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The soucouyant or soucriant in
Dominica Dominica ( or ; Kalinago: ; french: Dominique; Dominican Creole French: ), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. It is geographical ...
, St. Lucian,
Trinidadian Trinidadians and Tobagonians, colloquially known as Trinis or Trinbagonians, are the people who are identified with the country of Trinidad and Tobago. The country is home to people of many different national, ethnic and religious origins. As a ...
,
Guadeloupe Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label= Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands— Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and ...
an folklore (also known as Loogaroo or Lougarou) in
Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and s ...
,
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...
,
Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pet ...
and elsewhere in the
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...
or Ole-Higue (also Ole Haig) in
Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
,
Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...
and
Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...
or Asema in
Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the nor ...
), in
The Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...
and Barbados it is known as Hag. It is a kind of blood-sucking
hag HAG is a Swiss maker of model trains. The company was founded by Hugo and Alwin Gahler on 1 April 1944 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The Gahler brothers originally manufactured model trains in O scale but due to competition, particularly by Mär ...
.


Legend

The ''soucouyant'' is a
shapeshifting In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shape-shifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, sorcery, spells or having inherited the ...
Caribbean folklore character who appears as a reclusive old woman by day. By night, she strips off her wrinkled skin and puts it in a mortar. In her true form, as a
fireball Fireball may refer to: Science * Fireball (meteor), a brighter-than-usual meteor * Ball lightning, an atmospheric electrical phenomenon * ''Bassia scoparia'', a plant species Arts and entertainment Films * '' The Fireball'', a 1950 film starring ...
she flies across the dark sky in search of a victim. The soucouyant can enter the home of her victim through any sized hole like cracks, crevices and keyholes. Soucouyants suck people's blood from their arms, necks, legs and soft parts while they sleep leaving blue-black marks on the body in the morning.Courtesy The Heritage Library via the
Trinidad Guardian The ''Trinidad and Tobago Guardian'' (together with the ''Sunday Guardian'') is the oldest daily newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago. The paper is considered the newspaper of record for Trinidad and Tobago. History Its first edition was published ...
If the soucouyant draws too much blood, it is believed that the victim will either die and become a soucouyant or perish entirely, leaving her killer to assume her 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 Silk-cotton tree is a common name for several plants and may refer to: *'' Bombax ceiba'', native to the Asian tropics *''Ceiba pentandra'', native to the American tropics and west Africa *''Cochlospermum religiosum ''Cochlospermum religiosum'' ...
. To expose a soucouyant, one should heap rice around the house or at the village cross roads as the creature will be obligated to gather every grain, grain by grain (a herculean task to do before dawn) so that she can be caught in the act. To destroy her, coarse salt must be placed in the mortar containing her skin so she perishes, unable to put the skin back on. Belief in soucouyants is still preserved to an extent in Guyana, Suriname and some Caribbean islands, including Dominica, Haiti and Trinidad. The skin of the soucouyant is considered valuable, and is used when practicing black magic. Many Caribbean islands have plays about the soucouyant and many other folklore characters. Some of these include Trinidad Grenada and Barbados.


Origin

Soucouyants belong to a class of spirits called
jumbie A jumbee, jumbie, mendo or chongo in Colombia and Venezuela is a type of mythological spirit or demon in the folklore of some Caribbean countries. Jumbee is the generic name given to all malevolent entities. There are numerous kinds of jumbees, ...
s. Some 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. In the
French West Indies The French West Indies or French Antilles (french: Antilles françaises, ; gcf, label= Antillean Creole, Antiy fwansez) are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean: * The two overseas departments of: ** Guadeloupe ...
, 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 anyone, not only old women, although some affirm that only women could become Soukounian, because only female breasts could disguise the creature's wings. 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. In Haiti, what would be considered a
werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely ...
, is called ''jé-rouges'' ("red eyes"). As in Haiti, the Loogaroo is also common in Mauritian culture. In Suriname this creature is called "Asema". As the legend of the soucouyant has been verbally passed down over the centuries, the story has changed with the passage of time, so that the soucouyant is no longer exclusively described as an elderly woman.


Yoruba Origins

In The Bahamas there is a similar thing known as the Hag. The Hag, which is the same as the Soucouyant but with a different name, is very similar to the traditional definition of the Yoruba witch, known as Aje. Many Bahamians who descended from the Yoruba referred to old Congolese women as witches who shed their skins in the night and sucked your blood. This have many parallels to the Yoruba Aje with a few differences. Among the Yoruba, the Aje left her body and turned 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. It is likely the origin of the Hag and the Soucouyant have a strong connection to the Aje, or the witch of the Yoruba people. For more about the Bahamian Hag, read "Items of Folk-lore from Bahama Negroes by Clavel published in 1904. 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. For more about the Yoruba Aje, read Divining the self by Velma E Love, who 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.


