The Aswang
The Aswang (ah-swang) is an all-encompassing term for evil shapeshifting creatures found within Filippino folklore. My cousins and I heard stories of these creatures when we were children; they were told to stop us from wandering our farm during the night. And just like many other children, we believed these stories. We spent nights huddled on our living room floor, watching the windows while being wary of creatures hiding within the crops or on top of the roof. Funnily enough, it wasn’t just children who feared these monsters. While it’s true that these shapeshifters primarily eat kids, they also taught mothers to be afraid. Other than their maternal instinct to preserve the lives of their children, the fact that the Aswang can use its elongated tongue to eat fetuses sent a chill down everyone’s spine.
The Aswang has roots dating back to the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. This creates a long time frame from its origin to the present day. As such, vital information is bound to get lost. Nonetheless, the most common aspects of the Aswang remain constant: they are shapeshifters who feed on humans, primarily children and fetuses.
Among these shapeshifters are five common varieties, but for the sake of brevity, we will discuss the most common type, The Viscera Sucker (Manananggal), a creature who takes the form of a woman during the day and detaches from the lower half of its body at night. It is said that during the day, the Aswang, regardless of its variety, is at its weakest. Therefore, they must take on a specific form to conceal themselves. With the viscera sucker (Manananggal), they take on the form of a beautiful woman. Typically, this woman will be the perfect representation of Filipino beauty standards, which comprise long black hair, fair skin, and a dainty figure. This appearance allows the Aswang to walk among the populace without drawing suspicion while giving it the opportunity to get closer to the locals. But once night falls, when the Aswang is at its strongest, that disguise is completely gone. The once beautiful woman will wander away from others until she finds an area she deems reclusive enough. Then, she will detach herself from the lower half of her body and sprout wings from her shoulder blades. Only then will she fly upward into the sky to scour the land for prey, and as stated earlier, her victims are highly likely to be children or fetuses.
Luckily, there is a way to stop her. You can become an amateur sleuth and figure out who in your community is an Aswang and kill them during the day. Just remember that going down this route can lead to a lot of distrust and chaos within your community, thus giving the Aswang the perfect hunting ground. Another and safer way of dealing with this threat is to find the lower half of the body before daytime. If you were to find the creature’s lower half, you must immediately apply either salt, garlic, or ash to the exposed flesh. If these ingredients are unavailable, you’d better snatch their detached limbs and pray that you can hide them until daytime. The Aswang needs to reattach itself before sunrise; otherwise, it will die.
These harrowing events are often detailed in old accounts from Filipino natives dating as far back as 1589. A Spanish priest named Juan de Plascencia wrote about this creature in his book Customs of The Tagalogs. (Tagalog is one of the main languages spoken in the Philippines.) According to him, many of the indigenous folk witnessed the Aswang flying in the night sky or lurking on the rooftops. One man described the creature crawling down his roof and slightly closing its wings to fit through his window. At first, he was too dazed to know what he saw, but once the weariness wore off, fear consumed him. The Aswang was eating his unborn child by using its elongated tongue to enter his pregnant wife. To him, it felt unreal, as though it was nothing more than a bad dream. But unfortunately, as time went on, it became noticeably clear that his wife had lost the baby. It was at that moment the man knew the Aswang was responsible, but he kept the events to himself, believing that speaking it out loud would cause mass hysteria within his village. He spoke of the event only during confession with a Catholic priest.
That is the tale and origin of the Aswang. This creature is one of the best-known in all Filipino folklore. In fact, some people still believe in it today, although the number of believers has dwindled drastically. Most of the people who take the tale seriously are from remote villages, who have been told stories of the Aswang by the older generation. Because of their seclusion, no one challenges their belief, leaving them to accept the existence of the mythological creature.
