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The photo directly above is an enlarged image of the Babylonian demi-goddess Lamastu. She is kneeling on the back of a donkey in a boat on the river of the Underworld. She is lion-headed and holds a snake in each hand. A piglet sucks upon her left breast while a whelp or puppy sucks on the right breast. In the space between her legs and the neck of the donkey is a scorpion. The bow of the boat ends in a snake's head. This enlarged image is a detail from the bronze plaque shown on the lower right.
The bronze plaque on the lower right shows Lamastu being forced back into the underworld by the demon-god Pazuzu. The figure at the lower left corner of the plaque, to the left of Lamstu, is that of Pazuzu. The head at the very top of the plaque is also that of Pazuzu. In the tier directly above Lamastu, priests are treating a sick person lying on bier. On the tier directly above that are more standing images of Pazuzu.
Vampiric Demi-gods and Demons of Ancient Mesopatama
In ancient Babylonian and Assyrian mythology, the male lilu and the female lilitu are demons who haunt deserts and are especially a threat to infants and pregnant women. The ardat-lili is a demonic female who causes men to be impotent and women to be sterile.
Babylonians and Assyrians also believed in the demi-goddess Lamastu who especially preyed upon infants and women in labor. Slithering quietly like as snake into a home, she could snatch a baby out of the womb or out of its cradle. She also could also inflict disease upon both men and women. Her father is the primordial sky-god Anu, the prime-mover at the beginning of creation, who took over Heaven and separated it from Earth.
Pazuzu is the king of the wind-demons. Although his own reputation is rather dark, he was invoked on amulets to protect against Lamatsu. Pregnant women sometimes wore a bronze head of Pazuzu on a necklace for this purpose.
The Stryx of the Ancient Romans
What we know today about ancient Roman belief about the stryx (plural: striges) is from what Ovid wrote in his book Fasti. According to Ovid, the striges attacked children at night in a form resembling that of a screech owl. In a tale about the striges that Ovid gives, the striges create wounds upon on an infant's chest with their beaks and talons and then drink the blood from theses wounds. The striges returned night after night to prey upon the infant until the parents appealed to the demi-goddess Crane. Crane then appeared and went through the home performing rituals to ban the return of the striges. Her last act was to place a branch of white thorn in the window of the infant's room. This is rather interesting because white thorn is a species of hawthorn and in later European lore it was believed that hawthorn could provide a barrier against both witches and undead vampires. Ovid wrote that he was not sure whether the striges were born in owl-like form or whether they were women who supernaturally transformed into such form. But the latter notion seems to be the case. In Italian language, strega literally means "witch" and in Italy during the middle ages it was believed that the strega transformed into a bird at night to prey upon infants by drinking their blood. The Latin root is also obvious in the Albanian shtriga and the Romanian striga which I describe next below.
The below picture, on the right. is titled Lord of the Flies. It was drawn by L. Breton and first published in Collin de Placey's Dictionaire Infernal in the year 1863. It is meant to symbolize the demon Beelzebub. But I suspect that some Albanians would consider it also appropriate for the shtriga.
The Shtriga of Albania
The shtriga is a female witch whose special prey is infants. At least as late as the early twentieth century, the shtriga was blamed for otherwise unexplained infant deaths-what we in America today call “crib death” or “sudden infant death syndrome” (“SIDS”). But the shtriga was also sometimes blamed for diseases that occurred among adults. At night, she often sought her prey in the form of an insect such as a moth, a fly, or a bee. One way to create a charm to protect against the shtriga is to follow a shtriga in her natural human form at night. Eventually she will vomit some of the blood.she had drank from her victims. According to the belief, if you scrape up some of this vomit onto a silver coin, wrap the coin in cloth, and wear it always, no shtriga can harm you.
The shtriga usually lives incognito in a community. She even goes to church for the regular services. She could be detected during such a service by passing out bread spiced with garlic. A shtriga will always refuse to eat anything containing garlic. The second way is to place a cross of pig bone on the doors of the church after everyone in the community has gathered inside. Everyone but a shtriga will be able to leave the church through these doors.
Most of what we know about shtriga is from two written works by Edith Durham who traveled through Albania and other Balkan countries: her book High Albania (first published in 1909; reprinted by Virago Press Ltd. in 1985) and her article “Of Magic, Witches and Vampires in the Balkans” in the journal Man (December, 1923) published in England by the Royal Anthropological Institute.
