Thursday, August 20, 2009

I vant to suck your blooodddd

The Soucouyant or Soucriant in Caribbean and specifically Trinidadian folklore is a creature that lives by day as an old woman at the end of the village. By night, however, she strips off her wrinkled skin, puts it in a mortar and flies in the shape of a fireball through the darkness, looking for a victim to suck the life-blood out of. To get rid of her, you must put coarse salt in the mortar containing her skin, then she cannot put it back on and must perish. The Soucouyant practices witchcraft, voodoo, and black magic. Belief in Soucoyants is still preserved to some extent in Trinidad.[citation needed]

Origin
Belongs to a class of spirits called Jumbies. Some believe that soucouyants were brought from the European countries in the form of French vampire-myths. These beliefs intermingled with those of Africans, which were then enslaved. Others believe that soucouyants were actually elder ladies, who experienced many things unbearable to their neighbors. The neighbors, by this line of thought, would mock them for their wrinkled skin and fear their association with witchcraft.[citation needed].

In the French West Indies, specifically the island of Guadeloupe, the Soukougnan or Soukounian is likewise a person able to shed their skin to turn into a vampiric fireball, but they can be anyone, not only old women, although some affirm that only women could become Soukounian, because only female breasts could contain the creature's wings.

Beliefs
The skin of the soucouyant is said to be very valuable, as it is used when practicing the Black Magic - Obeah. The soucouyant can enter a home by turning into a fireball, and then entering through the keyhole or any crack/crevice in the home. If the soucouyant draws out too much blood from its victim, it is believed that the victim will die and become a soucouyant itself, or else perish entirely, leaving its killer to assume its skin.

1 comment:

newer said...

Oh good. . .more to add to my stories for the kids :)

Too bad those wussy hollywood vampires aren't as cool as ours :D