Soucouyant

Last updated

A soucouyant, among other names, is a kind of shape-shifting, blood-sucking hag present in Caribbean folklore. [1]

Contents

Names

The spirit has several regional names:

Legend

The Soucouyant is a folklore character who appears as a reclusive old woman (or man) by day. By night, they strip off their wrinkled skin and put it in a mortar. In the form of a fireball, they fly across the dark sky in search of a victim. The Soucouyants can enter the home of their victim through any sized hole such as cracks and keyholes.[ citation needed ]

Soucouyants suck humans' blood from their arms, necks, legs and other soft regions while the victim sleeps, leaving black and blue marks on the body in the morning. [8] If the soucouyant draws too much blood, it is believed that the victim will either die and become a soucouyant or perish entirely, leaving the killer to assume their skin. The soucouyant practices black magic. Soucouyants trade their victims' blood for evil powers with Bazil, the demon who resides in the silk cotton tree. [8]

To expose a soucouyant, it is believed one should heap rice around their house or at the village crossroads; the creature will be obligated to gather the rice, grain by grain, and be caught in the act. [8] To destroy one, coarse salt must be placed in the mortar with the stripped-off skin so that she perishes, unable to put it back on. The skin of the soucouyant is considered valuable and is part of black magic rituals.[ citation needed ]

Belief in soucouyants is still preserved to an extent in Guyana, Suriname and some Caribbean islands, including Saint Lucia, Dominica, Haïti and Trinidad. [9] Many Caribbean islands have plays about the soucouyant and many other folklore characters. Some of these include Trinidad, Grenada and Barbados.[ citation needed ]

Origin

Soucouyants belong to a class of spirits called jumbies. Some[ who? ] believe that soucouyants were brought to the Caribbean from European countries in the form of French vampire-myths. These beliefs intermingled with those of enslaved Africans.[ citation needed ]

In the French West Indies, specifically the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and also in Suriname, the Soukougnan or Soukounian is a person able to shed his or her skin to turn into a vampiric fireball. In general, these figures can be of any gender and age.[ citation needed ]

The term "Loogaroo" also used to describe the soucouyant, possibly comes from the French word for werewolf: Loup-garou; often confused with each other since they are pronounced the same. [10] In Haiti, what would be considered a werewolf, is called jé-rouges ("red eyes"). [11] As in Haiti, the Loogaroo is also common in Mauritian culture.[ citation needed ]

With the passage of time and gradual changes in the story, the soucouyant is no longer exclusively described as an elderly woman. [12]

Yoruba Origins

It is likely the origin of the Soucouyant as well as the Bahamian "Hag" have a strong connection to the Aje, or the witch of the Yoruba people. The Hag, which is similar to the Soucouyant, is very similar to the traditional definition of the Aje. Many Bahamians who descended from the Yoruba referred to old Congolese women as witches who shed their skins in the night and sucked human blood. This have many parallels to the Yoruba Aje with a few differences. Among the Yoruba, the Aje leaves her body and turns into an animal, but the Hag sheds her skin and turns into a ball of fire. Both the Hag and the Aje are associated with old women, leaving their bodies behind and sucking blood.

Items of Folk-lore from Bahama Negroes, written by Clavel and published in 1904, describes the Bahamian version. The parallels of the Bahamian Hag and Yoruba was made during the 19th century by Alfred Burdon Ellis in his book about the Yoruba published in 1894. But he associated it with the Yoruba spirit of nightmare, known as Shigidi.

In Divining the self, Velma E Love describes the Aje as "a blood-sucking, wicked, dreadful cannibal who transforms herself into a bird at night and flies to distant places, to hold nocturnal meetings with her fellow witches."

The Bahamian Hag as described by Clavel: "when a hag enters your house, she always shed her skin. When you first see her, she appears like the flame of a candle floating about; in some way, she puts you to sleep, and resumes her body (but without the skin); she then lies on you, and sucks away every drop of blood that God has put in you." There are more references to the Bahamian Hag in Folk-tales of Andros Island, Bahamas, published in 1918 by Elsie Clews Parsons that are the same as the 1904 version of Clavel, but the Hags can also be men.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vampire</span> Undead creature from folklore

A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.