The Vjestitiza of Montenegro and Serbia
The Vjestitza (plural: Vjeshtitze; pronounced as "vyeshtitza" and sometimes spelled as Vestizsa) is another female witch of the Balkan countries whose main prey was infants but were also sometimes blamed for adult illnesses. The vjestititza is typically an old woman whose soul leaves her body at night when she goes to sleep. Her soul then takes the body of a hen , a black moth, or a fly. In this form, she enters houses and feeds upon the blood in the heart of her victims. On certain nights, the vjeshtitze in such forms meet together in the branches of trees to hold coven meetings. An old woman may join such a coven if she agrees to follow the rules prescribed by the veteran members. The Vjeshtitza were most powerful during the first week of March. A protective ritual during this time was to stir the ashes in the hearth of the house with two horns which were then stuck into the pile of ashes. Like the witches of Western Europe, it was believed that a Vjeshtiza could not drown. So, when a woman was accused of being such, she was sometimes bound and cast into water. If she floated, she was guilty. If she drowned, she was innocent. Two early twentieth century sources on this are: the article "Of Magic, Witches and Vampires in the Balkans" in the journal Man (December, 1923) and the book Hero Tales and Legends of the Serbs by Woislav. M. Petrovich (London: G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1914, 1915, 1923).
The Striga of Romania
In an old text written in Latin, Descriptio Antiqui et Hodierni Statue Moldavie translated into Romanian and published in Bucharest in 1973, it is said that people in the Romanian regions of Moldavia and Transylvania believed in the strige (plural: strigele), a witch who killed infants in their cradles. Like the witches of Western Europe and the vjestitza, a woman suspected of being such a witch was often subjected to a trial where she was bound and tossed into a deep water. (I base this mostly on a footnote in the article "The Romanian Folkloric Vampire" by Jan Perkowski, published in the September 1982 issue of East European Quaterly.)
In the article The Vampire in Romania by Agnes Murgopci, published in the December 1926 issue of Folk-Lore, it is said that the strigele are either the spirits of living witches or of dead witches who appear as little points of light in the air. They sometimes come together in groups of seven or nine and dance together." After they break off their dance, they do mischief to human beings.
It seems obvious that the Romanian name strigoi, which can mean either a "living vampire" (strigoi viu) or a "dead vampire" (strigoi mort) is derived from this.
The "Living Vampires" of Romania
In Romania, the name strigoi (fem: strigoaica is the most common one applied in general to people who died and and returned from their graves as vampires who prey upon the living. But this is same name can apply to anyone living who becomes destined to become a vampire after death and has certain supernatural powers already before death. To distinguish between the two, there are the Romanian terms strigoi mort [fem: strigoaica morta, masc. plural: strigoi morti, fem. plural: strigoaice morte] and strigoi viu [fem: strigoaica via, masc. plural: strigoi vii, fem. plural: strigoaice vie]. If we translate strigoi from Romanian into English as "vampire", then strigoi mort) means "dead vampire" and strigoi viu means "live vampire" or "living vampire."
With the exception of the striga which might be regarded as a special kind of strigoaica via, the Romanian living vampires rarely drink blood, but they can rob people, animals, and crops of their vitality to enhance their own. They can also leave their own physical bodies at night to travel in animal form such as that of a wolf, a dog, a cat, a hen, or a raven, or as a small glowing ball or spark of light. People who are born with a caul (fetal membrane still attached to the head), with a little tail, or some other such peculiarity were believed to be such living vampires. And the living vampires become undead vampires after they die unless their corpses are treated at burial by such means as used to destroy the undead vampire, i.e., a stake driven into the heart, decapitation, cremation, etc.
According to some Romanian lore, the living vampires join together in covens which socialize with the undead vampires on certain nights. In some accounts of this, the undead vampires teach the living vampires teach the living vampires on the art of black magic.
The Kudlak of Istria
In Croatian and Slovenian lore on the peninsula of Istria, a person born with a caul(embryonic membrane still attached to the top of the head, forming a veil) was destined to become either a kudlak or a krenik. A person so destined to become a kudlak would begin already begin a career of evil while still alive - his soul would leave his body at night in animal form and fly through the air to attack people or to magically do other harm to the community he lived in. When he died, he became an undead vampire who was then an even greater threat to the community. But if a person born with a caul became a kresnik, he became a champion of the community. While he lived, his soul left his body in animal form at night to fight against both living and undead kudlaks. According to one account, a person born with a red or dark caul became a kudlak but a person born with a white or clear caul became a kresnik.
For more details on the kudlak and the kresnik see the books The Darkling by Jan Petrowski (Slavica Press, 1989) and Ecstasies by Carlo Ginzburg.(Penguin Books, 1992).
