Despite
it becoming nearly extinct, folklore has been a major part of the village of
Mayaro. Growing up your grandparents, great grandparents or the elderly in
the village would always have a mysterious story to be told. The most common of
those was the legend of the Soucouyant. Described as a reclusive old woman, who
sheds her skin at night and turns into a flying fireball that sucks the blood
of humans. In her true form, as a fireball she flies across
the dark sky in search of a victim. The soucouyant can enters the home of her
victim through any sized hole like cracks, crevices and keyholes. My fellow
classmate is currently doing her blog on folklore so i decided to collaborate
with her for this post. For more details on the soucouyant, what it does, where
it came from and how to catch it, you can visit her blog Bump In The Night BITN and
take a good read.
Growing up in Mayaro I've heard endless stories about the
soucouyant, and though I was not a victim, I know a lot of people who have been
sucked by one. However what I can tell you is my experience of witnessing a
ball of fire dashed across the dark skies, this image remained vivid in my mind
from then till now. I was just about 10 years old and was on my way home from
church with my mother, uncle, sister and cousins. Just around 10: 30 pm on the
manzanilla road, Mayaro, my uncle and my mother left us in the car to drop out
a friend who got a ride home with us. The place was pitched dark since at that
point in time there were no street lights on that stretch of road. While
waiting for them to return my sister and I stepped out of the vehicle to get
some fresh air, when a bright light reflected on the road. Upon looking up we
saw a huge ball of fire shoot across the sky, without hesitation we started
running and screaming towards our parents direction to tell them what we saw,
but by the time we got there it vanished. This was the scariest experience I
ever encountered in my life. A memory sketched in my mind never to be erased.
As I mentioned before back then there were little lighting on
the roads so the place was dark in most places, that was one of the reasons why
the soucouyant was commonly seen in the village of Mayaro. Now it has basically
died out with the improvements made in the community, it is a brighter and
livelier village than before. Very rear now you would hear someone say “ah
soucouyant suck meh last night.” So if you do want to hear about one of these
stories you would have to get it from the older people's mouth.
Last year I had to opportunity, together with TGN Media group, to
interview some people in my community about what they know about the soucouyant
and produce a documentary film. This video was shown at Trinidad and
Tobago Film Festival and it gives you a good idea of what the soucouyant is
about and measures to keep her away. Take a look.
Got some chills there.lol
ReplyDeletelol
Delete- This is a great post, especially coming from a young person. It's the sort of thing I like to read about on a blog about Mayaro.
ReplyDelete- Good video, but you should embed it instead of linking to it.
- The collaboration doesn't feel substantial enough. I'm not seeing enough evidence of a coordinated effort, shared resources, a meeting, or anything at all to suggest that you actually collaborated. How exactly did you two work together? What was the exchange? How did she add value to your project?
Give it another try and see what you two can come up with.
Hi sir I tried embedding the video but for some reason I was not getting it to show up, don't know why.
DeleteWe did meet to discuss what our post would be like, her blog gave the background info while mine gave real stories, we wanted both post to be different in nature so that's why I didn't include the resources on the soucouyant but rather refer readers to her page. She gave me background info and the images while I gave her the video and my story.