The Zephyr of Vampires

Theory of universal or prehistoric origin

Montague Summers, a renowned vampiregist, has vividly supported the theory of universal vampire origin in his book "The Vampire: His Kith and Kin." We are in 1928 e.v. . "Tradition," Summers declared, "is world-wide and of an age-old antiquity". The evidence for this theory lies in the so-called fear of the dead. Since death began with life, from the beginning of history populations have faced the unknown, the unknown and from here, special burial methods have emerged, particular beliefs. vampirism.

It is always undeniable that the fear of a return of the dead is very ancient, and it often accompanies practices - such as hitting the corpses with a sharp bolt - that later become an integral part of the vampire's myth.

Shamanic origin theory

According to some authors, the presence of the vampire and some other characters, but similar to the licantropic one, is born in a precise religious-cultural environment, namely that of shamanism. The territorial area that this identification covers is vast and ranges from the Celtic world to Siberia, from Indians from North America to Pre-Christian Germany, to Scandinavia and to Eastern Europe.

In the shamanic world, the link between the world of the dead and that of the living did not allow for solutions of continuity, according to conventions completely lacking in Western religious beliefs. The beyond was a parallel and inverted world, opposed, but complementary to that of the living. The journey to the afterlife was identified as a kind of initiatic journey, from which one could not go back. For this reason, for example, the Ugri burial the dead away from the villages and sprinkled the road with pointed objects. It was believed that not everyone wanted or had the strength to undertake the actual journey, which in most cases would lead to reincarnation, and that most of the deceased preferred to remain anchored to the world of the living. Since the only connection with this world was their physical body, a whole set of rituals was envisaged to encourage a rapid coroner rotting, culminating in exhumation after a number of years to ensure decomposition. Otherwise, complex rituals of destruction of the body were performed.

Although despite all this help work to accomplish the initiatory journey proposed to him, the deceased refused to undertake it, it could become an element of disturbance throughout the cosmic order. It was then thought that he could attack living by sucking blood, which even in this cultural matrix is ​​seen as a source of life.

 The figure of the vampire moves in a clear contrast to that of the shaman, which is also a bridge between the world of the dead and that of the living, but who, unlike the vampire, works to maintain the preordained order. It is significant that to divert the vampire would be used to spraying water as we can identify water as an element of life, fertility, tended to counteract the element of putrefaction, sterility represented by the non-dead.

From this point of view the vampire was a kind of anti-shaman. It should be noted further that in the shamanic way there was no clear distinction, as then happened in successive religions, between good and evil; And this could lead to a reversal of the elements we have so far seen, or at least in the creation of hybrid forms. And in this way, in this limiting world that separates the shaman from the vampire, connected both to the world of the dead, a quasi-synthesis figure is born, though modeled with some typical elements of the two previous figures: the taltos.

The taltos is more than a shaman, a sorcerer who was so-called 'called' by an animal spirit that gave him his powers. At this meeting taltos had been predestined since birth by some typical signs such as the presence of teeth or tail at the time of birth (elements already typical of those who were destined to become vampires). After death, the taltos ran the risk of being trapped in the animal soul linked to it and turning into a sort of licantropo. Let's see, then, that this is a quasi-passive figure that undergoes the influence of the spirit. Everything depended on the type of animal spirit that was in contact with the taltos, if it was a horse for example the danger was lesser and, after death, the taltos just appeared under the windows of his family in the form of a yellow pony, nitrising and asking for an offer that ended to exorcise him.

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The theory of Oriental origin

Vampire-like characters had already been reported in the east by Marco Polo, but only in the nineteenth century a systematic study of vampirism in the eastern world began.

In Malaysia, for example, there is the belief in polong and pelesh - often accused of sucking blood, of creatures created with magic. Polong, in particular, is a spirit that can be drawn into a bottle where the blood of a murdered man was collected for two weeks. The peles usually precedes the polong insinuating into the body of the victim.

Always in Malaysia we find the langsuyar and pontianak sometimes confused, the first is the spirit of a dead woman during childbirth, while the second is the spirit of an aborted child. In Indonesia, terminology is inverted.

Moving to India we find a set that is certainly richer in elements. The Bhutas and the Brahmaparusha are spirits of particular dead, or deaths of violent death, or people who were deformed or demented in life. These are said to be in the cemeteries, they can turn into bats and attack the living in the form of shadows; Can also enter the living body by possessing them and transforming them into anthropophagic killers.

Then we also find the vetalas or betails, spirits entering the body of the dead and reviving them.

 An alternative hypothesis suggests that the vampire's myth may have come to Europe with gypsies. The gypsy world has similarities to that of shamanism, and Gypsies are afraid of the return of the dead person in the form of a culvert. The reasons why it can become crappy are the usual (violent death, suicide ...).

The Roma have different traditions regarding the mullet. For some tribes, the mullet leaves the tomb at midnight with its body, but sometimes without the bones, strangling the living and feeding on their blood. For other tribes, the ramble from the tomb can turn into a big dog or wolf and attack the living. Another tradition wants the crap to continue searching for sex, instead of blood.

Even among the Roma there are precautions to prevent the body from becoming a culvert, and today some have the custom to pierce the corpse with a steel needle at the height of the heart, others build palisade around the tombs, others leave bids ...

The mill can then be destroyed by exfoliating the body and burning it, or not drastically, through appropriate magic rituals. It is also thought that the mulch can be destroyed by the bite of a white wolf, a black dog, or a black cock. If the mullet during her sexual intercourse has children, they will not live long, but will have special features. The slump, however, is not immortal but can live up to a maximum of five years.

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Ancient or medieval European origin theory

This theory has two versions: the first frames the origins of the vampire in the Greek and Roman cultural environment, the second strives to make it a medieval or pre-medieval period in the 'land beyond the forest', Transylvania, or in any country Of Eastern Europe.

It is true that Transylvania is rich in legends in this sense, fueled above all by the mystery still today surrounding the character of Dracula, the famous historian Vlad Tepes, a heroic leader who distinguished himself in the struggle against the Turks, but also and above all for The defense and the independence of its territory, the Wallachia. A national hero therefore, but certainly very bloodthirsty, had in fact the habit of impale his enemies in great numbers and then banquet between the rows of poles, sometimes bathing with the blood of the enemies. Hence the birth of the vampire figure par excellence.

It is also true that you can make curious word games on his name, Dracula; Drakul can in fact mean dragon, but also devil, and dracula would thus be the son of the dragon or son of the devil.

The dragon would, however, be the symbol of his home; And his father, also named Vlad, and also a heroic leader, became a member of the Order of the Dragon, an order of the Holy Roman Empire that brought together all the most valiant warriors in the struggle against the infidels.

 

Theory of Modern Origins

This theory, briefly, relates the birth of the vampire with the strong period of spiritual crisis connected with the Enlightenment. There is not much to say about this. His main supporter is Jean-Claude Aguerre who emphasizes that the difficulty of interpreting the relationship between man and soul and therefore the question of death in the eighteenth century would somehow have shaped the figure of the one who conquers death with his own body.

 We have seen that no tradition actually gives us a figure of the vampire as we know it today, but in the majority it is spirits or demons. In order to identify the birth of certain connotations, and not myth, we must go back to the nineteenth century. Not to mention that the real awakening of the non-dead, with all the modern features, is only with the great Bram Stoker, author of Dracula and with other minor authors such as Polidori, Byron's intimate friend, and author of Another important book, much less famous, The Vampire.

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