The Obur of Turkey
In the lore of the Karachay people in Turkey, obur is a blood sucking witch or sorcerer who can transform into animal form such as that of a cat, a dog, or a wolf. The obours are usually elderly people. After a person becomes an obur, he or she can then recognize others of his kind.
When at home at night, an obur will take off all clothes, smear an ointment over all of his or her body, and wallow in the ashes in the hearth. Then the obour mounts a broom, picks up a whip, runs in circles around the room until he flies up through the chimney in the form of a cat. The obur then enters the home of a family through the chimney to drink blood from the sleeping children. A black bruise is left on each victim in the place where the obur drank.
When an obur hunts outside his village at night, he joins with one or two of kind and they transform into wolves. In this environment and form. they usually prey on cattle or sheep by drinking their blood.
My source for this information is The Darkling by Jan Petrowsky (1989) where it cites an unpublished article by Raymond Hebert (1960).
The Old Hag
The Old Hag occurs in the lore of England and Scotland. She is also found in both Canadian and American folklore as an import. She evidently derives from the original Anglo-Saxon mare described above in under The Mare, the Incubus, the Succubus, and their Kin. According to at least some of the original lore about her, she is a witch whose soul leaves her body at night and then victimizes a normal person asleep. According to some of this lore, she would ride upon her victim into the sky. People suffering from repeated attacks, lacking as much rest and energy in the morning as they did when they first fell asleep, were said to be "hag-ridden." People suffering debilitating diseases such as tuberculosis were also sometimes thought to be hag-ridden.
The Tlahuelpuchi of Mexico
Belief in the tlahuelpuchi (plural: tlahuelpocmimi is prominent in at least the Mexican state of Tlaxcala. Most typically, the tlahuelpuchi is a woman born with a curse. When she enters puberty and has her first menstruation, she craves blood. At night she transforms into an animal such as a cat, a dog, a turkey, a vulture, or a flea. In some versions of the belief, she leaves her legs behind in the form of a cross before she goes out in animal to seek her victims. Her favorite victims are infants but she also attacks adults and cattle. Most typically, a tlahuelpuchi only requires blood once a month. But according to some versions of the belief, she thirsts for blood four times each month. The tlahuelpocmimi join together in societies and make a pact to not infringe upon each other's territories while seeking for prey. A tlahuelpuchi will also not prey upon her family or neighbors in order to remain incognito. It is difficult to detect a tlahuelpuchi. But one test is to offer an enchilada containing garlic to a woman suspected of being a tlahuelpuchi.
For more details about the tlahuelpuchi see The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton (Visible Ink Press, 1994, 1999) or Blood Sucking Witchcraft by H. G. Nunti and J. M. Roberts (University of Arizona Press, 1993).
The Aztecs. even before the Spanish conquest, had vampire witches called Cihuatetico who road through the air on broom sticks and met together at cross-cross roads. But a woman could only become such a witch by first dying while giving birth. And she was then also regarded as a demi-goddess. I give fuller details in Part V: The Undead in the Americas.
The Obayifu and the Asiman of West Africa
According to Ashanti lore in Ghana, the obayifu is a witch who leaves her body at night in the form of a small ball of light which flies through the air and sucks the blood of sleeping people, especially infants and children. The Dahomeans have essentially the same belief, but they call this type of witch the asiman.
For more details on West African vampiric witches, see The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton (Visible Ink Press, 1994, 1999).
Some Vampire Witches of the Caribbean and South America
The asema is a vampiric witch or sorcerer found in the lore of the South American country of Surinam, once a colony called Dutch Guiana. The asema was usually an old man or woman who lived undetected in a community. At night the asema takes off his or her skin and flies through the air as a ball of light, entered houses, and sucks the blood of sleeping people. One way to personally protect oneself against the asema is to consume garlic or cerain other herbs which make one's blood taste unpleasant to the asema. A way to prevent an asema from entering a home is to place a sesame seeds or rice grains mixed with the nails of a ground owl before the entrances. The asema is compelled to count the seeds or grains but each time it inadvertently picks up an owl's nail it lets go off all the seeds or grains it had counted and is forced to start over again. If the dawn comes while the asema is so occupied, the sunlight kills him or her. The ultimate way to kill an asema is to pore salt or pepper on the skin that he or she leaves behind at night. This shrinks the skin, and, when the asema returns to it near dawn, he or she can no longer fit into it.
Belief in the asema is an import from slaves brought to Surinam from West Africa. It seems likely that the name asema is derived from the Dahomean name asiman. But the compulsion of the asema to count seeds or grains might be due to European influence. The undead vampires in European lore often have such an obsession. But then such an obsession can be found to attributed to vampires in Asian lore as well.
