars and laymen alike, who perhaps wish to propagate the vampire myth with tales of their horrendous, blood-soaked sin. This is nonsense. To suggest that these murderers are victims in any way is a symptom of historical apologists and sanitation. Some have even suggested that Bathory was a victim of a cruel husband and a sexist society that manufactured her crimes in order to overthrow her. It is true that her husband, who died before the Countess’ reign of terror really began, was a sadistic nobleman who had a penchant for creative torture methods. However, to insinuate that Bathory was some kind of “modern woman” who fell to society’s ills borders on insanity. I find it disturbing that we are so willing to dismiss disturbing, outrageously violent events in history just because they are disturbing and outrageously violent. Accounts of Lady Bathory bathing in blood are far less outlandish than any version of Jeffery Dahmer’s sex-charge cannibalistic killing spree. In centuries to come, will we view the crimes of 20th century serial killers as the products of exaggeration and sensationalism? I hope not. The extent of Bathory’s crimes is mostly due to her status as a noble and the inability of local authorities to take any action against the then-untouchable aristocracy. If a peasant says that a noblewoman kidnapped and murdered her daughter, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Vlad III Dracula: Played by Sacha Baron Cohen in an upcoming biopic? Maybe that guy from Gogol Bordello?
Vlad is a more complicated subject. Much of what we know about his atrocities comes from pamphlets published by the Holy Roman Empire; his enemies. The pamphlets were published for the purpose of propaganda and intended to inspire fear and hatred for the prince. These documents describe Vlad’s supposed cannibalistic tendencies, as well as a host of other inhuman traits. However, he remains a lauded folk hero in Romania for his strength and his ability to fend off the Ottoman Empire, a nation who also viewed Vlad with contempt. His “strength” as a ruler is perhaps derived from his cruelty, but that is speculation. Did he impale as many as 10,000 people at a time? Doubtful. Did he “dine” amongst those he executed? Probably not. Did he drink the blood and devour the flesh of his victims in a mockery of the Christian sacrament of communion? Again, unlikely. However, did he leave bodies impaled on stakes for months on end? This seems equally morbid and unlikely, but consider the actions of other European powers when using execution as punishment. Romans left the dead on crucifixes until they fell off from decay and medieval European nations left corpses hung in the gallows in a similar fashion (unless they were particularly reviled, in which case their bodies were dismembered and the parts sent to various highly populated areas for maximum viewing potential). It is far more likely that Vlad, like his medieval and classical counterparts, kept the executed bodies unburied as a warning. Vlad, having so many enemies and living in a region surrounded by hostile armies, probably knew the benefit of propaganda himself. Hell, he might have promoted the stories about him in order to incite fear in the very people those pamphlets were intended to reach. In my opinion, convincing a group of people that your enemy is a ruthless tyrant with not only the will, but the ability to execute tens of thousands of people on his whim is not the most effective method of brining others to your side.
The propaganda concerning these figures surely led to the continuation of their legend in both folktale and traditional fiction. It is also probable that, because these fictions and folktales exist, we are less likely to believe in the real-life atrocities that are associated with them. It is ironic that while many legends are based on fact, we have come to view these legends in such a skeptical light that we refuse to believe that factual events have taken place. Am I suggesting that the undead have, in fact, risen from the grave to stalk the living? No, I just wish people would not be so quick to discount the extraordinary just because it defies convention. Quite a tall order, I realize.
Still, there are numerous factual causes, beyond the historical, for the propagation of the vampire myth. For one, several diseases have been proposed to be the source of the myth, or at least some elements of it. Rabies, for example, can cause inhuman, violent behavior and the frothing at the mouth occasionally appears red, as if the infected has been drinking blood. A victim of the disease may even avoid sunlight and his or her own reflection. However, these observations are anecdotal and there is little to no evidence to suggest that rabies is the source for certain characteristics of vampires. There is also a rare psychological disorder called clinical vampirism (also known as Renfield Syndrome) where the victim has a pathological need to drink blood, either human or animal. However, I am not sure whether this disorder goes back to before the time when vampire fiction and legend were universal, or, as the name suggests, a product of the inundation of vampire lore in our culture, especially Stoker’s tale.
