Aswang

The aswang is the most celebrated and feared creature of Filipino folklore, a term that actually encompasses several types of monstrous beings (corpse eaters, witches, vampires and shapeshifters) especially associated with the Bisayas islands and Mindanao. In its shapeshifting witch aspect, it is conceived as a woman who by day lives as an ordinary villager and at night adopts monstrous forms to hunt. Tradition holds that the aswang condition is transmitted, often through the female line: an elderly aswang must pass on her power to a successor before dying, for otherwise she fails to expire; the transfer is described through images such as the delivery of a breath, a saliva or a black offspring that passes from one to another.

The aswang is a shapeshifter capable of adopting the form of animals such as the dog, the pig or, above all, a large nocturnal bird. Its most characteristic feature is a long, thin and tubular tongue with which, perched on the roof of a house, it reaches its victims to suck their blood; it is considered especially dangerous for pregnant women and newborns, whose blood or whose fetus it is said to crave. Tradition attributes to it a supernatural sense of smell to detect pregnant women and great speed. Among its vulnerabilities, folklore points to salt, vinegar, garlic, holy water and various apotropaic objects and plants, as well as the fact that its reflection or its shadow can reveal its true nature.

By day, the aswang is indistinguishable from an ordinary person, which fuels the fear that any neighbor could be one; folklore attributes to it, as a telltale sign, bloodshot eyes or an inverted image reflected in its pupils. When transforming, it adopts bestial and shadowy forms, with bird or dog features. The belief in the aswang remains very much alive in wide rural areas of the Philippines, where it structures a good part of the imaginary of nocturnal fear, and has been widely documented by folklorists such as Damiana Eugenio and Francisco Demetrio. As a category rather than as a unique creature, the aswang constitutes the core of Filipino supernatural folklore and one of its most original contributions to the world catalog of monsters.