The Aswang is the most feared and famous monster of Philippine folklore: a shapeshifting, flesh-eating, blood-drinking creature — part vampire, part ghoul, part witch, part were-beast — that by day passes as an ordinary human and by night transforms to prey upon the living and the dead. The aswang is the great umbrella-terror of the islands, the dread that haunts the Filipino night.
The Shapeshifting Predator
The aswang is less a single creature than a whole category of related monsters — the catch-all term for the man-eating, shapeshifting horrors of Philippine folklore. By day, the aswang appears as an ordinary person — often a quiet, unassuming neighbour, frequently an old woman — living unremarkably among the community. But by night it transforms: into a great black dog, a pig, a bat, a bird, or other beasts, and goes hunting for human prey. Its appetites are gruesome: it feasts on human flesh, drinks blood, and is especially drawn to the sick, the dying, and above all to unborn children and the newly dead.
The Devourer of the Vulnerable
The aswang’s most dreaded predation is upon the most vulnerable. It is said to prey on pregnant women, using its long, hollow, thread-like tongue to pierce the womb and devour the unborn child or the foetus; on the sick and dying, whose life it drains; and on the dead, stealing corpses from wakes and graves to eat (sometimes leaving a substitute made of banana-trunk magicked to look like the corpse). The presence of an aswang near a house was betrayed by certain signs — a particular bird-call (the “tik-tik” that gives one variety, the tiktik, its name, growing fainter as the creature drew nearer), or the creature seen with its eyes reflecting strangely, or appearing with bloodshot eyes and a tired look by day.
The Warding of the Aswang
Many defenses against the aswang were known: garlic, salt, holy water, the sting of a stingray’s tail, ginger, and sacred objects could ward it off; and certain herbs or a special oil that bubbled in its presence could detect it. The aswang is closely related to (or an umbrella for) the [manananggal], the [wakwak], the [tiyanak], and other monsters of the islands. Deeply embedded in Filipino folk belief, especially in the Visayas, the aswang remains the islands’ most iconic and feared supernatural creature. In the Aswang, Filipino folklore gave form to its deepest terror — the shapeshifting, flesh-eating monster that hides as a human by day and hunts the living, the dying, and the unborn by night, the dread predator that haunts the Philippine darkness.