One of the main sources behind the continuation of vampire stories is various reports of people finding “vampires” in graves. This is mostly due to the lack of understanding of the decomposition process that people had during the time when digging up a person’s grave to check if he or she was a vampire was common. Corpses decay at a variety of rates due to a variety of factors and internal decomposition was probably not apparent to villagers in medieval Europe. For one, corpses are likely to expand due to the buildup of gases, especially around the belly. People who had dug up supposed vampires described the alleged undead to appear more “plump” and well-fed than the person had been in life, giving the appearance that the deceased had, in fact, been feasting from beyond the grave. Now, a standard way to kill or at least subdue a vampire is to drive a stake through its heart; imagine what a wooden stake would do to a carcass that is bloated from decomposition. The body would not only burst forth with a plethora of fluid, again giving the impression that the deceased had “fed,” but would also produce a variety of gastronomic reactions. These range from gases escaping the throat and anus (resulting in what one vampire investigator called “wild signs which I pass by out of high respect") to actual movement of the body itself. Decomposition could have caused the body to contort before the casket was even opened, which probably spooked those exhuming the grave. Gas build up can also cause blood to exit from the nose and mouth, giving more evidence to the “corpse has fed” belief. Finally, the loss of moisture due to decay can cause the gums, hair follicles, and cuticles to recede, giving the impression of hair, nail, and teeth growth. Morbid.
I’ve jabbered long enough. I will get to the folk traditions of European vampires and their undead corollaries in other cultures in the next entry.
On a side note, this is my hundredth blog entry. Granted, some were rather short and many more were rather worthless, but it is a centennial event all the same. In celebration, I think I’ll go eat and listen to some metal.
The earliest appearance of the word “vampire,” at least an etymological descendant of it, occurred in a 1047 letter to a Novgorodian prince (Novgorod being a province in Northwestern Russia, north of Moscow and seat of power in medieval Russia), addressing him as an “Upir Lichyj” (Wicked Vampire). In the strictest sense, the term “vampire” refers to the Eastern European legend of the undead coming back to life and sucking the blood of the living. This legend became so propagated in Europe, even during the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment, that corpses were frequently decapitated before burial…just to make sure. Regardless, the reason why the walking dead fiend is so prevalent in our culture is undoubtedly Bram Stoker’s masterful reworking of the Eastern European legend, mixing it with real-life accounts of, most famously, Vlad Tepes/the Impaler (who called himself Vlad III Dracula), and Elizabeth Bathory, nicknamed The Blood Countess. Many of you know the crimes with which these figures have been accused of (I believe I’ve written about them as well). Lady Bathory was supposed to have killed as many as 600 young girls, using their blood (either by bathing or drinking) to keep her youth. Vlad Tepes has been charged with acts ranging from the murder of foreign dignitaries, to cannibalism, to mass executions and torture.
Each of these villainous historical figures are purported to have committed the greatest of cultural taboos: cannibalism, at least in some form. The historical Dracula was accused of dining on his victims amongst those he executed by means of impalement. Bathory was said to actively bathe in the blood of young virginal girls, as well as drinking the liquid, in order to preserve her beauty. Because of the already-present fear of vampires prevalent in Eastern Europe, these deeds undoubtedly struck a chord with the Transylvanian populace, who lived in fear of folk legends as if they were factual. The vampire is the apex of everything inhuman in our fears and imaginations. It defies death, the ultimate eventuality of life, which holds a special finality for the almost universally Christian Romania of medieval Europe. It is able to control our minds and thoughts as it seeks the supreme sin of cannibalism. It is not a mindless slave, uncontrollable beast, or malicious trickster like some other traditional folk villains; it is a cold, absolutely evil being beyond the bounds of life and death, and by implication, beyond the control of God. Whether one believes on Heaven and Hell or karma-driven reincarnation, if a being cannot die, it cannot be exposed to the divine justice of the afterlife. Combined with this, the act so sucking fluid through a bite to an erogenous zone had an inherent sexual connotation that became terrifying in the context of the vampire. This made a vampire attack akin to a rape, and what could be worse than being (song title coming up) raped by the undead? When actual humans began to show similarities in behavior to creatures who are able to defy natural laws in order to pursue malevolent ends, it surely struck a cord with the local populace. Bram Stoker recognized these innate fears and wrote them into his landmark novel. Granted, his Dracula bears little resemblance to the historical Vlad, but Stoker did spend many years studying vampire legends and probably incorporated the bloodthirst present in his vampires from Lady Bathory.