In the lore of Caribbean islands there is the loogaroo and the soukoyan. Both have close similarities to the asemaIn the lore of Caribbean islands there is the loogaroo and the soukoyan. Both have close similarities to the asema.
The name loogaroo occurs in islands or, in the case of Haiti, part of an island that was colonized by the French who imported African slaves to do the hard labor on their plantations. The name loogaroo is obviously derived from loups garou, a French name for the werewolf which literally means "wolf-man" and was originally applied in France to werewolves. But the loogaroo exists primarily in Afro-Caribbean lore and no doubt is more closely a derivative of West African vampiric witches such as the obayifu and the asiman.
According to the Voodoo lore of Haiti, the loogaroo is most often a woman. At night she frees herself of her skin by rubbing a magical concoction made of herbs on her body. She then hides her skin in a cool place where it will not shrink. She then makes certain movements which cause turkey wings to sprout on her back. Flames shoot out from her armpits and anus. She then flies through the thatch of her hut. Flying though the sky, she leaves a luminous trail behind her. She sucks the blood of her victims, most often infants and children, and causes them to have illnesses which are sometimes fatal. To enter a dwelling where her little victim lies, the Haitian loogaroo takes the form of a cockroach or some other insect. She may also insert a long straw through the thatch composing the walls of a dwelling until it rests against her victim's cheek. She then sucks the blood through the straw. Her nocturnal flights for prey occur on the 7'th, 13'th, and 17'th of each month.
On the island of Granada, the loogaroo is also most often a woman. She flies each night. In her natural human form, she goes to a silk-cotton-tree. Botanists call this tree by the Latin name bombax ceiba. But in Granada it is known as the Devil's tree or the Jumbie tree. There the woman gets out of her skin which she then carefully folds and hides. Then the loogaroo transforms into a ball of light and flies through the air. The loogaroo in Granada often drinks the blood of adults, causing them to wake up tired and languid. This witch or sorcerer can pass through any tiny crack to get into dwelling. But if enough grains of rice or sand are scattered around the outside of the dwelling, he or she is compelled to count them until dawn.
The soukoyan is part of the lore of the islands of Dominica and Trinidad. According to one account from Trinidad, the soukoyan is much like the loogaroo of Granada. The soukoyan leaves his or her skin at night in a cool place and flies off at night in the form of a ball of light to drink the blood of humans. In one account there is added the detail that she can be destroyed if salt is poured on her skin to shrink it. In an account from Dominica that I've read, the loogaroo is most often a man.
For more details on this subject, see The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton (Visible Ink Press, 1994, 1999), The Vampire: His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers (originally published in 1928, most recently reprinted under the title The Vampire by Dorset Press in 1991), and Voodoo in Haiti by Alfred Metaux (Schoken Books, 1972).
The Loups Garou in Louisiana
In the Cajun folklore of Louisiana, the loups garou is definitely a werewolf, but it is also vampiric sorcerer or witch at the same time. According to this lore, a man or woman who is a loups garou changes into a wolf by rubbing an ointment all over their body. They have at their command giant bats that can carry them wherever they want them to go. To get into a sleeping person's home at night at night, they have the bats drop them down the chimney. Then they bite the person and suck his blood. The victim becomes a loups garous too. The loup garou can be stopped from entering a house by first placing a sifter outside. The loup garou is compelled to count the holes. If a person sprinkles salt on a loup garou while he is so occupied, his skin will catch on fire. The loup garou will then step out of his skin and run away. But if you shoot one with a gun the bullet goes right through it. If one attacks you, you can drive it away by throwing a frog at it. They are scared of frogs. The loup garous in Louisiana also socialize with other at balls on the Bayou Goula. And they have the power to change into mules to work their own farm land.
My source of information here is Gumbo Ya-Ya by Lyle. Saxon, Edward Dreyer, and Robert Tallant (Pelican Books, 1991).
The Malay doll above depicts a penanggalan. Obviously, this is before she splits for her midnight snack. Photo from Malay Magic by W.W. Skeats.
The Penanggalan of Malaysia
The penanggalan is a woman whose head, esophagus,stomach, and intestines separate as a whole from the rest of her body at night to fly off and seek human prey whose blood she drinks. Her favorite victims are children and women in labor. One way to protect a home against her is to place thorny branches on the roof. Her dangling intestines tend to get caught in the thorns. The intestines of a penanggalan are so bloated with blood when she returns to her own home before dawn that they can't cannot fit back into the part of her body that she left behind. She needs to shrink them by soaking them in a jar of vinegar. One way to destroy a penanggalan is to make a hole in the jar so that the vinegar will all have leaked out by the time she needs it.
