Almost all cultures have some sort of monster tales, regaled to small children to warn them against bad behavior. On a scale from Santa Claus to the Pale Man (from Pan’s Labyrinth), the soucouyant falls towards the more malicious side of boogeymen (or in this case, boogeywomen).
Make sure to keep your salt or grains of rice handy in the off chance that you happen to encounter a soucouyant. This traditionally Caribbean vampire-hag appears as an old woman by day, but at night she flies around as a ball of fire, looking for helpless victims so that she can suck their blood. As soon as night falls, the soucouyant sheds her skin and tucks it away in a mortar jar. After removing her encumbering human appearance, she transforms into fire. The soucouyant can creep through niches, through cracks and crannies, and I’m sure that she could slip down a chimney.
The soucouyant’s skin is her downfall; once it is shed and placed in the mortar jar, she can be stopped. This is where you might want that rice. By sprinkling plenty of grains around and on her skin, she will be unable to return to a humanoid form. Whether it destroys the skin or simply preoccupies her (the drive to count every grain would be overwhelming), no one knows. Without her skin, she will perish at dawn. On the other hand, if you kill the soucouyant, how can you coerce children into going to bed on time?
The origin of the soucouyant comes from a blend of West African and French language, as it is with most things Creole. The name of the monster most likely comes from the French word sucer (to suck) and the Fula/Soninke word sukunya, meaning a “man-eating witch.” So put them together, and we’ve got a misandrist witch who sucks blood. Yuck. The attributes of the hag are likely to be a blend of cultures as well. The obayifo is an Ashanti monster who kills children by sucking their blood. One of the obafiyo’s most distinguishable traits is the phosphorescent light emitted from it’s armpits. I speculate that this would give rise to the soucouyant’s ability to turn into flame. The blood-sucking aspect of the soucouyant could also be attributed to a typical European vampire. A British hag who is similar to the soucouyant is named Baba Yaga. She, too, appears as an old lady and eats children. Ugly, old women seem to be a cause for suspicion, although the leap from lacking in looks to sucking blood is quite a large one. Baba Yaga could probably be good pals with the soucouyant. They could eat naughty children together, probably even saving good ol’ Saint Nick a bit of time.
~ Celine
Works Cited:
Friedman, Nancy. "Fritinancy." 'Fritinancy' N.p., 1 July 2013. Web. 19 Dec. 2014. <http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2013/07/word-of-the-week-soucriant.html>.
O'Neal, Eugenia. "Eugenia Writes!" : The Soucouyant. Eugenia Writes!, 13 June 2012. Web. 18 Dec. 2014. <http://eugeniaoneal.blogspot.com/2012/06/soucouyant-caribbean-vampire.html>.
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