The Countess Bathory – Bathing in the blood of the innocent since 1585
There are those who believe that Vlad and Countess Bathory are the victims of not only propaganda by their contemporaries, but also the continuation of their exaggerated deeds by modern scholars and laymen alike, who perhaps wish to propagate the vampire myth with tales of their horrendous, blood-soaked sin. This is nonsense. To suggest that these murderers are victims in any way is a symptom of historical apologists and sanitation. Some have even suggested that Bathory was a victim of a cruel husband and a sexist society that manufactured her crimes in order to overthrow her. It is true that her husband, who died before the Countess’ reign of terror really began, was a sadistic nobleman who had a penchant for creative torture methods. However, to insinuate that Bathory was some kind of “modern woman” who fell to society’s ills borders on insanity. I find it disturbing that we are so willing to dismiss disturbing, outrageously violent events in history just because they are disturbing and outrageously violent. Accounts of Lady Bathory bathing in blood are far less outlandish than any version of Jeffery Dahmer’s sex-charge cannibalistic killing spree. In centuries to come, will we view the crimes of 20th century serial killers as the products of exaggeration and sensationalism? I hope not. The extent of Bathory’s crimes is mostly due to her status as a noble and the inability of local authorities to take any action against the then-untouchable aristocracy. If a peasant says that a noblewoman kidnapped and murdered her daughter, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Vlad III Dracula: Played by Sacha Baron Cohen in an upcoming biopic? Maybe that guy from Gogol Bordello?
Vlad is a more complicated subject. Much of what we know about his atrocities comes from pamphlets published by the Holy Roman Empire; his enemies. The pamphlets were published for the purpose of propaganda and intended to inspire fear and hatred for the prince. These documents describe Vlad’s supposed cannibalistic tendencies, as well as a host of other inhuman traits. However, he remains a lauded folk hero in Romania for his strength and his ability to fend off the Ottoman Empire, a nation who also viewed Vlad with contempt. His “strength” as a ruler is perhaps derived from his cruelty, but that is speculation. Did he impale as many as 10,000 people at a time? Doubtful. Did he “dine” amongst those he executed? Probably not. Did he drink the blood and devour the flesh of his victims in a mockery of the Christian sacrament of communion? Again, unlikely. However, did he leave bodies impaled on stakes for months on end? This seems equally morbid and unlikely, but consider the actions of other European powers when using execution as punishment. Romans left the dead on crucifixes until they fell off from decay and medieval European nations left corpses hung in the gallows in a similar fashion (unless they were particularly reviled, in which case their bodies were dismembered and the parts sent to various highly populated areas for maximum viewing potential). It is far more likely that Vlad, like his medieval and classical counterparts, kept the executed bodies unburied as a warning. Vlad, having so many enemies and living in a region surrounded by hostile armies, probably knew the benefit of propaganda himself. Hell, he might have promoted the stories about him in order to incite fear in the very people those pamphlets were intended to reach. In my opinion, convincing a group of people that your enemy is a ruthless tyrant with not only the will, but the ability to execute tens of thousands of people on his whim is not the most effective method of brining others to your side.
The propaganda concerning these figures surely led to the continuation of their legend in both folktale and traditional fiction. It is also probable that, because these fictions and folktales exist, we are less likely to believe in the real-life atrocities that are associated with them. It is ironic that while many legends are based on fact, we have come to view these legends in such a skeptical light that we refuse to believe that factual events have taken place. Am I suggesting that the undead have, in fact, risen from the grave to stalk the living? No, I just wish people would not be so quick to discount the extraordinary just because it defies convention. Quite a tall order, I realize.
