Old Higue

The Old Higue belongs to the folklore of Guyana and the English-speaking Caribbean islands. Her name comes from the Creole English higue, itself from hag, «old witch». She completes a triangle with the soucouyant of Trinidad and the loogaroo of the French-speaking islands: the three are one figure, and what separates them is not the creature but the empire that colonised each shore.

Elsie Clews Parsons collected Guyanese and Antillean versions in her Folk-Lore of the Antilles of 1923, and the word higue already appeared in nineteenth-century oral accounts published in Timehri, the journal of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of Guyana. What those testimonies make plain is what the figure was for. In Creole communities where a newborn might be found dead at daybreak with no one able to name the cause, the Old Higue was the name given to that cause. She did not explain the world: she explained an empty cradle.

By day the Old Higue appears as a solitary old woman of the village. At nightfall she sheds her skin, rolls it up and hides it inside a jar or a mortar. Turned into a ball of fire she flies out to seek sleeping victims. She prefers the blood of babies because it is considered purer and more nourishing. For this reason families avoid leaving newborns alone and refrain from boasting about them in front of unknown old women. The versions collected by Parsons describe how the ball of fire enters through window cracks or through the thatched roof. Once sated she returns before dawn to recover her skin. If she fails she burns upon contact with daylight. This transformation into flying fire resembles that of the soucouyant but receives local names according to the colonized island.

The most widespread defenses consist of scattering grains of rice or seeds on the doorstep. The Old Higue is forced to count them one by one and dawn surprises her before she finishes. Another measure consists of rubbing the hidden skin with salt and pepper so that it becomes impossible for her to put it back on. If the creature is trapped without skin at dawn she burns instantly. Some versions recommend beating her with a broom while she is busy counting the grains. These practices appear documented in Parsons' 1923 collections and in nineteenth-century Guyanese accounts. Their effectiveness is attributed to the combination of sunlight and irritating substances that destroy the skin's regenerative capacity. The symbolism of rice and the broom reinforces the idea that domestic order and community vigilance protect the most vulnerable.