Vampires Specimens

by Jordan VonTeese
Check out her site at http://www.myspace.com/onelastdeath

Of course, this list is not exhaustive and some other specimen will be added soon such as: dracul (Austrian), kwakiytl (American Indian), murony (Wallachian), ogolgen (Bohemian), otgiruru (African), oupir (Hungarian), owenga (African), talamaur (Melanasian), vapir (Bulgarian), avarcolac (Romanian), sharabisu (Babylonian), brucolacas (Greek), kattakhanes (Singhalese), khadro/dakini (Tibetan), kalika (Hindu), aulak.

As for the European vampire, other cultures have feared or revered a vampire-like monster, which has the same attributes: he is already dead and drink blood to lenghten its cursed existence. The way to dispose of such monsters is also very similar from one place to another.

From earliest times, humans have revered blood as magical. This was why the ultimate sacrifice was the blood of living creatures. The Vikings ran their longships over prisoner's bodies before sailing, to drench their keels in blood so the gods might bless their ships and crews. This was the forerunner to christening a boat with wine.

The Ancient Greeks had a burial ceremony that included lighting an (unsleeping lamp) for three years at the grave. That being the time it took for a corpse to decompose. At the end of three years, they would dig up the bones and wash them in wine. If, when they dug up the bones, the body should be instead swollen and still resembling the living, it was called " Vrykolakas ", meaning drum-like.

Asasabonsam

Origin: Western Africa (Ashanti)

Description: human looking vampires except that they have hooks instead of feet and iron teeth. The Asasabonsam are tree dwelling vampires that live deep in the forest. They sit in the tops of trees with their legs dangling down which enables them to catch their victims with their hooked feet. They tend to bite their victims on the thumb.

Azeman

Origin: South America

Description: During the day she has the form of a human female, but at night she is transformed into a bat or other animal.

Weaknesses: If seeds are scattered on the floor, she will stop to count them. Also, if a broom is placed across the door, she will not enter the room, as she will count the bristles of the broom.

Baital

Origin: India

Description: half-man, half-bat creature roughly four feet tall.

Callicantzaros

Origin: Greece

Description: They often appear in half-human, half-animal shapes and are active during the time from the beginning of Christmas to New Year's Day. They roam the countryside and enter villages at night but sleep in caves during the daytime. At the end of this period, they travel down caverns or other tunnels to Hades in the bowels of the earth. While on the world's surface, a male Callicantzaros is apt to kidnap a mortal woman to bring her back with him to the underworld as his bride and have children with her who also became callicantzaroi. It was said that the first victims of a callicantzaros whose parents were both mortal were often his own brothers and sisters, whom he was apt to bite and devour.

Weaknesses: To prevent an infant of two mortal parents born during the proscribed Yule Tide season from becoming a callicantzaros, the infant was sometimes held feet down over a fire by one of the parents until the toenails were singed

Ch'ing Shih

Origin: China

Description: appear as livid humans. Their immaterial form is a glowing sphere of light.

Powers: kill with poisonous breath in addition to draining blood

Weaknesses: If a Ch'ing Shih encounters a pile of rice, it must count the grains before it can pass the pile. They can be harmed and destroyed by normal weapons and by sunlight.

Civateteo

Origin: Mexico. They are believed to be linked to Tezcatlipoca, an Aztec god.

Description: These vampire-witches held Sabbaths at crossroads and were believed to attack young children and to mate with human men, producing children who were also vampires.

Dhampirs

Origin: Eastern Europe

Description: Gypsies believed the mulo to be a spirit of a dead person separated from the physical corpse and that the male mulo was capable of impregnating women, often their widows. The resulting child was variously called a "vampijorivic", a "vampiric", a "lampijerovic", or "dhampir meaning "little vampire".

Powers: Depending on the legend, dhampirs may be able to see vampires automatically or through a ritual, whereas they are usually invisible to humans. Dhampirs don't have special abilities other than being able to see invisible vampires. They are famous vampires-hunters and have been still recorded in activity in 1959 in Kosovo.