Still, there are numerous factual causes, beyond the historical, for the propagation of the vampire myth. For one, several diseases have been proposed to be the source of the myth, or at least some elements of it. Rabies, for example, can cause inhuman, violent behavior and the frothing at the mouth occasionally appears red, as if the infected has been drinking blood. A victim of the disease may even avoid sunlight and his or her own reflection. However, these observations are anecdotal and there is little to no evidence to suggest that rabies is the source for certain characteristics of vampires. There is also a rare psychological disorder called clinical vampirism (also known as Renfield Syndrome) where the victim has a pathological need to drink blood, either human or animal. However, I am not sure whether this disorder goes back to before the time when vampire fiction and legend were universal, or, as the name suggests, a product of the inundation of vampire lore in our culture, especially Stoker’s tale.
One of the main sources behind the continuation of vampire stories is various reports of people finding “vampires” in graves. This is mostly due to the lack of understanding of the decomposition process that people had during the time when digging up a person’s grave to check if he or she was a vampire was common. Corpses decay at a variety of rates due to a variety of factors and internal decomposition was probably not apparent to villagers in medieval Europe. For one, corpses are likely to expand due to the buildup of gases, especially around the belly. People who had dug up supposed vampires described the alleged undead to appear more “plump” and well-fed than the person had been in life, giving the appearance that the deceased had, in fact, been feasting from beyond the grave. Now, a standard way to kill or at least subdue a vampire is to drive a stake through its heart; imagine what a wooden stake would do to a carcass that is bloated from decomposition. The body would not only burst forth with a plethora of fluid, again giving the impression that the deceased had “fed,” but would also produce a variety of gastronomic reactions. These range from gases escaping the throat and anus (resulting in what one vampire investigator called “wild signs which I pass by out of high respect") to actual movement of the body itself. Decomposition could have caused the body to contort before the casket was even opened, which probably spooked those exhuming the grave. Gas build up can also cause blood to exit from the nose and mouth, giving more evidence to the “corpse has fed” belief. Finally, the loss of moisture due to decay can cause the gums, hair follicles, and cuticles to recede, giving the impression of hair, nail, and teeth growth. Morbid.
I’ve jabbered long enough. I will get to the folk traditions of European vampires and their undead corollaries in other cultures in the next entry.
On a side note, this is my hundredth blog entry. Granted, some were rather short and many more were rather worthless, but it is a centennial event all the same. In celebration, I think I’ll go eat and listen to some metal.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Rotting Papal Corpse
No, really. Not the present pope, Benedict XVI, but Pope Formosus (ruled from October 6th, 891 to April 4th, 896) whose decomposing corpse was disinterred and put on trial by the then Pope-Stephen VI in January of 897. This show trial would come to be known, in eternal infamy, as the Cadaver Synod (a synod being a type of ecumenical council or court assembled in an organized religion). Death and black metal bands, you have been out-grimmed for the past 1112 years, and you didn’t even know it. And it’s by a guy whose name is Latin for “good-looking” (literally “well-formed”).
Jean-Paul Laurens’ (1838-1921) “Pope Formosus and Stephen VII.” Note that the Stephen in the painting is presently known as Stephen VI, but changes in papal titles and the definition of “legitimacy” has changed the naming of certain pontiffs, Stephen being one example.
Looks like he’s not feeling talkative.
What kind of individuals were insane, bizarre, and impervious-to-stinkiness enough to carry out such a trial? To answer this question, it is necessary to understand the nature of the papacy during this time of the early Middle Ages. Specifically, the period from the middle of the 9th to about the middle of the 10th centuries is sometimes referred to the “iron age” of the papacy. During this time, the Church’s highest office was dominated by the ruling families in Rome (most notably the Counts of Tusculum) and the Germanic kings of the Holy Roman Empire, both using the papal thrown as a mechanism for increasing their own power.
Extent of the Holy Roman Empire, whose borders ended just north of Rome. Even though the pope actually crowned the emperors of this realm, its power and influence necessitated treating it with some measure of delicacy. You know, to prevent invasions.
Between 872 and 965, there were 24 popes and in the eight years between 894 and 904, there were nine. Here are some reasons why:
-John VIII (r. 872-882) – Considered one of the last competent and morally worthwhile pontiffs until St. Leo IX became pope in 1049. As a result, he was poisoned by his entourage and his skull was crushed by a hammer when said poison did not work fast enough.
