Vampires continued.
What all this means is that there have always been "vampires"
of one sort or another, originally as revenants, which return
from the dead to drain the living dry, not necessarily
of blood, but there have always been some, which did just that!
When a family member died, it was always thought best
to ensure that they did not come back to terrorise the living.
The best way being to ensure that the passage to the Other Side,
whatever and wherever that might be, was as safe as possible for them.
The best known examples are the Books of the Dead,
e.g. ancient Egypt's symbolic description of the process,
judgement by weighing of the heart, etc
Then there's the Bardo Thos'grol of the Tibetans,
which could serve as a text book for the burial practices
of many cultures, in terms of the means of ensuring spirits are
sent on their way through weeks of different techniques.
The human fact is that there was a widely held belief with
our ancestors, that if the process was not thoroughly conducted,
then angry spirits of one kind, or another, even the resurrected
bodies themselves, would return, and the net result would be
the creation of a new demon.
Especially if the person, when alive, was violent, angry,
had unfinished business, or was a witch:
that is to say, capable of casting the evil eye.
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