Featured Photo: By H.M. Bec from Wikimedia. License.
The Aswang is a mythical evil spirit that originates from the Phillipines. They are shapeshifters who are human by day but evil hungry beasts by night, hunting for prey. There are a wide variety of descriptions of what the Aswang looks like and so there is no overall main description of the creature, its behaviors and habits also vary from story to story and from different regions.
The Aswang in its night form can be loosely described overall as a type of small humanoid with skinny arms and legs, sometimes perhaps a long proboscis that it uses to feed and some stories say it can also be very thin, allowing it to fit through small spaces to get into places easily and also allowing it to hide very easily, some stories say they can easily hide behind a single piece of bamboo, going to show how thin they can be. Other stories say they can shapeshift into animals such as bats, crows, boars or black cats and dogs. What it feeds on varies but it can include the fetus of a pregnant woman by using its proboscis, the recently dead or buried as well as the bedridden or very sick people who are likely to die and also sometimes small children. The creature is like a cross between a vampire, werebeast and ghoul.
The Aswang is described as fast and agile and the human form they inhabit is often described as shy and elusive and may attain bloodshot eyes commonly due to their nightly activities, which can include milling around at wakes in an attempt to get to a dead feast, they may also replace their victims with a replica made out of foliage, they can replace both living and dead with an identical replica, but the living replica will soon die. The human form is also said to have magical abilities at times, but that they are still vulnerable at this time as they do not have their super-human strength they have during the night in Aswang form.
Despite the terrifying activities these entities take part in at night when they are hungry in Aswang form, their human form can easily fool normal humans and will act closely like a normal human, having jobs, friends and even a life partner, who may end up becoming an Aswang as well if they get married, they will never target anyone they personally know for food, only those they do not know. Aswangs at night are not group friendly though and are pretty much always described as hunting for food alone and not with other Aswangs as they do not like to share. A funny saying in the Phillipines is that an Aswang is better than a theif, due to how they are during the day.
Sometimes it can be possible to know if an Aswang is near, such as noises, some Aswangs are described as making a tik-tik noise which is also another name they are given, the ticking sound they make will sound further away when they are close as a way to trick their prey, other Aswangs are described as making the noise of a laying hen. There are also countermeasures that can be taken to catch out an Aswang in its human form or ways to let you know one is hunting nearby, this includes looking straight into a person’s eyes, should your reflection appear upside down then they are an Aswang, bending over and looking at a person between your legs can reveal an Aswang if they look different. As well as that it is said people without a philtrum can be an Aswang, a philtrum being a vertical indentation in the middle area of the upper lip. Hintura oil is also said to boil and bubble if an Aswang is close by.
There are also ways to repel or even kill an Aswang which includes garlic, salt, religious weapons/artifacts or by praying, a whip made out of a sting-rays tail and of course decapitation if that’s your style. It is also said that Aswang’s are unable to step into holy places or places of worship such as churches, mosques, temples and so on.
The myth of the Aswang is said to have been introduced or started off by Spanish colonists to help keep its population under control within towns, stopping people from going to the outskirts by saying that these creatures lived within the nearby forests and from then on developed on further as the story of it spread and was passed down from generation to generation, this helped to keep the communities more contained, focused and productive. Others say the myth begun from mis-identification of certain autoimmune and genetic diseases.
I first learned about the Aswang when it was featured on an episode of Grimm, back when I was watching it with my sister. If you have not seen Grimm by the way, and you are into all that sort of folklore and cryptid stuff, then you should certainly be watching it! The Aswang on Grim had dark blue skin, was small with skinny arms and legs and the long proboscis it used to feed on the pregnant, it also made the ticking sound.
I hope you enjoyed this blogpost on the Aswang and learned some things about this interesting evil spirit. Next time on the Paranormal Alphabet comes ‘B’ where I’ll be talking about the terrifying Bell Witch!
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