Leanansidhe

Origin: Isle of Man

Description: a beautiful female vampire faery. She is said to give inspiration to poets, but the reward for her services is death, or, at best, captivity in her kingdom under the Irish Sea off the eastern coast of Ireland.

Powers: Like all vampires, she is a bloodsucker. But rather than drinking the blood of her victims, she collects it in a huge red cauldron which is said to be the source of her beauty and powers of poetic inspiration. This may connect her with the Celtic Crone Goddesses who preside over the great cauldron of life, death, and rebirth

Weaknesses: One Manx legend says that calling for protection from the Sea God Manann ruins her hopes of gaining power over you.

Dearg-due

Origin: Ireland. A celtic legend says that a famous female called Dearg-due (red blood sucker) is buried near Strongbow's Tree in Waterford. In Scotland the vampire legend was called baobhan sith, and lurked in the mountains.

Description: She purportedly arises once a year from her grave to seduce men into her embrace and drains them dry of blood.

Weaknesses: The way to prevent the undead from arising, according to Irish legend, is to build a cairn of stones over its grave.

Ekimmu

Origin: Assyrie

Description: vampires of the spirit variety, they are naturally invisible and are capable of possessing humans.

Weaknesses: can be destroyed by using wooden weapons or by exorcism.

Garkain

Origin: Australia, Northern Territories

Description: He was as big as a man, with bat-like wings and a foul stench. If any stray hunter or lost child entered his mangrove forest, he would swoop from the trees, wrapping his wings around the unwary. The unfortunate victim would first choke on the stench, and then slowly suffocate. The Garkain would then consume the flesh. The victim's spirit was then condemned to wander the region, unable to find his way home to the final resting place of his tribe.

Glaistig (The)

Aka: Baobhan Sith

Origin: Scotland

Description: appear as beautiful young women who dance with men until they are exhausted, then feed on them.

Incubus/Succubus

Origin: Europe. Closely related to the incubi/sucubi are the Slavic mora, the German mahr, and the Scandinavian mara, from which the word 'nightmare' is derived.

Description: spirit and sexual vampires of a demonic nature. The general way they feed is by having sexual intercourse with the victim and feeding on the energy released during sex.

Powers: They may enter homes uninvited and can take on the appearance of other persons. They will often visit the same victim repeatedly. A victim of an incubus will experience the visits as dreams.

More about demons

Jaracara

Origin: Brazil

Description: Normally appearing as snakes, jaracara are said to drink the milk of sleeping women as well as their blood.

The Keres

Origin: Greece

Description: the Keres are sharp-clawed creatures clad in red. They are terrifying creatures that drink the blood of their victims. The Keres execute the Fates' commands. They are often seen hovering around battlefields.

More about mythological creatures

Krvopijac

Origin: Bulgaria

Description: Krvopijacs (also known as obours) look like normal vampires except that they have only one nostril.

Weaknesses: they can be immobilized by placing wild roses around their graves. One way to destroy a krvopijac is for a magician to order its spirit into a bottle, which must then be thrown into a fire.

Lamia

Origin: Greece and Rome

Description: Lamias are exclusively female vampires. They often appear in half-human, half-animal forms and eat the flesh of their victims in addition to drinking their blood.

Weaknesses: Lamias can be attacked and killed with normal weapons.

Loogaro

Origin: West Indies

Description: Appearing as old women, these vampires go out at night as blobs of light.

Mulo

Origin: Eastern Europe (Gypsy)

Description: The mulo is the spirit of a dead person who leaves his corpse in his grave at night and returned at dawn. The mulo was generally invisible but was often believed to be visible to certain people, in which case it usually appeared in the original form of the dead person.

Powers: The vampiric mulo most often preyed upon sheep and cattle. In the Balkan countries, the adult male mulo would typically come to visit his widow at night to resume his relationship with her. If the deceased was an adult male who had died unwed, his mulo might visit a woman whom he had loved during his lifetime. In some versions of the belief, he would be visible to his widow and act kindly towards her, helping with household tasks and regaining her favor. In another version, the mulo is invisible even to his wife but he lies upon her and rapes her while she feels paralyzed and is unable to cry out to others; the widow becomes sick with terror, refuses food and drink, and eventually dies.

