Soucouyant

The soucouyant in Dominica, Trinidadian and Guadeloupean folklore is a kind of blood-sucking hag. The soucouyant lives by day as an old woman at the end of a village. By night, she strips off her wrinkled skin, which she puts in a mortar, following which she flies in the shape of afireball through the darkness, looking for a victim. Still a fireball, the soucouyant enters the home of her victim through cracks and crevices, like keyholes. Soucouyants suck people’s blood from their arms, legs and soft parts while they sleep. 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 witchcraft, voodoo, and black magic. Soucouyants trade their victims’ blood for evil powers with Bazil, the demon who resides in the silk cotton tree. 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.