After-eaters
Nachzehrer is the common name in German popular belief for a revenant or undead who is very closely related to the vampires and shares a number of essential properties with them.
In contrast to a long-held opinion in folklore , the area of distribution of the Nachzehrers is by no means limited to the partially Slavic areas in east and northeast Germany, but it was also widespread in the west as far as the Rhineland . There, when old cemeteries were abandoned in the Eifel, skeletons were discovered that were lying face down - a clear sign of the burial of a corpse that was considered dangerous.
Elements of popular belief
The legends and oral traditions describe the after-eater as follows: In contrast to the vampire, who has to leave his grave, the after-eater lies or sits underground and sucks the living - mostly his bereaved or the inhabitants of his village - the life force. With this idea it should be taken into account that most of the traditional reports of vampire attacks do not speak of sucking blood at all , but rather vaguely about “choking” or “weakening” the victim. The after-eater accomplishes his ominous work by “calling” his victim through the open mouth or establishing a telepathic connection with him through the open “evil” eye . Often he chewed on his shroud or even on his arms until everything was gnawed away. As long as he is still chewing, people either die of emaciation or of an epidemic . Those who died through the work of an after-eater, however, did not become undead themselves.
In order to effectively ban a potential after-eater, appropriate measures had to be taken before the burial. Under no circumstances were the eyes or mouth allowed to remain open, which is why one had to close the dead man's eyes without looking into them, because then telepathic contact between the after-eater and a future victim would have been established. Under no circumstances was the dead man's mouth allowed to come into contact with the shroud or any other piece of cloth. Often the corpses were tied up, sometimes only symbolically, for example with a rosary around the wrists. Often banishing metal objects (scissors, nails, knives) were placed on the chest of the deceased. Often the bereaved also poured dried legumes or pebbles into the coffin. According to popular belief, the undead had to count them before they could begin their disastrous activities. But since he was inspired by the devil , he could never get past two peas or stones because he was not allowed to pronounce the sacred number "three" (symbol of the Trinity ).
If one thought to ascertain damage caused by the after-eater, the grave could be opened. Then the measures known from the Southeast European belief in vampires such as cutting heads, cutting out hearts and stakes took place.
Origin of the after-consumption belief
Possibly the idea of the after-eater arose from a more primitive belief in vampires. Even in Romania and Serbia , the homeland of the classic vampire, one encounters the idea of the after-eater, sitting or lying in the grave, sucking the vitality of the living and spreading epidemics at the same time. Therefore, in the literature there is often the assumption that the belief in after- consumption arose only at the end of the Middle Ages in connection with the plague . With the same justification, however, one can also assume that in the 14th and 15th centuries - that is, in the age of the Great Plague - more reports of grave openings and "executions" of suspicious corpses were reported, because these are no longer just a general ability to damage the Was awarded to the living, but was specifically seen as the cause of the devastating epidemic.
literature
- Augustin Calmet : Scholarly negotiation of the matter of the apparitions of spirits, and of vampires in Hungary and Moravia. Edited and annotated by Abraham and Irina Silberschmidt. Edition Roter Drache, Rudolstadt 2007, ISBN 978-3-939459-03-3 .
- Angelika Franz / Daniel Nösler: beheaded and staked. Archaeologists on the hunt for the undead. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Darmstadt 2016, ISBN 978-3-806233-80-3 .
- Peter Kremer: Dracula's cousins. In search of traces of the vampire belief in Germany. Self-published, Düren 2006.
- Nikolaus Kyll: The burial of the dead face down. A special form of burial in the Trier region. In: Trier magazine for art and history . Volume 27, 1964, pp. 168-183.
- Karin Lambrecht: Revenants and vampires in East Central Europe: Posthumous cremation instead of witch hunt. In: Yearbook for German and Eastern European Folklore. Volume 37, 1994, ISSN 0949-3409 , pp. 49-77.
- Peter Neu: The after-eater. A contribution to the customs and cult of the dead in the Eifel in the 17th century. In: Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde. Volume 30/31, 1985/1986, ISSN 0556-8218 , pp. 225-227.
- Michael Ranft : Treatise on the chewing and smacking of the dead in graves. In which the true nature of those hungarian vampires and blood-suckers is shown, also all writings that have come to light from this matter are reviewed. Teubner, Leipzig 1734 (reprint. Ubooks, Diedorf 2006, ISBN 3-86608-015-8 ), digitized version of the original edition .
- Thomas Schürmann: Der Nachzehrerlauben in Central Europe (= series of publications of the Commission for East German Folklore in the German Society for Folklore eV Vol. 51). Elwert, Marburg 1990, ISBN 3-7708-0938-6 .
- Wolfgang Schwerdt: Vampires, revenants and undead. On the trail of the living dead (= small cultural stories ). Past Publishing, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940621-39-9 .
Web links
- Annett Stülzebach: Vampire and revenant appearances from a folklore and archaeological point of view. In: Concilium medii aevi. Vol. 1, 1998, ISSN 1437-9058 , pp. 97-121, (PDF file; 376 kB).