Vampires in New England

Yeah, it caught my eye, too.

Although I no longer am active in the field, I try to watch out for local archaeology stories. This headline took me aback: “State Archaeologist to Lecture on Vampires.”

Huh wha—?

The announcement didn’t reveal much, but a description of an earlier lecture did. According to Connecticut State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni and folklorist Michael Bell, there was a locally-held belief that certain corpses were supernaturally responsible for causing outbreaks of tuberculosis in the 18th and 19th century. The corpses were exhumed and mutilated; in some cases, the heads were removed, ribs broken, and femurs placed cross-wise over the chest. The term vampire wasn’t used to deal with these suspected corpses until the late 19th century (when, it seems to me, sensational literature would have prompted and provided the term). While the practice of grinding the bones of the exhumed and mixing it into a drink for other members of the family may strike us as purely superstitious, it might have been an imitation of how people learned to fend off smallpox by pricking the skin with a bit of diseased tissue. Logically, in the absence of modern scientific understanding of TB, that makes sense. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

This article reminded me of a couple of things. One was a professor who commented on an early paper of mine. “Always be gentle with the past,” was her note for a remark I made criticizing 17th-century medical techniques. It was a quiet rebuke, but it made a huge impression on me: people in the past didn’t do things randomly, there was a belief and science structure involved. It’s also useful in looking at other modern cultures and subcultures. There are reasons for cultural behavior, even if we don’t see them immediately.

The other thing the story reminded me of was the power of fear. I think about those people two hundred years ago, feeling helpless in the face of an epidemic they didn’t fully understand, and how they chose to address it. Civility is such thin veneer, and the animal underneath is programmed for survival. I wonder what would make me behave similarly.

Well, that was cheery. I can’t provide chocolate, but books, books will help…

On the BR stack:

Nick Hornby, Slam

If you’re a fan of Hornby’s other work—About a Boy, High Fidelity, How to Be Good—and I am, check out Slam. The story is told from the POV of fifteen-year old Sam, who thinks he’s just about got life figured out when he gets, well, slammed with it. Slam deals with many of Hornby’s usual themes (avoidance, youth, popular culture, life’s conflicts); it’s a slow burn, but if you hang in there, by the end, you’ll be more than satisfied with the book’s quiet revelation.

Rumiko Takahashi, Inuyasha

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog and the Femmes Fatales’ blog, I’m a long-time fan of comics. I picked up the first volume of Inuyasha because one of the students I met in Alaska recommended the anime to me. I don’t know how faithful the ani-manga version is, but it’s got what you look for in manga: student Kagome is transported to another world where she discovers she possesses the power to overthrow the demons attacking villagers there. Pretty standard setup but I enjoyed the chaotic nature of the demons and the sheer weirdness of their abilities (the “net of hair” was my favorite). Plus, I love the translations of the sound effects: “dokun dokun” is a heartbeat and “shurururu” is a pear flying through the air.