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When you grow up in Maine as I have, you hear
stories of Salem's Lot, well okay sure they are made up stories of Salem's Lot, by the State's former most famous
Author, before the Southern Climate enticed him away.
Then when you're old enough to look into the stories,
by no means influenced by the current trend in pop culture, (you know the way of the Vampire!) If you dig deep enough you
begin to see a pattern forming that and the recent episode of Monster quest that chronicled the true story of Mercy Brown,
Rhode Islands famous vampire of 1892, in HD no less, you want to find similar stories that pertain to Maine.
So
you ask yourself, is there evidence of murders or deaths that resemble ways of dispatching vampires? You know besides
Sarah, who although beheaded and legs crossed, I'm positive wasn't a vampire murder (crosses self) Okay, now quickly rifling papers and hunting through articles, there is plenty
of evidence of consumption deaths. There's even evidence of small pox mass graves, being that the townspeople didn't
want all the deaths buried in their local cemeteries for fear of transmitting the disease, (not kidding)
Did the Prehistoric
people of Maine have similar legends and beliefs? The Red Paint People buried their dead with red paint that is thought
to signify blood or the ceremonial replacement of blood for the spirit world, (what about replacing lost blood, from suspicious
deaths?) Could this be another explanation for the death of a once thriving race of Prehistoric Maine Men? Check back soon, should have something a little more concrete
to present.
Okay, in spite of popular demand I am continuing
on with the hunt for real vampires! Might have to put a little overtime into this one!
Article
1:
ABOUT THE ANCIENTS. __________ Startling, almost
incomprehensible, to those who have not studied what are superstitions and their origin, is an article to be found in the
last issue of The American Anthropologist, by George R. Stetson, "Animistic Vampires in New-England." In this paper
there is presented the horrid fact, that in new England, there still exists belief in vampires. As Tyler explains it, the
first idea was that the soul of the living man left the body and attacked a living victim. Mr. Edgar Fawcett has just constructed
a wild novel, with the vampire idea. As his hideous fancy grew it took a shape somewhat like this. That the soul of the dead
leaves the body, wanders forth, and sucks the lifeblood of the living. Then "the victim become thin, languid, bloodless,
and, falling into a rapid decline, dies." How far the existence of a bat found in South America which is said to suck
human blood may have given physical form to the idea may be traceable. But it has not yet been absolutely ascertained whether
vampires or phyllostroma, as a bat, does suck blood. Suppose it did? Well, then, so does the leech and the mosquito. In New
England, Mr. Stettson writes, the belief in vampires still holds its sway. Leaving out the names of the people and of the
town or village, he cites the case of a child, who, dying of consumption, other children stricken down were supposed to be
suffering from the vampire. In this same village there was a man whose two brothers had died of consumption. When the second
son was dead, the father was advised to take up the body on the son last dead and to cremate it. This was actually carried
out, and it was thought of doing this that the life of the third son was spared. Other cases are mentioned. There are instances
"of barbaric superstition outcropping in and co-existing with a high general culture." It is hard to believe that,
though there may be education, religious teaching, newspapers, how impotent are they to eradicate what is the coarsest, the
most degrading, of all superstitious. The truth of Mr. Stetson's charges we have not the least reason to doubt. Such barbarous
ideas may be good for Hungary, Servia, Russia. But should be extirpated in the United States. The believer in vampires being
insane, you may not indict him, but if he should carry out practically his ideas, he deserves such punishment, preventive
or otherwise, as the laws permit.
Article 2:
RISEN FROM THE DEAD. A Singular Story from Maine Of A Temporary Return to Life. The Augusta
(Me.) Journal of Friday 19, 1875 inst., tells this marvelous tale: "We have an event to chronicle that would scarcely
be believed were it not authoratively vouched for by competent witnesses, parties whose testimony cannot well be disputed
or set aside A young man in the town of Vassalboro, in this county, was suffering in the last stages of consumption, the disease
which had insidiously and stealthily brought him to the verge of the grave. For several weeks he had been entirely prostrate
and unable to speak, even to articulate a syllable. He became so oppressed for breath that he compelled his attendants to
raise the windows in his room, put out the fires, and resort to every means to obtain fresh air. One day last week (Thursday
we understand.) the young man died. Friendly hands prepared the poor emaciated body for the burial: but just as the attending
friends were arranging the remains for the casket, there appeared unmistakable evidence of returning life, in what had seemed
to them an inanimate mass of clay. The car of an attendant was bent down to the side of the dead man, and it was discovered
that the heart had begun again its slow and measured palpitations the pulse throbbed, and the young man arose from the death
shrouds, opened his mouth, and spoke in clear and distinct words to those who stood appalled in the death chamber. There was
no huskiness in his voice: he appeared lively and active, said he felt not the slightest pain, but, to use his own language,
"I feel just as well as I ever did." At his request the neighbors were all called in, who crowded the house for
hours, declaring that the recovery of the man was equal to any miracle recorded in the Scriptures. He told this startled assemblage
of his friends and neighbors that, as he died, all things seemed dark, but only for an instant; his eyes suddenly opened to
a new world, the real Heaven which had been given him so much comfort in his last weeks of pain and sorrow. He stood upon
an eminence which overlooked a vast and beautiful plain; the magnificent plain stretched further than his enlarged vision
could penetrate, and he described it in language which to his mortal auditors, seemed extravagant in the extreme. But the
revivified life of the young mane was not to continue long. Before night he again resigned himself to death. The body was
kept a reasonable length of time, and buried on Sunday last, the funeral being largely attended. We have written out the particulars
of this remarkable even substantially as we have heard them, allowing our intelligent readers the privilege of drawing their
own inferences."
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