The Asu-asuan and other Philippine Werebeasts

an illustration of 
a man changes to a dog

It's been said by some that the origin of the word "Aswang" derives from the Filipino word specifically a Tagalog word "asu-asuan" means the likeness of a dog. 

There is a certain kind of Aswang in the Philippines that in the day they look as ordinary human beings but when they attack at night they changes their physical appearance into a certain animals the most common specifically resembling a dog, the other ones resembles a cat and sometimes boar. this Aswangs tends to use of course the endemic animals within the Philippines to copy. what is unique with this shape-shifting Aswang is they uses their animal form to stalked and attacked their victims, the same traits with their western counterparts, the werewolf. 

Beauty and the Beast

There have been a lot of folklore about shape-shifting, this are sometimes in a form of a punishments turning the culprits into an animal, some famous western folklore that represents shape-shifting as punishment are The Frog Prince and Beauty and the Beast.

This shape-shifting Aswang has a fond of victimizing pregnant women, sick persons and lone walker at night. first they will appear as a big black dog rabidly salivating with red glowing eyes looking sharp at its victim, If the victim was unfazed, This Aswang will change its shape into a big cat and then a boar and finally a human figure. This Aswang in human figure then wrestle it's victims, it's body so oily that the victim cannot easily out-wrestled this creature, then will force it's hair into the victim's nostrils and mouth, choking the victim to death in the process. Often old folks said that by biting the thumb of this Aswang only then you can escape from it's suffocating attack.  

coconut oil with
medicinal tree
mixtures

There's been a lot of theories about shape-shifting from human form into animals, but with Philippine werebeasts old folks said that this kind of Aswang uses a coconut oil with various mixtures of medicinal trees to which they apply to their body so they can change their appearance. some as well said that this creature don't really change physically, it's the victim's perception about the Aswang being a dog or a cat or a boar because the victim is under the Aswang's enchantment and magic spell.

Cynanthropy is the supposed magical practice of shape-shifting between human form and canine form alternately. it is as well considered in the medical fields as a pathological delusion of a real persons that they believe they are dogs.

According to the book Myths of the Dog-Man by David Gordon White, Central Asia is a "vortex of cynanthropy" for the reasons that the ancient writers habitually placed races of dog-men in this area.

This shape-shifting Aswang are also locally known in some areas in the Philippines as kiwig by the Aklanon and malakat by the Cebuano.

Bal-bal, Busaw, The Philippine Ghoul

The Philippine Ghoul or locally known as Bal-bal among the Tagbanua ethnic groups of central and northern Palawan, also called Busaw among the Bagobo ethnic group.

The Bal-bal and Busaw is an Aswang who abduct a dying person or stole human corpses be it still in the funeral or in the cemetery, It's breath smells like of the rotten meat, they have sharpen their fingernails and teeth enough to tear the dead human bodies. They  would sneak at the house of the dying sick person for they said the dying person smelled like a ripe jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus).

funeral in the Philippines

The beliefs in ghoul have played a significant role in shaping the Philippine culture particularly on how Filipinos deal with their dead, family, relatives and friends of the deceased gathers at night at the wake to pay their last respect, now a days people play card games and doing chit chat, instant coffee being served as well to keep the visitor awake and this would last about a week before the dead will be finally buried. In the old days when electricity is not yet available in the Philippines people burn a fire all night, sing a song, shouting to keep awake for the funeral. The reason for this practice mainly due to the belief that the ghoul will take away the body of the dead when no one is watching.

ghouls eating a corpse

The oldest surviving literature that mention ghouls is in Arabic literature One Thousand and One Nights, wherein a story of a man who married a woman as the man observe the strange activity of his wife, he then follows his wife one night to which lead him to the cemetery and shocked to find out his wife is a ghoul and feasting on a  newly dead corpse. The word ghoul itself is from the Arabic word ghul which means "to seize". the female form is called ghouleh, the term sometimes used by the Arabs colloquially to describe a selfish or greedy person.

banana trunk

What unique to the Bal-bal and Busaw apart from ghoul counterpart in the west is the way how they stole the corpses. They have the ability to exchange the original cadaver with a banana trunk to which to an untrained eye the dead looks the same corpse as it was inside the coffin. The ways to know if the dead was replaced by the Bal-bal or Busaw, the old folks says is to look at the fingerprints of the corpse, corpse with no fingerprint were likely stolen by the ghoul. and by passing the corpse through the house window-Philippine houses in the old times the bahay kubo has an open windows, or dropping the corpse directly to the ground, then it will magically turn the supposed corpse into a banana trunk.

Anthropologist define eating of the dead as necro-cannibalism, the Aghori a Shaivite Hindu sect from India consumes their dead both cooked and raw under open flames, Aghori believes that the dead person is nothing but a matter lacking the life force once it contained, eating the dead is a ritual Aghoris  believed that it is both spiritual resource and a subversion of taboos. as well as seeing it as scientific approach to trying to discover a certain matter convert from one form to another form.

Other local names of the ghoul among the various ethnic tribes in the Philippines. The Hiligaynon call it calag, The Tinguian called it ebwa, and the Apayao called it wir-wir. 

The Aswang

Aswang is the most famous mythological creature in the Philippines folklore, they been around before the Spaniards came in the Philippines.

They being feared besides their appearance, they eat people, mostly preying on pregnant women, new born babies, sick, dying and dead people, they can infect people and turn them into Aswang as well.

Aswang attacking a goat

Aswang's appearance and ways to harm or kill it's prey are what make them unique, the most common reported appearance of Aswang is in a form of a big dog, cat and pig, and what I mean by big is, it is not a normal average size of these dog, cat and pig you will find in the Philippines. with blood-shot eyes and feverish breath they known to attack backyard animals like goats and chickens, most probably if Aswangs are not successful in attacking human prey. and mind you there have been report of Aswang attacking a poultry where chicken's blood been sucked dry and internal organs all missing, and they are sure it's not some kind of nocturnal animals attacking this poor chickens because they found human fingerprints in the crime scene.  

Aswang are allergic to garlic, afraid of crabs and thorns, and in old times before guns where not that common in the Philippines, buntot pagi a whip made of stingray's tail is a tested weapon against Aswang, and they can be pierce with pointed bamboo spear and can be hacked with bladed weapons too.    

Aswang's existence had been dominant especially in the Visayas region of the Philippines, they been known locally as "tik -tik" for the Hiligaynon folks and "wak-wak" for The Cebuano folks.

While the whole country was contained by the fear of Aswang, a curious folk named Maximo D. Ramos tries to classify these Aswangs into five types, these are ghouls, vampires, werebeasts, viscera-suckers and witches. his aim is to preserved and educate the Filipinos of one of it's dominant beliefs, the belief in Aswang.