Vampires

A Multicultural (and disturbing) Study

Malaysia

MalaysiaOriginal inhabitants: Negritos Asians & Indians: Arrive ~0 AD

Various Kingdoms & Empires: 1500 years

Portuguese: 1511Dutch: 1641British: 1786

English is still one of the official languages; all science and math is taught in English

Constitutional monarchy

One of the most adcanved countries in Asia.

Penanggalan

Penanggalan• By day a beautiful woman• By night, a horrific monster• At sunset, her head, spine,

and entrails disconnect and fly, seekign food.

• Eats newborn babies• Also hungers for the blood

of pregnant women and small children.

• There are three ways to kill it, and one is death-by-practical-joke.

Same Monster, Other Places

Thailand: KrasueIf babies and blood are not available, the vampire feasts on feces and carrion.

Vietnam: Ma Cà Rồng

Feeds exclusively on cow dung, although will kill humans if interrupted.

Same Place,Other MonsterThis is a Pelesit. It’s also from Malaysia. Malaysia sure has a lot of vampires, doesn’t it? How do their kids sleep at night?

Anyway, this is a demon cricket. Seriously.

It burrows into your body, slowly driving you mad. Eventually, you start raving about cats (though I haven’t figured out why, yet).

Sometimes, they’re followed by a Polong, which is vampiric creature formed by someone whose soul is enslaved by a witch (duh, obviously!)

They’re only an inch tall, though. They enter through the hole made by the Pelesit and eat the victim’s flesh from the inside.

ManananggalFrom Vietnam

Much like the Penanggalan, this vampire is a woman whose torso separates at nightfall.

The guts and viscera are still spilling out, but notice the bat wings and proboscis-like tongue.

You can’t so much kill one as you can make one die: preventing it’s torso from returning to the rest of the body at daybreak will destroy it.

ChileChile was first settled about 10,000 B.C.

The Incas were never able to conquer.

Chile was discovered by Europeans in 1520, when Magellan circumnavigated the globe.

In 1540, the Spanish came looking for gold. They didn’t find any, but stayed anyway.

Fast forward to 1972: Chile is a modern democracy. They elect a man named Salvador Allende.

Allende is a socialist who makes many monetary reforms to help the peasants.

One of these reforms was to nationalize Chile’s copper mines, which still produce the majority of the world’s copper.

Nixon sent the CIA to help stage a military coup, assassinate Allende, and install a right-wing dictator who murdered thousands of his own people.

El ChonchonJust a giant flapping head, the ears turn into wings to fly.

They originated as part of the Mapuche religion.

Male sorcerers named calchus sometimes transformed into them in order to work evil and gain power.

The only way to stop one was by going to a malchi – a female healer – who could use her animal familiar – a snake or an eagle – to hunt the Chonchon.

They were also featured in the original Castlevania.

IndiaThe Indus Valley was one of the earliest human civilizations.

Linguistically, in the European family.

It was many different, smaller kingdoms until the British conquered it, beginning in 1765 (ending in 1820).

80% Hindu, 13% Muslim, 2% Christian, 2% Sikh, 1% Buddhidt, 1% Jainist, 1% Atheist.

Gandhi and his followers freed the country from British rule in 1947, peacefully, and claiming the American Thoreau and Jesus as his inspirations.

Muslims did not want to live ina majority Hindu nation. War broke out in 1948, and a state of hostilities continues to this day.

Brahmaparusha

BrahmaparushaOne of the more disturbing entries.

Instead of dragging around it’s own entrails, like many Asian vampires, it wears the organs of its victims draped across it. Special victims have their intestines wrapped around the Brahmaparusha’s head like a crown.

When he kills people, he drinks their blood. However, first he pours the blood into a cup made from a human skull.

When there’s no more blood left, he eats the victim’s brains. When the brains are gone, he dances.

There is only ONE way to defeat this vampire, and it’s a lousy one.

Churel

This one’s also from India, and is just kind of sad.

They are the vampires of low-caste women who died while pregnant or during childbirth.

Hair unkempt.Dirty, smelly.Feet are backwards.Long, black tongue for sucking blood.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”

Australia

AustraliaAborigines came to Australia about 45,000 years ago.

Except for occasional, sporadic visits from Asian fishing boats, the land remained Aboriginal until the British colonized it in 1788 – with prisoners.

The Aboriginal Australians lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, virtually unchanged, for many thousands of years.

Yara-ma-yha-whoLives in fig trees, where it waits for victims.

It uses suckers on its fingers and toes to drain blood and weaken victims.

Then it swallows them whole.

The best course of action is to wait until it spits you out – after it has digested part of you.

If you get digested too many times, you shrivel up, your mouth gets bigger, and your skin turns red.

Belarus

BelarusTied linguistically and historically with Russia. Known as “White Russia.”

Slavic peoples have inhabited the area since the 600s, but it was never really a “nation” as we think of it.

Based around the city of Minsk, it has always been a prize in a tug-of-war between Lithuania, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.

They achieved independence after the collapse of the USSR.

Ruled by President Lukashenko since 1994. Describes himself as “autjoritarian.” Worst human rights record in Europe – even worse than Russia’s, which is pretty awful.

MjertovjecVery similar to the Asian vampires, it separates its torso and head, sprouting bat wings.

Of more interest is the creation: according to tradition, when a werewolf is buried, it will return as this particular type of vampire.

It can be killed with an iron stake through the heart, by burning its leftover corpse, or preventing its head from returning to its body before the rooster crows three times.

Germany:DoppelsaugerDemon with mommy issues.

If a child is breast-fed after it is weened – AND dies prematurely – it comes back as a dopplesauger.

To gain enough strength to escape its grave, it eats its own burial shroud, then consumes its own heart and chest.

It then comes at night to devour its mother’s breasts.

NachzehrerAlso from Germany

Like the dopplesauger, this vampire is autophagic.

Unlike its cousin, this vampire awakes and never leaves the coffin. It eats only its own corpse.

Family members can feel it, and eventually waste away and die.