 Piercing the skin of the chest was a way of " deflating " the bloated vampire . This is similar to the act of burying sharp objects , such as sickles , in with the corpse , so that they may penetrate the skin if the body <unk> sufficiently while transforming into a revenant . In one striking example of the latter , the corpses of five people in a graveyard near the Polish village of <unk> , dating from the 17th and 18th centuries , were buried with sickles placed around their necks or across their abdomens . 
