Soucouyant

The soucouyant is a figure of Caribbean folklore, found under many names – Ol’ Higue in Jamaica and Guyana, asema in Suriname, hag in the Bahamas and Barbados, soukouyan in Grenada, and loogaroo elsewhere. By day it looks like a reclusive old woman or man; by night, the story goes, it removes its skin, hides it in a mortar or jar, and flies as a ball of fire to find a sleeping victim.

It is said to enter houses through any crack or keyhole and to drink blood, leaving bruise-like blue marks by morning. A victim who loses too much blood may die, and in some tellings become a soucouyant. It is a type of jumbie or spirit and is sometimes described as a vampire.

The remedies are famous. Rice or grains scattered around the house, bed or crossroads force the creature to count each grain, and it is exposed at dawn. Salt or pepper rubbed on the hidden skin prevents the soucouyant from putting it back on. Written records exist from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: M. Clavel’s 1904 article on Bahamian folklore and Elsie Clews Parsons’s 1918 collection from Andros recorded the Bahamian hag and its skin-shedding.

Some writers point to African and French influences, and local commentary notes that the tale was used to explain unexplained deaths, particularly of infants, and to keep children indoors after dark. After Trinidad and Tobago’s independence in 1962, the government promoted folk traditions such as soucouyant plays.

An old, reclusive person by day; by night a flying fireball that has shed its wrinkled skin, with glowing eyes.

Villages and homes in Trinidad and across the Caribbean, particularly at night, with the skin hidden in a mortar or jar.

The soucouyant features in plays, storytelling, and festivals across Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica and the French Caribbean.