The Inheritors of a Different Kind

In the Philippines the myth of the aswang (ghoul) continues to enthrall and horrify the imagination. The aswang is reputed to be a powerful being that preys on newborns, children, pregnant women, and sick people. They even haunt newly burial bodies to eat the heart and entrails of the deceased. How some people have become aswangs is a story deeply rooted in local folklore that refuse to die down.

In remote villages, those who are suspected as aswangs are shunned from the mainstream. They are greatly feared that nobody would dare pass by the house of the reputed aswang for dread of incurring their ire and their appetite. Nobody would be caught dead too in the woods before sunset.

The terrible secret or curse is handed from one generation to the next to continue the dark legacy of a nameless but sinister force that needs the human body to feed on other bodies to perpetuate their evil through the centuries. The insatiable powerforce continues to endure in the next generation and unto the future by the passing of the legacy to the “annointed.”

A small marble-like object is transfered orally to the next “bearer of the torch” before the older aswang dies. The chosen one cannot repudiate the odious task because all means are resorted to before the final hour. This ritual oftentimes involves a crying and terrified successor tightly bound to prevent escape and a dying elder. If the curse cannot be transferred, the dying elder has to suffer unendurable pain before death affords sweet release.

The inheritors are usually young maidens who have to leave behind an idyllic life of school and friends, or they continue their daily routine to avert suspicion of their new roles. They can,after a ritual, transform themselves into dogs or cats and roam the neighborhood or neighboring towns to look for prey. If you think that the witching hour is 12 midnight you’re mistaken. The aswangs and other ghouls come out at 2 am when everybody is in deep sleep. So much for the midnight hour.

The stigma of coming from a line of aswangs does not easily fade away and the story, like the legacy is passed to the younger set. The younger generations of a family suspected of being aswangs are forced to change their names and move away; in fact the town becomes a feared destination. The community does not progress as investors shy away for fear of witches, ghouls, and hexes –and the place continues to be chained to the past — of a mythical dreamworld and understandable fear.

As the story goes, you can be the next unwilling inheritor if you:

• eat food given by an aswang
• are touched by an aswang
• given the evil eye

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