The Sigbin is a strange and dreaded nocturnal creature of Philippine folklore, especially of the Visayas: a goat-like beast that walks backward, sucks blood, and is said to be kept as a secret familiar by certain families — the “Sigbin families” — who use it for wealth and dark purposes. It is one of the most peculiar of the islands’ monsters.
The Backward-Walking Beast
The sigbin is described as a bizarre creature, often likened to a hornless goat or a strange hopping beast, with large ears that it can clap together, a long whip-like tail, and a habit of walking backward with its head lowered between its hind legs. It is nocturnal, emerging at night — especially during Holy Week, in the tradition — to hunt. It is said to be able to make itself invisible to humans, and to emit a nauseating stench. Its strange backward gait and clapping ears make it one of the most distinctive and uncanny of Filipino creatures.
The Blood-Sucker
The sigbin is a blood-sucker and a feeder on the vulnerable. It is said to attack by night, sucking the blood of its victims — often through their shadow — and it is especially feared as a devourer of children, and as a creature that feeds on the hearts of its victims (which it is said to fashion into amulets). Its predation links it to the broader [aswang] family of monsters, and like them it is a dread of the night.
The Secret Familiar
The most distinctive lore of the sigbin concerns the “Sigbin families” (or aswang families). Certain families, it is whispered, secretly keep sigbin as familiars or pets, hidden in jars or kept about the house, and use the creatures to gain wealth and to harm their enemies — the sigbin bringing them riches and doing their dark bidding. To be known as a sigbin family was a dreadful accusation, marking a household as cursed and dangerous. This belief made the sigbin a creature of social fear and suspicion as well as supernatural dread. In the Sigbin, Filipino folklore gave form to a uniquely strange and dreaded creature — the backward-walking, clap-eared, blood-sucking goat-beast of the night, the secret familiar of the cursed families, one of the most peculiar and unsettling of the monsters of the islands.