7841: lougawou and skin walkers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "J. David Lyall" <postmaster@lyalls.net>

><<The notion of the lougarou or werewolf apparently arrived in Haiti 
very early, perhaps as early as the boucaneers 
>when all of Hispaniola was nominally a Spanish possession. It does seem 
to have come from Europe>
>
>I don't agree.
>
>The word "lougarou" is derived from the French, of course, but the idea 
of a person who sheds their skin or changes into a 
>winged animal, flies at night, and attacks children is African in 
origin, is still prevalent in many parts of Africa, and is present 
>all over the Caribbean.  In Jamaica, for example, the supposed defense 
against such a person is to find their skin and fill 
>it with salt.  Then when the person comes home, they can't put their 
skin on again, and the rising sun kills them.

There may very well be such monsters in Africa, I don't know. But the 
skin shedding majikal beast is not "African in origin"
in the sense that no one else tells these tales. The Navajo nation is 
terrorised by 'skin walkers' who do exactly that,
shed their skin and go about at night to steal peoples souls. Do they 
specialise in eating childrens souls? I don't know,
but I have noted ( to myself ) in the past how this skinless notion of 
the lougarou sounds so much like the skin walkers.

---------------
Resist the so called Quantum Mechanics.
God DOES NOT play dice
David AT lyalls.net
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