Soucouyant

Folklore situates the soucouyant within Caribbean syncretic cosmologies as one member of the broader class of spirits called jumbies. Sources describe the figure as arising from a blending of local and diasporic influences — scholars and folklorists note correspondences with African beliefs (for example, Yoruba Aje) and points of contact with European motifs (e.g., folk terms related to loup-garou/loogaroo), but emphasize that the soucouyant is a distinct regional formation rather than a direct equivalent of any single Old World type.

By day the soucouyant is traditionally depicted as a reclusive old person, often an old woman, though accounts allow other genders and ages. At night the being is said to strip off its wrinkled skin (leaving it stored, in some tellings, in a mortar) and take the form of a glowing, flying fireball that can enter houses through very small openings such as keyholes and cracks. Victims found after an attack are reported to have black and blue marks on arms, neck, legs and other soft regions.

Folk descriptions hold that the soucouyant removes and stores its human skin before nocturnal activity, flies through the sky as a luminous ball, and enters dwellings through tiny cracks to suck human blood from sleeping victims, leaving bruises; excessive blood loss is said in some accounts to kill victims, and narratives report that death may lead to the victim becoming a soucouyant or to other exchanges involving skins. The soucouyant is also described as practicing black magic and, in some accounts, trading victims' blood with a demonic figure associated with the silk cotton tree (named 'Bazil' in one source). Stories also report compulsive behaviors (for example, an obligation to gather scattered grains) that provide opportunities for exposure.