Weaknesses: Some Gypsies in Kosova once believed that a brother and sister born together as twins on a Saturday could see a vampiric mulo if they wore their underwear and shirts inside out. The mulo would flee as soon as the twins saw it. A Gypsy practice in Moravia, now the eastern province of the Czech Republic, was to use a hen's egg to bait and ambush an invisible vampiric mulo. When the egg suddenly disappeared, the men would fire their guns at the spot.

Rakshasa

Origin: India

Description: powerful spirit vampires. They usually appear as humans with animal features (claws, fangs, slitted eyes, ) or as animals with human features (especially tigers). They eat the flesh of their victims in addition to drinking their blood.

Weaknesses: Burning, sunlight, or exorcism may destroy Rakshasas.

Shtriga

Origin: Albania

Description: a witch who preys upon infants by drinking their blood at night. But instead of transforming into an owl when she goes for her midnight snack, she is more apt to take the form of a flying insect. As recently as the early 20th century, many Albanians regarded the Shtriga to be the most common cause of infant deaths.

Soucouyan

Origin : Dominica, Caraibeans

Description: appears as an old woman who sheds her skin at night (they know this because they sometimes find the skins, which are very valuable in the practice of Obeah magic. The skinless phantom flies through the air, usually appearing as a ball of fire and sucks the blood from her victims. The victims may die if too much blood is taken and it is possible for their drained bodies to become Soucoyan.

Powers: Its not clear whether the victim becomes a new Soucoyan or whether an existing Soucoyan possesses the dead victim's skin.

Weaknesses: The Soucoyan must return to her skin by morning, hence possession of the skin by an Obeah (if they dare) gives control over the Soucoyan.

Strigoi (Strigoiaca)

Origin: Romania, including Transylvania

Description: In most ways, the Romanian Strigoi Morti resemble the undead vampires found in other Eastern European countries. They were frequently blamed as the cause of death in cases of epidemics. According to old Romanian folklore, a person who is born with a caul (a veil of fetal membrane still attached to the head), with a small tail, or under other certain peculiar circumstances, is a Strigoi Viu (predestined to become an undead Strigoi Morti). The Strigoi Vii join together in covens and meet with the Strigoi Morti on special Sabbath nights such as the Eve of St. George (April 22)

Powers: The Strigoi Viu is not a blood drinker, but his powers include what could be called psychic vampirism. He can steal the vitality of his neighbors' crops and animals to enhance his own. Also, he can leave his body at night in the form of an animal or a small spark of light that can be seen flying through the air. Sometimes it was said that a Strigoi Viu took animal form by stealing the form from the animal.

Weaknesses: They can be destroyed after exhuming their dormant bodies from the grave by such typical means as impaling them with a stake or by cremating them.

Stryx

Origin: Rome

Description: witches who transformed into screech owls at night and, in this form, preyed upon infants by drinking their blood and sometimes eating their internal organs as well. The Latin feminine plural form of "stryx" is "striges". In the modern Italian language, "striga" has become a general word for "witch".

Weaknesses: Crane in Ovides sprinkles the door way with "drugged" water and places a branch of hawthorn in the window. In much later European lore, hawthorn is often considered as effective as garlic for the purpose of warding away or confining the undead vampires and the best material for stakes to pound through their hearts.

Tlahuelpuchi
plural: tlahuelpocmimi

Origin: Tlaxcala, Mexico

Description: A type of vampire, who lives with her human family, is able to shape shift and sucks the blood of infants at night. The tlahuelpuchi is similar to the nahual in that they both can shape shift into various animal forms. The nahual, however learns his craft and does not need to suck blood. Also the nahual looks like a natural animal when shape shifted. The tlahuelpuchi has a kind of glowing aura.

The tlahuelpuchi is born with their curse and cannot avoid it. Sometime around puberty they first learn of what they are. The vast majority of tlahuelpuchi are female and the female tlahuelpuchi are more powerful than the male. The tlahuelpuchi have a form of society. Typically they each have their own territories.

