Airi haunts the dense and hilly jungles of Kumaon in Uttarakhand. He has a hideous face with eyes on top of his head. Some say he has four arms which carry different weapons; others say his arms themselves are bows and arrows.
Airi is said to be the ghost of a wealthy man and avid hunter who died while on shikar. He can be heard in the middle of the night crashing through the trees with his hunting party. Airi is carried aloft by his two ghostly litter-bearers, Sau and Bhau, who call out “Sau, sau” as they walk. He is also accompanied by his loyal ghost-hounds and a pair of Anchheri bodyguards with backwards-turned feet. Other attendant ghosts beat the bushes ahead of the palanquin to drive out the animals.
Airi is in the habit of spitting a lot. His saliva is extremely poisonous. If a glob of it lands on someone, that person is doomed to die within a few days unless healing rituals are performed.
Getting spat on is bad enough; but coming face to face with Airi is instantly fatal. The unlucky person who looks him in the eye will either be burnt to a pile of ashes or ripped into shreds by his ferocious dogs.
Ahmaw is a sort of vampire soul or jealousy demon found in the traditional belief of the Mara people, whose homeland is an autonomous district in the southeast corner of the state of Mizoram, on the border with Myanmar. This spirit can project itself from one body into another.
If a person is Ahmaw, he is perpetually envious. When he covets something that belongs to another — it might be fancy clothes, jewellery, or real estate — he sends part of his spirit inside the owner. This causes an excruciating stomach ache, so severe that it can be fatal if untreated. The affected person dreams of being chased by a horse or a dog, or of a leech crawling over his body.
When a person falls sick and the cause of the sickness is believed to be someone else’s Ahmaw, the victim’s relatives make offerings in order to satiate the spirit and drive it out of the afflicted person. If the sickness does not subside, the gifts become progressively more generous. First a large gourd-spoon full of food is offered; then a slaughtered chicken; then a slaughtered pig; then expensive jewellery; and finally a lick of human blood, drawn from the big toe of a loved one.
The head of someone who is Ahmaw can detach from the body at night*. The head goes rolling around into kitchens in search of meat to gobble up, or outside in search of livestock to kill. Some say the head can fly through the air in the form of a flickering flame. The head can also reduplicate itself; an Ahmaw may have as many as ten ghost-heads prowling for food. If all of these heads are captured and confined before they can roll back to rejoin the body at dawn, then the host body as well as the heads will die.
Aavi means “vapour” in Tamil. It is the word used for the steam from an idli cooker, the morning haze above a village lake, or the misty cloud of a person’s breath on a chilly night in the Nilgiris.
The word also signifies the vital spirit of a living thing: the sigh that leaves the body at the moment of death, to linger on as a ghost.
Most ghosts in Indian stories can take on a physical form. They disguise themselves as real, solid people that can be touched and felt. They can pick things up, wield weapons, do chores, eat food. They are often colourful: in cartoons and picture books, they’re drawn with bright blue or green or orange skin. They usually have fangs. When they aren’t in corporeal form, they either become invisible or transform into thick purple smog. They tend to be raucous and loud and vicious and bloodthirsty, whether or not they had that sort of a personality when they were alive.
The Aavi is an anomaly. In many ways it resembles the ghosts of Western stories more closely than Indian ones. It is wispy, white, forlorn, and brooding. It retains a lot of its personality from life, recalling its friends and loved ones as well as its enemies and its unfulfilled desires. Aavis can have only limited interaction with objects in the material plane, and they have a tendency to disappear into thin air when threatened.
Not to say that they can’t be scary. An Aavi might stretch its spectral arm through a wall, slowly moving its fingers as though grasping for something, sending any witnesses screaming away in terror. Or on a still and moonless night, its transparent head might roll out from underneath a cot, give a few anguished sobs, and then vanish.
Я с детства был страстным любителем страшных историй, дешевых романов ужасов и фильмов о монстрах. Ещё я люблю читать про индийский фольклор, особенно сказки о сверхъестественных созданиях. Издательство Blaft, которое двенадцать лет назад основал в том числе и я, добилось определённого успеха, выпуская литературу ужасов и книги о чудовищах — похоже, наши читатели, как и я, получают удовольствие от подобных историй.
Бхайрав и я взялись за составление этой книги по той причине, что хотя в Индии поразительное разнообразие мифологической нечисти, большая часть этой нечисти неизвестна за пределами конкретного региона или языковой общности. Такой расклад немного удивляет — обычно истории ужасов хорошо передаются между культурами.
A vampiric race of giants with scaly tails from the lore of southeastern Europe, the Zmeus collect the ears from their victims to eat. Born the children of ZMÉIOACA, the Zmeus have the psychic ability to drain the life-force from their victims at a distance (see ENERGY VAMPIRE).
