Ritual and Superstition: New England Belief in the Vampire

Abstract

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the largely rural region of the United States designated as New England was experiencing a virulent epidemic of highly contagious diseases, key among them being that of consumption. Now commonly recognized as pulmonary tuberculosis, then the rapid transmission of the disease was sometimes misunderstood as something much more supernatural in a time when germ theory was in its infancy. Rural communities, inspired by superstitions, exhumed and mutilated the bodies of their deceased loved ones; actions which were fueled by a fear of undead revenants rising from their graves to feast upon their life energies. Though considered absurd or barbaric by modern spectators, this is a common trend subscribed to by misunderstanding communities throughout history. This work explores the New England Vampire Panic and attempts to shed light on how misunderstandings of both tuberculosis and the natural process of decomposition inspired superstitious fears within rural New Englanders.