The Philippine Islands are inhabited by many peoples, and, despite the long influence of Christian and Islamic missions, Filipinos still believe in giants, dragons and, so to speak, local demonic creatures. Especially popular are the myths about a demon named aswanga, or tik-tik.
Aswanga demon as a beautiful woman
The Aswanga demon of the Filipinos is a witch, a werewolf, and a vampire all rolled into one. Aswanga usually looks like a young woman, but she knows the recipe for a magic ointment that turns her into a large black bird.
With a cry “kikak”, the werewolf bird flies into the house of its victim and with a long, strong, hollow tongue pierces its neck vein, after which it drinks all the blood. By the way, the sounds of "tick-tick" are heard precisely when the predatory language of the aswangi sucks the blood of the unfortunate.
The victims of this demonic creature are, as a rule, sick people, as well as children and pregnant women. The satiated aswanga itself already looks like a pregnant woman and, returning home, feeds her children with someone else's blood. The Filipinos accuse this creature of another sin: for the sake of the heart and liver, the Aswangs steal small children, including unborn babies.
They do not disdain corpse eating either: they may well steal a dead body, and instead leave a banana tree trunk hewn in the shape of a human figure. In addition, aswangi can transform humans into animals and animals into humans. It also happens that the malevolent tick-tick seduces men with its beauty and, luring them into a secluded place, ties them up with vines, and then eats them alive.
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Aswanga demon in the form of an ugly old woman
Mananangal is a type of aswang that looks like an ugly old woman who can fly. She owes this property to special glands that secrete a certain oily substance. This is how one Englishman described his meeting with this monster, which took place on a quiet moonlit night.
Standing by the open window, he suddenly saw a dark spot in the sky, which gradually increased in size and finally took shape in an old woman with huge webbed wings!.. The old woman had red glowing eyes and crooked long arms with pointed nails. Her skin was as dark as night itself. The eyewitness admits that in his life he has never seen anything more terrible - a witch in the flesh!..
Gathering the rest of his courage, he shut the windows tightly and froze. The creepy mananangal flew past the house and disappeared, and the frightened Englishman did not sleep a wink until morning …
Particularly evil and demonic Filipinos consider aswang, in whose belly a black chicken lives. But if the witch, for any reason, loses this chicken, then together with her she will lose all her supernatural powers and become an ordinary woman …
Aswangi - night demons
Both old and young aswang are united by a common quality: their demonism manifests itself only at night. If, for example, the sun's rays touch the magic ointment, it will immediately evaporate. In the same way, the luminary destroys the black chicken living inside the witch. If aswanga meets the rays of the sun in the air, it can simply fall to the ground. Rain is also dangerous for her: its streams wash away the witch's ointment from the witch …
To save themselves from evil demons, Filipinos use various means of protection, including traditional garlic, silver, ash, salt, and paddy rice. According to legends, male sperm is especially dangerous for evil spirits, which causes inflammation in aswang. It is also said that these entities cannot stand the smell of burnt rubber …
And finally, it is worth telling an instructive story that lives in the legends of the Filipino people, who call themselves the word "isnieg". One sixteen-year-old beauty got married, and a year later her husband died. Subsequently, she married three more times, but each of the spouses faded during the year. The fifth husband suspected something was wrong and began to pretend to be asleep, while holding a knife at the ready.
One day after midnight, the man felt like someone lay down on him, grabbed his neck and tried to suck blood. Grabbing a knife, he plunged the weapon into the bloodsucker - and heard a piercing cry and a disgusting flapping of wings. And the next day his wife was found not far from the house, a knife wound gaped in the beauty's chest …