Peter Plogojowitz
After a subject by the name of Peter
Plogojowitz had died, ten weeks past - he lived in the village of
Kisilova, in the Rahm District - and had been buried according to the
Raetzian custom, it was revealed that in this same village of Kisilova,
within a week, nine people, both old and young, died also, after
suffering a twenty-four hour illness. And they said publicly, while
they were yet alive, but on their death-bed, that the above-mentioned
Plogojowitz, who had died ten weeks earlier, had come to them in their
sleep, laid himself on them, and throttled them, so that they would
have to give up the ghost. The other subjects were very distressed and
stregnthened even more in such (beliefs) by the fact that the dead Peter
Plogojowitz's wife, after saying that her husband had come to her and
demanded his opanky, or shoes, had left the village of Kisilova and gone
to another. And since with such people (which they call vampires) various
signs are to be seen - that is, the body undecomposed, the skin, hair, beard
and nails growing - the subjects resolved unanimously to open the grave
of Peter Plogojowitz and to see if such above-mentioned signs were really
to be found on him.
To this end they came here to me and, telling of these
events, asked me and the local pope, or parish priest, to be present at
the viewing. And although I at first disapproved, telling them that the
praiseworthy administration should first be dutifully and humbly informed,
and its exalted opinion about this should be heard, they did not want to
accommodate themselves to this at all, but rather gave this short answer:
I could do what I wanted, but if I did not accord to their custom, they
would have to leave house and home, because by the time a gracious
resolution was received from Belgrade, perhaps the entire village - and
this was already supposed to have happened in Turkish times - could be
destroyed by such an evil spirit, and they did not want to wait for this.
Since I could not hold such people from the resolution
they had made, either with good words or with threats, I went to the village
of Kisilova, taking along the Gradisk pope, and viewed the body of Peter
Plogojowitz, just exhumed, finding, in accordance with thorough truthfulness,
that first of all I did not detect the slightest odor that is otherwise
characteristic of the dead, and the body, except for the nose, which was somewhat
fallen away, was completely fresh. The hair and beard - even the nails,
of which the old ones had fallen away - had grown on him; the old skin,
which was somewhat whitish, had peeled away, and a new fresh one had emerged
under it. The face, hands, and feet, and the whole body were so constitued,
and they could not have been more complete in his lifetime. Not without
astonishment, I saw some fresh blood in his mouth, which, according to the
common observation, he had sucked from the people killed by him. In short,
all the indications were present that such people (as remarked above) are
said to have. After both the pope and I had seen this spectacle, while the
people grew more outraged than distressed, all the subjects, with great
speed, sharpened a stake - in order to pierce the corpse of the deceased
with it - and put this at his heart, whereupon, as he was pierced, not only
did much blood, completely fresh, flow also through his ears and mouth,
but still other wild signs (which I pass by out of high respect) took
place. Finally, according to their usual practice, they burned the
often-mentioned body, and in hoc casu, to ashes, of which I inform
the most laudable Administration, and at the same time would like to
request, obediently and humbly, that if a mistake was made in this matter,
such is to be attributed not to me but to the rabble, who were beside
themselves with fear.
Imperial Provisor, Gradisk District
From Vampires, Burial, and Death
, by Paul Barber (Yale University Press, 1988).