They also have a kind of pact with shamans and other supernatural creatures. This is why a shaman won't turn in a suspected tlahuelpuchi. The typical sign that the victim was killed by the tlahuelpuchi are bruises on the upper body.

Powers: Tlahuelpuchi are able to change form by detaching their body from their legs. They then go hunting, usually in the form of some bird like a turkey or a vulture. This is because of the bizarre ritual the tlahuelpuchi has to perform before she can enter the house of a victim. The tlahuelpuchi must fly over the house in the shape of a cross from north to south, east to west. Coincidentally the shamans of the region cleanse the bodies of victims by uncrossing them. Victims also are given different burial rites. Often people report seeing glowing animals before a tlahuelpuchi attack. The tlahuelpuchi are able to avoid capture by turning into an animal so small, like tick, that the glowing is not noticeable.

Weaknesses: they must feed at least once a month on blood or they die. Feeding kills the victim. The victim of choice is an infant. There is no way to detect a tlahuelpuchi except by catching her in the act. Her family protects her out of shame and because if a family members is responsible for the death of a tlahuelpuchi the curse will be passed down to that family member. Garlic, onions and metal repel Tlahuelpuchi. Sometimes the metal is represented by a pair of open cisors left near the bed, sometimes a mirror, sometimes religious medalions pinned on the front and back of the shirt and sometimes safety pins in the form of a cross pinned to underwear.

Veshtitza

Origin: Montenegro and Serbia

Description: a blood drinking witch who has similarities to the ancient Roman Stryx and the Albanian Shtriga. The soul of a Veshtitza leaves her body at night and enters the body of a hen or a black moth. In the body of such a creature, she flies about until she finds a home where there are infants or young children then she drank their blood and ate their hearts. The veshtitze would join together to form covens. The members of a coven flock together in the branches of some tree at midnight on certain nights to hold a meeting while they snack upon what they had gathered earlier in the dark. Since it was a common Eastern European belief that witches in general became undead vampires after their death, it seems likely that the natural death of a Veshtitza does not end her drinking habit.

Vrykolakas

Origin: Greece

Description: In Greece and the Greek islands, the name Vrykolakas (plural: Vrykolakes) has variants such as Vourkalakas and Vrukolakas. On the island of Crete, Kathakano frequently replaces the name. At least in some mountain regions on the mainland, the term Vrykolakis could apply to a shepherd still living who is compelled at nights when the moon is full to go about biting and eating both man and beast. But most generally it was applied to dead people who return from their graves. According to one report from the 17th century, the undead Vrykolakes would go about knocking on doors at night and calling the names of the inhabitants. Anyone who answered such a call was doomed, but those who resisted were spared.

Powers: A person could become a Vrykolakas after his death by having been excommunicated, having committed a serious crime, or having led a sinful life. Those who were conceived or born on a holy day were predestined to become undead Vrykolakes. Even if a person died without these taints, he was apt to become a Vrykolakas if a cat jumped over his corpse before burial. Though the undead Vrykolakes were most active at night, they could also go about during daylight. They were only obliged to be in their graves on each Saturday.

Weaknesses: When a dead person was suspected of being a Vrykolakas, his corpse was exhumed to see if it had resisted decay. Also, there was a religious practice of exhuming all corpses after three years from their original burial. Typically, an exhumed corpse appearing undecayed was also bloated and ruddy. This was often interpreted as evidence that the dead person had become a Vrykolakas and had gorged itself with the blood of its victims. They may be destroyed by exorcism or burning. Yet another recourse to getting rid of a Vrykolakas was to rebury his corpse on a dessert island. This was done in belief that a Vrykolakas could not cross-seawater.

Wampir Aka: vieszcy and upierczi

Origin: Pole and Russia

Description: appear exactly as normal humans and have a "sting" under their tongue rather than fangs. They are active from noon until midnight.

Weaknesses: burning may only destroy a wampir. When the wampir is burned, its body will burst, giving rise to hundreds of small, disgusting animals (maggots, rats, etc.). If any of these escape, then the wampir's "spirit" will escape as well, and will later return to seek revenge. These creatures are also called .

by Jordan VonTeese
Check out her site at http://www.myspace.com/onelastdeath