Guyanese culture reflects the influence of Indian, African, Amerindian, British, Portuguese, Chinese, Creole, and Dutch cultures. Guyana is part of the mainland Caribbean region. Guyanese culture shares a continuum with the cultures of islands in the West Indies.

<i>Manananggal</i> Vampire-like creature from Philippine folklore

The manananggal is a mythical creature in the Philippines that is able to separate its upper torso from the lower part of its body. Their fangs and wings give them a vampire-like appearance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nana Buluku</span> Female supreme being in the religion of the Fon people and the Ewe people

Nana Buluku, also known as Nana Buruku, Nana Buku or Nanan-bouclou, is the female supreme being in the West African traditional religion of the Fon people and the Ewe people (Togo). She is one of the most influential deities in West African theology, and one shared by many ethnic groups other than the Fon people, albeit with variations. For example, she is called the Nana Bukuu among the Yoruba people and the Olisabuluwa among Igbo people but described differently, with some actively worshiping her while some do not worship her and worship the gods originating from her.

Afro-Caribbean or African Caribbeanpeople are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Africa. The majority of the modern Afro-Caribbean people descend from the Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the trans-Atlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries to work primarily on various sugar plantations and in domestic households. Other names for the ethnic group include Black Caribbean, Afro- or Black West Indian, or Afro- or Black Antillean. The term West Indian Creole has also been used to refer to Afro-Caribbean people, as well as other ethnic and racial groups in the region, though there remains debate about its use to refer to Afro-Caribbean people specifically. The term Afro-Caribbean was not coined by Caribbean people themselves but was first used by European Americans in the late 1960s.

Caribbean folklore includes a mix of traditions, tales, and beliefs of the Caribbean region. Caribbean folklore was shaped by a history filled with violence, colonialism, slavery, and multicultural influences. Specifically, influences from African, Creole, Asian, Indigenous American, European, and Indian cultures converged in the Caribbean to create a blend of lore unique to the region. Caribbean folklore has a variety of different characters that portray different traits. Folklore has evolved by blending folk speech, Creole dialogue, and various other elements that create the literary form of folklore, which portrays the "spirit" and "soul" of the Caribbean. Many themes are covered in Caribbean folklore, including colonial legacies, diversity in cultures, and the search for identity. Writers such as Nalo Hopkinson use these folklore elements in their writings by weaving myths and traditions into their modern-day storytelling.

The 2005 Caribbean Cup was the thirteenth edition of the Caribbean Cup hosted by Barbados and won by Jamaica. In all, 30 countries were invited, of which, 22 participated and 8 withdrew.

The Caribbean Cup was the championship tournament for national association football teams that are members of the Caribbean Football Union.

The Caribbean Cup, established in 1989, was the championship tournament for national association football teams that are members of the Caribbean Football Union.

The 2007 Caribbean Cup was the fourteenth edition of the biennial Caribbean Cup, the finals of which were contested in Trinidad and Tobago between 12 January and 23 January 2007. The four semifinalists qualified for the 2007 edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. In all, 24 of the eligible countries participated.

Bahamian Creole, also described as the Bahamian dialect, is an English-based creole language spoken by both white and black Bahamians, sometimes in slightly different forms. The Bahamian dialect also tends to be more prevalent in certain areas of The Bahamas. Islands that were settled earlier or that have a historically large Black Bahamian population have a greater concentration of individuals exhibiting creolized speech; the dialect is most prevalent in urban areas. Individual speakers have command of lesser and greater dialect forms.

The 1994 Caribbean Cup was the sixth edition of the Caribbean Cup, the football championship of the Caribbean, one of the CONCACAF zones. The final stage was hosted by Trinidad and Tobago.

The 1996 Caribbean Cup, was the 8th edition of the Caribbean Cup, the biennial football championship of the Caribbean region (CFU). It was held in Trinidad, where it began on 24 May 1996 and concluded on 7 June.