-Leo V (r. July-September of 903) – Deposed, imprisoned, then strangled. Hilariously, his assassins were employed by Antipope (pretender to the thrown) Christopher, who was in turn assassinated by Pope Sergius III.
-John X (r. 914-928) – Deposed, imprisoned, then smothered in his sleep.
-Stephen VII (r. 928-931) – Deposed, imprisoned, then strangled.
-John XII – (r. 937-964) A notoriously licentious man, he died either of a stroke suffered while in bed with a married woman or was beaten to death by that woman’s husband.
More fun facts!
-Boniface VI (r. 896) – Only pope to have been twice degraded from holy orders as punishment for immoral acts prior to his election.
-Sergius III (r. 904-911) - Becomes the first and only pope to order the assassination of another pope, as he had Leo V (see above) strangled after the latter was deposed.
-John XI (r. 931-935) – Only pope to be the illegitimate son of a former pope… that being Sergius III.
-John XII (r. 955-964) – Due to political craziness in Rome, this immoral, vulgar, and incompetent man became the youngest person elected pope. He was eighteen.
Anyway, the unfortunate Formosus had a promising career before his body was desecrated by the supposed holiest men on the planet. He was the bishop of Portus, a town just south of Rome, who was considered a legitimate candidate for the papacy as early as 872, but was not elected due to the complex political machinations of the Eternal City. During his time as bishop, he carried out missionary work in Bulgaria that was incredibly successful, this was especially impressive because anything successful in Bulgaria is a rarity.* So successful was he that the Bulgarians requested him to be their own bishop, but since Catholic doctrine forbids the “transmigration of sees,” Pope Nicolas I refused the request.
Shortly before the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald (and for reasons now unknown), Formosus fled Rome in 875 to escape the clutches of then-pope and future victim of assassination, John VIII. At a synod in 876, John accused Formosus of “corrupting” the minds of the Bulgarians so that they would not accept any bishop’s rule other than his, for attempting to usurp the papacy from John, and for deserting his see and thereby weakening the Church and the reign of Charles the Bald. This resulted in the excommunication of Formosus. Then, as mentioned above, John VIII was assassinated and Formosus was able to return to Rome and resume his duties as bishop, his excommunication rescinded for the time being. However, the troubles with John VIII would form the basis for his posthumous trial and various defilements.
It should be noted that Formosus did not have any involvement with John VIII’s assassination. Though it did help his career, there were many more powerful interests much closer to John who wanted his skull crushed.
Overcoming the insignificant obstacle of formerly being excommunicated, Formosus was elected as pope in 891. The significant events leading to the synod are as follows:
-In 892, Formosus crowns Lambert of Spoleto as the co-ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. This is funny because there already was a ruler of the Holy Roman Empire (at least in name, the throne was kind of up for grabs at this time)… the Holy Roman Emperor, and father of Lambert, Guy III of Spoleto… who was crowned by Pope John VIII.
-Formosus fears Guy III getting angry (I wonder why), so in 893, he invites the Frankish nobleman/king Arnulf of Carinthia to invade Italy.
-The invasion fails, but Guy III dies, seemingly freeing Formosus of his wrath.
-In 895, Formosus invites Arnulf back to Italy anyway and then crowns him Holy Roman Emperor.
-Arnulf dies a few months later from paralysis.
-Formosus dies in 896 and is succeeded by Pope Boniface VI (see above).
-Boniface VI dies after two weeks.
-Boniface VI is succeeded by Stephen VI, who would conduct the Cadaver Synod.
Though there is some debate about the motivations of the various parties, Lambert probably encouraged the synod as a way for him to re-establish his authority after the horribly convoluted series of deaths and political maneuvers that occurred during the preceding few years. However, he was present at the subsequent councils that retracted the decisions of the Cadaver Synod, showing that he perhaps did not intend for such a macabre display or did not harbor personal ill will to Formosus. More on that stuff later.
