The Aswang are another one of those vampire species that are way different than your traditional opera cape kind. This particular vampire is from the Philippines and is believed to be a sexy normal woman by day and an evil flying monster of terror at night.
During the day the Aswang appears to be a completely normal human. She can live in a house, work a job, carry and raise children and do all sorts of other human things like you and I. At night, however she takes the form of a demonic looking bird and takes flight, crying out “Kikik! (or Kakak!).
She feeds on blood and only blood. And the manner in which she feeds isn’t what you’d expect. She feeds using her very long, thin, hallow tongue that she inserts through cracks in the roof of prey’s houses. The Aswang favors children, but will not feed upon those who sleep on the edge of their mats. For some reason she only feeds on those that sleep in the middle and supposedly announces this before eating.
At dawn the Aswang returns to human form, possibly because of the sun or because it washes off the special ointment it uses to become a vampire. Because that is how an Aswang come to be, through a special ointment it rubs all over its body that gives it it’s dark powers.
Also, if the Aswang happens to lick your shadow you will die shortly after. Seriously. Curse those shadow lickers! Ahem. There is a way to keep them from licking your poor shadow though. Garlic rubbed under one’s armpits is an excellent Aswang repellent…although if you do that you will be repelling just about anyone and anything within 10 feet of you.
The Aswang is still used today by Filipinos as a kind of boogie-man to make their children behave.
So what have we learned today? Sleep on the edge of your bed and protect your shadow… oh and don’t rub any strange lotions all over your body.
Added note: I am aware of the fact that there is another type of aswang, but considering that the other one is a type of ghoul that feeds on corpses and not blood, I left it out of this vampire post.
– Moonlight
13 replies on “The Aswang”
what a nasty tongue.
[…] biting a person three times. Flight: There are a few vamps out there that can fly, like the aswang and langsuir. Misting or vaporizing: Changing into mist is a pretty well known classic vampire […]
Haha, I’ll try that garlic-thing =P
Interesting. It’s incredible what people manage to tell others. I wonder how that myth started =P
But is there no way to get completely rid of it? Will this woman choose to become an aswang every night, or is she forced to become a demon bird?
From what I have read they become an aswang through their special ointment, if they don’t use it they don’t turn into the demon bird thing. But that’s all I have read on that i’m afraid.
[…] Nowadays you have an assortment of vampires in film and in books taking dirt naps. In Anne Rice’s novels dawn tends to trigger most of the vampires to sleep against their will. Then we have shows like Buffy, Angel and even the new Vampire Diaries that often show us clips of the vampires sleeping. But then you have the famed Twilight novels and movies in which is it pointed out that Edward doesn’t have a bed, why? Because as he tells Bella, he doesn’t sleep. These are vampires from the entertainment world though. In old folklore and legends some vampires sleep, but many don’t require sleep at all, some don’t even need to hide from the rays of the sun, they can walk around during the day without any harm coming to them (like the aswang). […]
[…] example, in the Philippines they have a vampire known as the aswang that appears as a normal human during the day, but at night takes on the appearance of a giant bird […]
are there still vampire snakes? i believe that thy are the ones from the garden of eden story
will you bit me
[…] as servants of the undead, or that they could become vampires themselves. For example, the Filipino aswang transformed into a bird to feed upon its victims and the Mexican tlahuelpuchi was said to transform […]
[…] the second season of the show Josh traveled to the Philippines to investigate the aswang, a vampire greatly feared in the […]
[…] The Aswang This vampire continues to be one of my all-time favorites, it’s just so bizarre and unique. The aswang is a Filipino vampire that was believed to be a sexy normal woman by day and an evil flying monster at night. She transforms into a large bloodthirsty bird at night and feeds upon her victims with her long needle-like tongue. It was also said that she could kill someone by licking their shadow. Can you imagine the crazy movie this could make? It would be so out there and unlike anything we’ve seen before. I imagine a story following the life off a gorgeous aswang women blending into the modern day world, keeping her secret from everyone. If I could pick the actress I would totally choose Mila Kunis, she is sexy as all hell and excellent at dark roles. […]
i want to be a vamiper so bad plzzzzzzz