A total of 15 CONCACAF teams entered the competition. The 15 teams were divided into 3 zones, based on geographical considerations, as follows:

Listed below are the dates and results for the tournament qualification. A total of 17 CONCACAF teams entered the competition. Honduras withdrew before the matches were played. The remaining 16 teams were divided into 3 zones, based on geographical considerations, as follows:

The adze is a vampiric being in Ewe folklore, told by the people of Togo and Ghana. In the wild, the adze takes the form of a firefly, though it will transform into human shape upon capture. When in human form, the adze has the power to possess humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vampire folklore by region</span>

Legends of vampires have existed for millennia; cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, ancient Greeks, and Romans had tales of demonic entities and blood-drinking spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires. Despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century Central Europe, particularly Transylvania as verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or a living person being bitten by a vampire themselves. Belief in such legends became so rife that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afro-Bahamians</span> Bahamians of African descent

Afro-Bahamians are an ethnicity originating in The Bahamas of predominantly or partial native African descent. They are descendants of various African ethnic groups, many associated with the Bight of Biafra, Ghana, Songhai and Mali, the various Fula kingdoms, the Oyo Empire, and the Kingdom of Kongo. According to the 2010 census, 92.7% of The Bahamas' population identifies as mixed African descent.

The 2011 CONCACAF U-17 Championship qualification tournaments took place in 2010 to qualify national teams for the 2011 CONCACAF U-17 Championship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Member states of the Caribbean Community</span> Member nations of CARICOM, an economic and political union in the Caribbean

A member state of the Caribbean Community is a state that has been specified as a member state within the Treaty of Chaguaramas or any other Caribbean state that is in the opinion of the Conference, able and willing to exercise the rights and assume the obligations of membership in accordance with article 29 of the Treaty of Chaguaramas. Member states are designated as either More economically developed country (MDCs) or Less economically developed countries (LDCs). These designations are not intended to create disparity among member states. The Community was established by mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries, but has since become a multilingual organisation in practice with the addition of Dutch-speaking Suriname in 1995 and French-speaking Haiti in 2002. There are fifteen full members of the Caribbean Community, four of which are founding members.

References

  1. ↑ Welland, Michael (January 2009). Sand: The Never-Ending Story . University of California Press. pp.  66–67. ISBN   978-0-520-25437-4. Loogaroo.
  2. ↑ Hopkinson, Nalo, ed. (2001). Skin Folk. Grand Central. p. 104. ISBN   9780759526648 . Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  3. ↑ Abel, Ernest L., ed. (2009). Death Gods: An Encyclopedia of the Rulers, Evil Spirits, and Geographies of the Dead. Abc-Clio. p. 137. ISBN   9780313357138 . Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  4. ↑ Moore, Brian L., ed. (1995). Cultural Power, Resistance, and Pluralism: Colonial Guyana, 1838-1900. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. p. 150. ISBN   9780773513549 . Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  5. ↑ Anatol, Giselle Liza, ed. (2015). The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora. Rutgers University Press. pp. 6, 8. ISBN   9780813575599 . Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  6. ↑ Broussard, T. (ed.). Cultus des Loogaroo (Cult of the Loogaroo): Louisiana's Own Legend & Lore of the Vampyre. Lulu.com. p. 197. ISBN   9781304190772 . Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  7. ↑ Press, ed. (2009). The Vampire Book. Penguin. p. 46. ISBN   9780756664442 . Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  8. 1 2 3 Courtesy The Heritage Library via the Trinidad Guardian
  9. ↑ Maberry, Jonathan (September 1, 2006). Vampire Universe: The Dark World of Supernatural Beings That Haunt Us, Hunt …. Citadel. p. 203. ISBN   978-0-8065-2813-7.
  10. ↑ Bane, Theresa, ed. (2012). Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology. McFarland. p. 96. ISBN   9780786455812.
  11. ↑ Gresh, Lois H., ed. (2008). The Twilight Companion: The Unauthorized Guide to the Series. St. Martin's Publishing. ISBN   9781429983334 . Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  12. ↑ Fischer-Hornung, Dorothea; Mueller, Monika, eds. (2016). Vampires and Zombies: Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 63. ISBN   9781496804754 . Retrieved 5 August 2017.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.