By most accounts, Formosus was an extremely capable and intelligent man, but that did not stop him from making very powerful enemies. Stephen VI’s hatred for Formosus was almost psychotic in nature and he made it his mission to destroy the name and reputation of his most-loathed adversary. Stephen had the body of Formosus, dead several months, disinterred, dressed in papal vestments, and put on display in front of an assemblage of clergy who were coerced into attending the Synod or were present merely out of fear. Stephen dominated the trial, hurling vicious tirades at the putrid body, and accusing it/him of perjury, coveting the papal throne (of John VIII), and practicing duties as a bishop while a layman (presumably while he was excommunicated).
Surprise surprise, Formosus was convicted on all charges and all his decrees as pope were nullified. In addition, the three fingers on his right hand, those used to give papal blessings, were hacked off. He was then stripped of his vestments, draped in a monk’s robe, and buried in a common grave. Some accounts have the body being instead thrown into the Tiber river or disinterred and then thrown into the Tiber where it was rescued by a monk.
The trial would lead to Stephen’s downfall as its grisly, sick nature and the desecration of the corpse of a former (and non-licentious) pontiff enraged the populace of Rome to the point of near-revolution. Stephen was then deposed, imprisoned, and, you guessed it, strangled while in prison. But the fun doesn’t end there.
Stephen’s successor, Theodore II, held his own synod where he reversed the rulings of the Cadaver Synod and re-instated the officials terminated by Stephen. He also had the body of Formosus re-interred in St. Peter’s.
However, Theodore II’s rule as pontiff only lasted twenty days. In an attempt to legitimize the most recent rulings, his successor, John IX (r. 898-900), re-affirmed the decisions of Theodore’s synod at two separate synods of his own. John IX also outlawed the practice of putting dead people on trial. Nice one.
Then came Sergius III. Remember him? The guy who ordered the assassination of a pervious pope and illegitimately fathered a future pope? Well, he was one of the clergy who convicted Formosus in the first place and had copious amounts of hatred for the dead man. He held his own synod that reversed the rulings of Theodore II’s and John IX’s synods and re-affirmed the rulings of the Cadaver Synod. He even went so far as to add an inscription on Formosus’ tomb lambasting the deceased pontiff and praising Stephen VI. My head hurts.
Incidentally, there has never been a Formosus II.
Sergius III: cartoonishly evil or just a gigantic prick?
Sergius III ushered in what would come to be known as the “pornocracy” (rule of harlots) in the papacy that would last for another sixty years. This period not only saw a succession of particularly lecherous, incompetent, and immoral pontiffs, but the unprecedented domination of the holiest office in the Church by a select group of Roman families. Most notable of these were two prominent women of the Counts of Tusculum: Theodora and her daughter Marozia. Marozia was the lover of Sergius III, the probably mother of the bastard Pope John XI, the grandmother of the eighteen-year-old frat boy Pope John XII, and played an integral role in the assassination of Pope John X.
Information gleaned from:
http://www.law.uga.edu/academics/profiles/dwilkes_more/his31_cadaver.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Formosus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Stephen_VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Sergius_III
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornocracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_VIII
*I mean, they couldn’t even beat Ireland in the Quidditch World Cup. Losers.
Jean-Paul Laurens’ (1838-1921) “Pope Formosus and Stephen VII.” Note that the Stephen in the painting is presently known as Stephen VI, but changes in papal titles and the definition of “legitimacy” has changed the naming of certain pontiffs, Stephen being one example.
Looks like he’s not feeling talkative.
What kind of individuals were insane, bizarre, and impervious-to-stinkiness enough to carry out such a trial? To answer this question, it is necessary to understand the nature of the papacy during this time of the early Middle Ages. Specifically, the period from the middle of the 9th to about the middle of the 10th centuries is sometimes referred to the “iron age” of the papacy. During this time, the Church’s highest office was dominated by the ruling families in Rome (most notably the Counts of Tusculum) and the Germanic kings of the Holy Roman Empire, both using the papal thrown as a mechanism for increasing their own power.
Extent of the Holy Roman Empire, whose borders ended just north of Rome. Even though the pope actually crowned the emperors of this realm, its power and influence necessitated treating it with some measure of delicacy. You know, to prevent invasions.
