soucouyant

From West Indies Creole.

• IPA^(key): /suːkuːˈjɑ̃/

soucouyant (plural soucouyants)

1. (Caribbean folklore) A night witch who sucks people's blood, sheds her skin, and can turn herself into a ball of fire and fly.
   • 1986, Kenneth Ramchand, “Wayne Vincent Brown”, in Daryl Cumber Dance (ed.), Fifty Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, →ISBN, page 90,

     We can notice, for example, that “Vampire” combines the folkloric soucouyant (blood-sucking old woman in the shape of a ball of fire), a science fiction creature (“clammy, from its bed of hairs / And thirsty” [p. 24]), the moon again (Brown’s poems are obsessed by the moon); [...]

   • 2002, David E. Jones, Evil in Our Midst: A Chilling Glimpse of the World's Most Feared and Frightening Demons, Square One Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, page 133,

     The Soucouyant is an evil fire, a kind of witch, that robes itself entirely in the skin of an old woman to hide its true identity from neighbors.

   • 2003, Ken Douglas and Jack Stewart, Diamond Sky, Bootleg Press, →ISBN, page 110,

     “The soucouyant is an old woman that sheds her skin,” Beth said. “She flies out of her house and looks for human blood. When she finds it, she changes into an animal of some kind and sucks the blood away.”