In popular culture

* In Keri Arthur's
novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself ...
''Demon Dance'', a pair of soucouyant are the main villains. * In Jean Rhys's '' Voyage in the Dark'' a soucouyant is one of Anna Morgan's daydreaming fears before she undergoes an abortion that leaves her bleeding to death. It is worth noting that before the ending was edited, Anna Morgan dies of the abortion. * Also used in Rhys's short story "The Day They Burned the Books", in a servant's description of Mrs. Sawyer, a main character in the story: "...Mildred told the other servants in the town that her eyes had gone wicked, like a soucriant's eyes, and that afterwards she had picked up some of the hair he pulled out and put it in an envelope, and that Mr. Sawyer ought to look out (hair is obeah as well as hands)". * Also used in a third Jean Rhys book, '' Wide Sargasso Sea'', when the former slave, Christophine, describes Antoinette's eyes as "red like soucriant". * In "Greedy Choke Puppy", a short story by Nalo Hopkinson, a soucouyant narrates part of the story. Hopkinson's book ''Brown Girl in the Ring'' also features a soucouyant, who is delayed from her purpose of consuming blood by another character who drops rice grains on the floor, forcing the soucouyant to pick them up before proceeding. * Appears in the novel ''White is for Witching: A Novel'' by Helen Oyeyemi. * ''Soucouyant'' is the title and one of the primary plot devices of a novel by David Chariandy. * A soucouyant is the title creature in the book "Nightwitch" by author Ken Douglas, which was also published under a previous pseudonym, Jack Priest. * In Timothy Williams's Guadeloupe novel, ''Un autre soleil'' (''Another Sun''), the spelling soucougnan is adopted in both French and English. * A soucouyant appears in ''The Night Piece'', a collection of short-stories written by
André Alexis André Alexis (born 15 January 1957 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) is a Canadian writer who grew up in Ottawa and lives in Toronto, Ontario.
. * In ''
Byzantium Byzantium () or Byzantion ( grc, Βυζάντιον) was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium' ...
'', a
Neil Jordan Neil Patrick Jordan (born 25 February 1950) is an Irish film director, screenwriter, novelist and short-story writer. His first book, '' Night in Tunisia'', won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979. He won an Academ ...
film, one of the protagonists, Eleanor Webb, refers to vampires in her story as "soucriants". On the other hand, there are no references to Caribbean mythology in the movie itself and the vampires' origin is hinted as pre-Christian European. * In Season 3 episode 6 of '' Sleepy Hollow'', a soucouyant appears. This creature is a swarm of red insects that can gather itself into a female humanoid shape, and whose sting causes paranoid insanity. As the soucouyant is the queen of her swarm, she targets authority figures. * In the video game
Cultist Simulator ''Cultist Simulator'' is a card-based simulation video game developed by indie studio Weather Factory and published by Humble Bundle. It was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux computer systems in May 2018, with mobile versions ...
, soucouyants appear as an obstacle during expeditions. They are described as being like winged old women (or occasionally men), who appear human until they discard their skins. It is implied that when an immortal being consumes their own child, they become a soucouyant, but only if the other parent was also an immortal being. They are also known as Alukites (likely a reference to
Alukah ''Alukah'' (Hebrew: עֲלוּקָה ''‘ălūqāh'') is a feminine Hebrew word that means " horse-leech", a type of leech with many teeth that feeds on the throats of animals. According to biblical scholars, ''alukah'' can mean "blood-lusting mo ...
) or
Empousai Empusa or Empousa (; ; ''plural'': ''Empousai'') is a shape-shifting female being in Greek mythology, said to possess a single leg of copper, commanded by Hecate, whose precise nature is obscure. In Late Antiquity, the empousai have been descr ...
.


See also

* Adze * Chonchon * Manananggal *
Rougarou The rougarou (alternatively spelled as roux-ga-roux, rugaroo, or rugaru) is a legendary creature in French communities linked to traditional concepts of the werewolf. Versions The stories of the creature known as a rougarou are as diverse as th ...
* Shtriga *
Silk cotton tree Silk-cotton tree is a common name for several plants and may refer to: *'' Bombax ceiba'', native to the Asian tropics *''Ceiba pentandra'', native to the American tropics and west Africa *''Cochlospermum religiosum ''Cochlospermum religiosum'' ...


References

{{reflist


Further reading

*''Myths and Maxims: A Catalog of Superstitions, Spirits and Sayings of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean'' by Josanne Leid and Shaun Riaz *''The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora'' by Giselle Liza Anatol


External links


triniview.commontraykreyol.orgTrinidad Soucouyant
Female legendary creatures Witchcraft in fairy tales Witchcraft in folklore and mythology Vampires Caribbean legendary creatures Grenadian culture Guadeloupean culture Guyanese culture Haitian culture Jamaican culture Louisiana culture Mauritian culture Surinamese culture Trinidad and Tobago folklore South American ghosts Hags