The vampire is a mythical creature that is said to prey upon the living to satisfy its thirst for human blood or occasionally human life force or energy. While the term “vampire” was first added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1734, the term did not make its way into common usage until the nineteenth century. Regardless of the terminology, almost every culture, especially Native American, African, and European, has folk stories or customs relating to supernatural creatures that prey upon the living. The vampire is distinguished from other mythical, supernatural creatures like ghosts, zombies, and witches by the folkloric accounts that describe the vampire as a nondecomposed corpse, a harbinger or bringer of plague and death, who must feed upon human blood and who must be destroyed by staking and/or burning. Besides immortality, the vampire’s powers include the ability to fly, as well as to hypnotize victims, and invisibility when efforts are made to reflect or photograph it. Its weaknesses are said to be vulnerability to sunlight, garlic, and sacred ground and symbols. The vampire is often depicted as a hideous, nondecomposed corpse with hair and fingernails that grow even after death.
While the common conception of the vampire has its roots in reports of European folk beliefs brought to the Americas by immigrants, Native Americans had substantial folk references to supernatural creatures that are similar to the vampire, even before their interaction with Europeans. For example, the Algonquin tribes have stories describing the Wendigo, a supernatural creature that consumes human flesh. There are anthropological studies from the late nineteenth century recounting Ojibwe stories of man-eating ghosts and Cherokee stories of witches and wizards that prey upon the living. Similarly, Navajo legends recount stories of skinwalkers, which are humans that have the ability to turn into other creatures. Additionally, there are a substantial number of tribes that have stories of flesh-eating and blood-drinking monsters that were destroyed but then became mosquitoes. For example, a Tlingit story features a blood-drinking giant who is killed and burned, and his ashes are scattered in the wind. However, his ashes turn into mosquitoes, which drink human blood. It is important to note that though the term “Cold Ones” has become associated with Native American vampires because of the popular Twilight novels and films, it is not actually associated with any Native American tradition, and Twilight author Stephenie Meyer has said that this concept of Native American “Cold Ones” is wholly fictitious.
Vampire tales appear in southern African American traditions as well, particularly in stories of Voodoo. For example, in Voodoo Tales: As Told Among the Negroes of the Southwest Mary Alicia Owen recounts the story of a witch who gives birth to the devil’s children. These children demand fresh animal blood, and as their hunger grows, the animals fear for their lives and eventually turn to the devil’s wife for relief. The devil’s wife kills the witch but cannot truly kill the devil’s children, so she changes them into mosquitoes. Not only is this tale similar to some of the Native American tales, it also has some parallels to vampire lore. Similar tales include the story of Old Sue, an elderly African American slave who was accused of drinking the blood of children. Old Sue had the power of fast flight and had bat-like wings. Stories like these show a strong connection to vampire lore.
The fusion of the folk customs and traditions of European immigrants have given rise to beliefs and practices in New England that are consistent with vampire lore. Following an epidemic of consumption (tuberculosis) in the mid-nineteenth century, New Englanders believed that the spread of the disease was caused by the first person to succumb to the disease. The New Englanders believed that if the victim of tuberculosis could not find peace in death, it would prey upon its family and community. To confirm, the corpses of the deceased were exhumed, and if they were decaying, it meant that corpse was not the cause of the spread of the disease. However, if the hearts of these corpses were red with fresh blood, then the hearts must be destroyed. Consequently there were reports in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont of bodies being exhumed and organs destroyed, most famously the cases of the Ray family in Jewett City, part of Griswold, Connecticut (1840s and 1850s), and Mercy Brown (1892) in Exeter, Rhode Island. Though New England traditions are entwined with supernatural beliefs, such as the devil and witches, the New Englanders did not refer to the corpses as vampires, probably because this term was not yet in the colloquial language. However, scholars and reporters recognized the practice as analogous to vampire lore; the accounts were reported in newspapers and in an 1896 article in the American Anthropologist. However, until recently, despite the newspaper headlines, the New England belief in vampire-like creatures and the ritual grave desecration were thought to be fictional accounts. Then, in 1990 in Griswold, Connecticut, the unmarked graves of the Walton family cemetery were discovered, and archaeological evidence suggests that the ritual grave desecration did occur, and that it can be tied to the New England folk belief in such vampire-like figures.
The close association between vampires and illness is well documented, as in the New England vampire cases, which were closely linked to tuberculosis. The association with tuberculosis and the wasting quality of the illness gave rise to the association of a lingering death for the victims of vampires. Modern science has also tried to find a medical explanation for vampirism and has suggested that porphyria, a medical condition that may include aversion to sunlight and garlic, and the desire to consume iron-rich blood, is the true origin of the vampire. However, while there certainly are similarities between the illness and the supernatural figure, no conclusive evidence has yet been produced.
Vampire lore has been greatly influenced by literature from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Goethe composed a ballad, “The Bride of Corinth,” which drastically deviated from the available vampire lore, and John William Polidori penned The Vampyre, which features the aristocratic vampire Lord Ruthven, who some believe is based on Polidori’s infamous patient, Lord Byron. While Polidori’s Ruthven has undoubtedly influenced the seductive aristocratic vampire figure, it was not until Bram Stoker wrote Dracula (the popular novel loosely based on Vlad the Impaler) that the most salient characteristics of the vampire became codified in popular imagination. This novel presents much of what we consider today to be the classic vampire lore: the vampire’s aversion to sunlight, garlic, stakes, and holy symbols; his dependency on blood and grave dirt; and his association with castles, bats, and Old World aristocracy.