Source: Bunson, Encyclopedia of Vampires, 285; Senn, Were-wolf and Vampire in Romania, 41
Змеус (Зимус, Змеи)
В преданиях юго-восточной Европы есть змеусы — вампирическая раса гигантов с чешуйчатыми хвостами, собирающие для еды уши своих жертв. Змеусы, дети Змеюки, обладают экстрасенсорной способностью на расстоянии вытягивать жизненную силу из своих жертв (смотри «Энергетический вампир»).
Источники: Bunson, «Encyclopedia of Vampires», 285; Senn, «Were-wolf and Vampire in Romania», 41
In the Moldavia region of Romania there is a vampiric spirit similar to an INCUBUS that is known as a zemu. It is the only vampire that does not cast a reflection in a mirror. Similar to the ZBURATOR, the zemu looks like a flame. At night this highly skilled lover visits young girls and widows, shape-shifting into the guise of a handsome young man. It then has sexual intercourse with them, stealing away their life-energy (see ENERGY VAMPIRE). In Transylvanian lore the zemu uses its shape-shifting abilities to change into a lovely young woman in order to seduce shepherds, much like a SUCCUBUS.
Both fast and strong, the zemu has an array of abilities that enables it to be a very successful predator, such as being able to cause hallucinations, desolidification, flight, and shape-shifting into a cloud of dust and mist.
Preventing a zemu from attacking is as simple as hanging a wreath of aconite over the bedroom windows, as this will prevent it from entering. Not particularly given to violence, despite its strength, the zemu can be killed if dealt an otherwise fatal blow with a silver weapon or longterm exposure to direct sunlight.
Zburator (ZOO-bah-rat-or)
The zburator (“the flying thing”) is a vampiric creature from Romanian lore, similar to an INCUBUS. Described as a winged and handsome young man with black eyes and HAIR, it looks like a shooting star as it flies across the sky. At night, the zburator visits young girls and women, has sexual intercourse with them, and drains off some of their life-energy with each visit, leaving them ill, pale, and thin (see ENERGY VAMPIRE). It is easily repelled by leaving a clove of GARLIC on the windowsill.
Source: Lecouteux, History of Vampires; Mackenzie, Dracula Country, 92; Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 322
Yukshee is a singular and specific vampiric demon from the Hindu lore of India and she is the most beautiful and sexually insatiable of all the succubi (see SUCCUBUS). If a man has survived an encounter with her, he will be rendered impotent for the rest of his life, as she will have consumed all of his sex drive (see ENERGY VAMPIRE).
Source: Edwardes, The Jewel in the Lotus, 108; Riccardo, Liquid Dreams, 51; Tyson, Sexual Alchemy, 10
Юкши
Юкши — конкретная и особенная вампирическая демоница в преданиях индийского индуизма, и она самая красивая и ненасытная из суккубов. Если мужчина переживет столкновение с ней, он станет импотентом на всю оставшуюся жизнь, так как она поглотит все его сексуальное влечение (смотри «Энергетический вампир»).
Источники: Edwardes, «The Jewel in the Lotus», 108; Riccardo, «Liquid Dreams», 51; Tyson, «Sexual Alchemy», 10
Yuki Ona (OO-key OWN-ah)
Variation: Yuki Onna, Yuki-Onne
In Japanese lore there is a type of vampiric spirit known as a yuki ona (“snow woman”). It levitates rather than walks and appears to its victims as a tall and beautiful woman with impossibly long HAIR and inhumanly pale skin. Sometimes a yuki ona will show itself wearing a pure white kimono, but other times it will appear in the nude. On occasion, it will be holding a child in its arms. A yuki ona is perfectly camouflaged against a snowy backdrop, and combined with its ability to shape-shift into a cloud of mist or falling snow, it can be impossible to find.
The yuki ona is only active in the winter months as its hunting methods require. It will lead travelers astray, assuring they die from exposure or by breathing on them with its icy breath to make sure they meet the same death, but more quickly. It will appear before parents who are looking for their child; the yuki ona will seem to be holding it, beckoning for them to come and claim it. As soon as they do, taking it into their arms, the yuki ona turns them into ice. It has also been known to be aggressive, and although under normal circumstance it must be invited into a home, it will burst into a person’s home by sending a gust of icy wind, freezing the occupants, especially the sleeping ones, to death. Not afraid to uses it beauty as a lure, it will tempt men into having sexual intercourse with it, and all the while the yuki ona will drain them of their lifeenergy, pleasuring them until they die (see ENERGY VAMPIRE). When it wishes it, one look into its eyes will cause a person to go insane. With each death it causes, it absorbs the life-energy of its victims.
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