Between 872 and 965, there were 24 popes and in the eight years between 894 and 904, there were nine. Here are some reasons why:
-John VIII (r. 872-882) – Considered one of the last competent and morally worthwhile pontiffs until St. Leo IX became pope in 1049. As a result, he was poisoned by his entourage and his skull was crushed by a hammer when said poison did not work fast enough.
-Leo V (r. July-September of 903) – Deposed, imprisoned, then strangled. Hilariously, his assassins were employed by Antipope (pretender to the thrown) Christopher, who was in turn assassinated by Pope Sergius III.
-John X (r. 914-928) – Deposed, imprisoned, then smothered in his sleep.
-Stephen VII (r. 928-931) – Deposed, imprisoned, then strangled.
-John XII – (r. 937-964) A notoriously licentious man, he died either of a stroke suffered while in bed with a married woman or was beaten to death by that woman’s husband.
More fun facts!
-Boniface VI (r. 896) – Only pope to have been twice degraded from holy orders as punishment for immoral acts prior to his election.
-Sergius III (r. 904-911) - Becomes the first and only pope to order the assassination of another pope, as he had Leo V (see above) strangled after the latter was deposed.
-John XI (r. 931-935) – Only pope to be the illegitimate son of a former pope… that being Sergius III.
-John XII (r. 955-964) – Due to political craziness in Rome, this immoral, vulgar, and incompetent man became the youngest person elected pope. He was eighteen.
Anyway, the unfortunate Formosus had a promising career before his body was desecrated by the supposed holiest men on the planet. He was the bishop of Portus, a town just south of Rome, who was considered a legitimate candidate for the papacy as early as 872, but was not elected due to the complex political machinations of the Eternal City. During his time as bishop, he carried out missionary work in Bulgaria that was incredibly successful, this was especially impressive because anything successful in Bulgaria is a rarity.* So successful was he that the Bulgarians requested him to be their own bishop, but since Catholic doctrine forbids the “transmigration of sees,” Pope Nicolas I refused the request.
Shortly before the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald (and for reasons now unknown), Formosus fled Rome in 875 to escape the clutches of then-pope and future victim of assassination, John VIII. At a synod in 876, John accused Formosus of “corrupting” the minds of the Bulgarians so that they would not accept any bishop’s rule other than his, for attempting to usurp the papacy from John, and for deserting his see and thereby weakening the Church and the reign of Charles the Bald. This resulted in the excommunication of Formosus. Then, as mentioned above, John VIII was assassinated and Formosus was able to return to Rome and resume his duties as bishop, his excommunication rescinded for the time being. However, the troubles with John VIII would form the basis for his posthumous trial and various defilements.
It should be noted that Formosus did not have any involvement with John VIII’s assassination. Though it did help his career, there were many more powerful interests much closer to John who wanted his skull crushed.
Overcoming the insignificant obstacle of formerly being excommunicated, Formosus was elected as pope in 891. The significant events leading to the synod are as follows:
-In 892, Formosus crowns Lambert of Spoleto as the co-ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. This is funny because there already was a ruler of the Holy Roman Empire (at least in name, the throne was kind of up for grabs at this time)… the Holy Roman Emperor, and father of Lambert, Guy III of Spoleto… who was crowned by Pope John VIII.
-Formosus fears Guy III getting angry (I wonder why), so in 893, he invites the Frankish nobleman/king Arnulf of Carinthia to invade Italy.
-The invasion fails, but Guy III dies, seemingly freeing Formosus of his wrath.
-In 895, Formosus invites Arnulf back to Italy anyway and then crowns him Holy Roman Emperor.
-Arnulf dies a few months later from paralysis.
-Formosus dies in 896 and is succeeded by Pope Boniface VI (see above).
-Boniface VI dies after two weeks.
-Boniface VI is succeeded by Stephen VI, who would conduct the Cadaver Synod.
Though there is some debate about the motivations of the various parties, Lambert probably encouraged the synod as a way for him to re-establish his authority after the horribly convoluted series of deaths and political maneuvers that occurred during the preceding few years. However, he was present at the subsequent councils that retracted the decisions of the Cadaver Synod, showing that he perhaps did not intend for such a macabre display or did not harbor personal ill will to Formosus. More on that stuff later.