The persistent popularity of the vampire today can also be attributed to the influence of film and popular media. In fact, Norine Dresser in American Vampires: Fans, Victims, Practitioners argues that transmission through television and film stands in for the traditional storyteller (1989, 117). The film Nosferatu (an unofficial adaptation of Dracula in 1922) marks the first appearance of the vampire on the screen. This silent film highlights the inhuman qualities of the vampire, having Count Orlok shed his humanity as the film progresses. The otherworldly aspects of the vampire were further systemized into popular culture in Tod Browning’s film Dracula, staring Bela Lugosi, whose portrayal of Dracula made it nearly impossible to separate the vampire from his aristocratic trappings such as his cape, white shirt, accent, and widow’s peak.
The German-language film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) starred Max Schreck as Count Orlok, one of the most recognizable variations of the vampire myth. Hollywood producers and directors have returned to vampire lore repeatedly for stories and themes because it addresses fundamental dimensions of human nature. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
As the twentieth century progressed, the Bela Lugosi–esque vampire began to decline in American culture. At first, popular incarnations of Dracula and other Old World vampires were cast as ridiculous parodies of Lugosi’s iconic portrayal. Christopher Lee, who played Dracula from 1959 to 1974, objected to the Lugosi-style costume. Additionally, the television program The Munsters debuted the character Grandpa, who mirrors Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, represents the absurdity of the Old World vampire who is out of touch with the modern world, and is seen as silly, harmless, and ineffectual. Vampires such as Barnabas Collins in the soap opera Dark Shadows, and the film adaptation of the same title directed by Tim Burton, showed the stark contrast between the aristocratic vampire and the modern world. The vampire was also appropriated by children’s mainstream culture, notably appearing as a Count Chocula, a marketing mascot hawking breakfast cereal to children, and then as Count von Count on the popular Children’s Television Workshop program Sesame Street. Such recasting of the vampire helped to diminish the once static image of the Lugosi-esque vampire.
The New England Vampire Panic
Annie Dennett of New Hampshire and Frederick Ransom of Vermont are two classic examples of victims of tuberculosis who were thought to be dangerous manifestations of the undead in what has come to be known as the New England Vampire Panic of the nineteenth century. The fact that consumptive diseases are highly contagious aligns with the folkloric association between tuberculosis and vampirism, because members of a family and community might well succumb in rapid succession. Dennett died in 1810 at the age of 21, and because her father also fell ill, Annie’s grave was exhumed in an attempt to exorcise her malignant spirit. Unfortunately, not enough remained of her corpse to perform a ritual, however. On the other hand, although Ransom was successfully exhumed and his heart incinerated in a smithy, this ritual proved inadequate, as four more members of his family subsequently died.
C. Fee
The new image of the American vampire further rejects the Old World vampire stereotype. Even when Dracula himself appears in popular films, such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, the title character transcends his initial Old World persona and becomes youthful, alluring, and modern. In David S. Goyer’s Blade: Trinity, the legendary vampire is not depicted as an Old World relic but as a sexy and powerful figure. In other vampire revisions such as Ann Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, and in the film adaptations such as Neil Jordan’s Interview with a Vampire and Michael Rymer’s Queen of the Damned, the vampire must expressly reject his Old World origins. Louis and Lestat’s survival hinges on their ability to find a place in the changing modern world. Similarly, in Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga, Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries, and the HBO adaptation True Blood, the Old World vampire finds redemption and a place in the modern world through earning the love of a young woman of the modern era. Other vampire revisions such as The Vampire Diaries, The Gates, and Being Human recount the vampire attempting to acclimate to the modern world, with varying degrees of success. As the vampire rejects the trappings of the Old World, it becomes more popular than ever in American culture.
In fact, American culture’s emphasis on the vampire’s beauty, sexuality, and power has sparked a fetishistic interest in the vampire lifestyle. Dresser reports that the late twentieth century saw a rise of Americans who identified as vampires, some who went so far as to drink human blood from human donors. Dresser’s accounts of the self-identified vampires, though comparatively few in number, are indicative of how powerful a symbol the vampire has become in American culture. The vampire in American culture is no longer simply a figure of terror and revulsion but an eternally beautiful, seductive, and powerful figure that appeals to American values and cultural morals.
Amanda L. Anderson
See also Chupacabra; Skinwalker; Superstitions; Voodoo; Wendigo; Werewolf
Further Reading
Barber, Paul. 1988. Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Butler, Erik. 2010. Metamorphoses of the Vampire in Literature and Film: Cultural Transformations in Europe, 1732–1933. New York: Camden House.
Butler, Erik. 2013. The Rise of the Vampire. London: Reaktion Books.
Dresser, Norine. 1990. American Vampires: Fans, Victims & Practitioners. New York: Vintage.
Leeming, David, and Jake Page. 1998. The Mythology of Native North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Ringel, Faye. 1995. New England’s Gothic Literature: History and Folklore of the Supernatural from the Seventeenth through the Twentieth Centuries. Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellon Press.
Stetson, George R. 1896. “The Animistic Vampire in New England.” American Anthropologist 9 (1): 1–13.