For more details, see The Vampire: His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers (originally published in 1928, most recently reprinted under the title The Vampire by Dorset Press in 1991) and Malay Magic by Walter William Skeat (originally published in 1900; reprinted by Frank Cass & Co., Ltd. in 1965).
The Aswang of the Philippines
I must admit that I find the subject of Philippine vampires to be difficult and confusing. There are over fifty ethnic groups in the Philippines, and each one has its own dialect. Moreover, there are specific names for different types of Phillipino vampires. But, at the same time, these names are interchangeable as you go from one place to another. (The same problem of variable, inter-changing names for different types of vampires also occurs in European lore, especially in Romania.)
But let me do my humble best on the basis of what I have read in books and what I have learned from three people born in the Philippine Republic who have corresponded with me through e-mail.
In the Philippine Islands today, the term aswang, in its broadest meaning, applies to all the vampiric witches and sorcerers in Philippine lore.
One type of aswang is a woman who changes into the form of a large bird at night. In this form, she has a very long, hollow tongue with a sharp point at the end. She lands on the thatched roof of her victims. The tongue reaches down through a crack in the roof. The tip of this tongue inserts into the neck of a sleeping person and draws up the blood. The favorite victims are young children and pregnant women. When this type of aswanng returns to her own home before dawn, she changes back into human form. But her breasts and belly are swollen with blood. She then breast feeds the blood to her own children. Sometimes this type of aswang is called the tik-tik or wak-wak. But in some Phillipino lore the name tik-tik is given to a small owl-like bird which accompanies this type of aswang at night. The smaller bird makes the sound "tik-tik" which forewarns the potential victims. of the nearby presence of the aswang. This type of aswang is described in The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton (1994, 1999) and in The Vampire Encyclopedia by Matthew Bunson (1983. According to one of my informants, a woman who grew up on the Phillipino island of Mindanao, this type of aswang was called the tyanak. Her American husband mentioned that the correspondence between different names for different types of Phillipino vampires tended to be switched around as you go from one region to another.
But the name tiyanak often applies to an infant who becomes a vampire as the result of having died without being baptized.
Another type of aswang is a man or woman who separates at the waist at night. The top half then grows wings and flies off to seek victims. This type of aswang is also sometimes said to have a long tongue. It has a reputation for snatching unborn babies from the wombs of pregnant women. He or she can be destroyed by casting salt onto the lower part of his body after he becomes detached. The upper half can then no longer re-connect with the lower half. This type of aswang is mentioned in the article "Phillipino (Visayan) Superstitions " by Fletcher Gardner published in The Journal of American Folk-Lore, 19 (1906). You can find the
relevant excerpt from this article in the book Supernatural Tales from Around the World edited by Terri Hardin (Barnes & Noble, 1995.) According to one of my informants, the woman from Mindanao, this vampire is called the aswang. But, according to two of my Philippine informants, the specific name for this type of aswang is mannananggal. This name derives from the Philippine word tanggal which means "to separate." You might recognize a resemblance here with the Malaysian penanggalan as described under
The Penanggalan of Malaysia here above in Gallery 2 The similarity in names might simply be due to the fact that Malaysian and Phillipino languages share common roots. But then it is also possible that Malaysian and Philippine beliefs in the supernatural have common roots.
A third type of aswang is a man or women who can change into all sorts of animal forms, including that of a bird, a dog, or a pig. Again,it is frequently said that the favorite victims are young children and pregnant women. This type seems to correspond the more specific meaning of the name aswang. Most often such an aswang is a man but there are also female aswangs of this type.
A fourth type of aswang, the mandurugo, occurs in a Tagalog folk tale summarized by J. Gordon Melton in The Vampire Book. According to this tale, at one time a certain girl was the most beautiful women on her island. She was also a mandurugo. When she was 16 years old, she married a husky young man. He withered away and died within a year after the marriage. She next married another man soon after, and he suffered the same fate as the first husband. The same sequence was repeated with her third husband. She then married a fourth husband. But he was warned in time. He went to bed one night, with a knife under his pillow, and feigned sleep. When he felt something over him pricking his neck, he struck with his knife and stabbed the creature on top of him. It was too dark to see the creature, but he heard a screech and the sound of flapping wings. In the following morning, his wife was found dead at some distance from his cottage with a knife wound in her chest.
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