By most accounts, Formosus was an extremely capable and intelligent man, but that did not stop him from making very powerful enemies. Stephen VI’s hatred for Formosus was almost psychotic in nature and he made it his mission to destroy the name and reputation of his most-loathed adversary. Stephen had the body of Formosus, dead several months, disinterred, dressed in papal vestments, and put on display in front of an assemblage of clergy who were coerced into attending the Synod or were present merely out of fear. Stephen dominated the trial, hurling vicious tirades at the putrid body, and accusing it/him of perjury, coveting the papal throne (of John VIII), and practicing duties as a bishop while a layman (presumably while he was excommunicated).
Surprise surprise, Formosus was convicted on all charges and all his decrees as pope were nullified. In addition, the three fingers on his right hand, those used to give papal blessings, were hacked off. He was then stripped of his vestments, draped in a monk’s robe, and buried in a common grave. Some accounts have the body being instead thrown into the Tiber river or disinterred and then thrown into the Tiber where it was rescued by a monk.
The trial would lead to Stephen’s downfall as its grisly, sick nature and the desecration of the corpse of a former (and non-licentious) pontiff enraged the populace of Rome to the point of near-revolution. Stephen was then deposed, imprisoned, and, you guessed it, strangled while in prison. But the fun doesn’t end there.
Stephen’s successor, Theodore II, held his own synod where he reversed the rulings of the Cadaver Synod and re-instated the officials terminated by Stephen. He also had the body of Formosus re-interred in St. Peter’s.
However, Theodore II’s rule as pontiff only lasted twenty days. In an attempt to legitimize the most recent rulings, his successor, John IX (r. 898-900), re-affirmed the decisions of Theodore’s synod at two separate synods of his own. John IX also outlawed the practice of putting dead people on trial. Nice one.
Then came Sergius III. Remember him? The guy who ordered the assassination of a pervious pope and illegitimately fathered a future pope? Well, he was one of the clergy who convicted Formosus in the first place and had copious amounts of hatred for the dead man. He held his own synod that reversed the rulings of Theodore II’s and John IX’s synods and re-affirmed the rulings of the Cadaver Synod. He even went so far as to add an inscription on Formosus’ tomb lambasting the deceased pontiff and praising Stephen VI. My head hurts.
Incidentally, there has never been a Formosus II.
Sergius III: cartoonishly evil or just a gigantic prick?
Sergius III ushered in what would come to be known as the “pornocracy” (rule of harlots) in the papacy that would last for another sixty years. This period not only saw a succession of particularly lecherous, incompetent, and immoral pontiffs, but the unprecedented domination of the holiest office in the Church by a select group of Roman families. Most notable of these were two prominent women of the Counts of Tusculum: Theodora and her daughter Marozia. Marozia was the lover of Sergius III, the probably mother of the bastard Pope John XI, the grandmother of the eighteen-year-old frat boy Pope John XII, and played an integral role in the assassination of Pope John X.
Information gleaned from:
http://www.law.uga.edu/academics/profiles/dwilkes_more/his31_cadaver.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Formosus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Stephen_VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Sergius_III
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornocracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_VIII
*I mean, they couldn’t even beat Ireland in the Quidditch World Cup. Losers.
Greetings to All Who View This
Hello. My name is John Arminio. I am interested in things. On this blog, I shall endeavor to explain why such things interest me so much that I choose to write about them. Subjects ran range from art to astronomy, politics to film, geology to religion, or any other subject under the cosmos. These entries began as essays written on Myspace under the heading of "Myspace Geographic," but I wanted to post these items in an environment without banner ads asking me if I wanted to meet "hot local guys" or to download various ringtones. Hopefully these posts will be entertaining as well as clear and concise, and I will do my very best to make sure everything I claim to be factual is actually factual. Eat that, Wikipedia. If I get something wrong, I'll just say that I was being sarcastic. A full-proof plan!
Also, please forgive the plain look of this blog at the moment. I am a late-comer to this little phenomenon and will be making aesthetic changes as time goes by.
Enjoy.
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