Back to All Events

Salt, Rice, and Sorghum: Evading and Embracing the Soucouyant

Knowledge Share Description

Giselle Liza Anatol is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS) who specializes in Caribbean, U.S. African American, and multicultural American literature. Her Knowledge Share pulls, in part, from growing up in a large Trinidadian family; as a child, she eagerly listened to the folklore shared by her aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents, and found herself drawn to a deeper understanding of these tales, sayings, and remedies as she pursued her studies. Anatol’s session will focus on the folk figure known as a “soucouyant” in Trinidad, and, in other parts of the African diaspora, as Old Hige or Old Hag, boo hag, azeman, volant, loogaroo, obayifo, and a host of other names. This creature appears in the community as an old woman during the day, but at night she sheds her skin, transforms into a ball of fire, and flies from house to house to suck the blood or life-force of her neighbors. It is said that rice, salt, or sorghum sprinkled on front stoops, doorways, windowsills, and village crossroads can protect sleepers from a soucouyant’s attack. What is it about these foodstuffs that our ancestors believed held such power? What is the significance of the creature’s peeling off her skin before being able to fly? Why does the figure generate such fear? And why have many contemporary writers rejected the idea of the soucouyant as evil, and reconfigured the folk character as a symbol of empowerment? Anatol will explore these questions and others as she shares conventional folk stories about the soucouyant, adaptations in more recent literature, and her extensive research on the subject.

We will explore:

  • the soucouyant, a key figure in Caribbean folklore, and its significance in the wider context of African diasporic traditions.

  • the different names and versions of this figure in various cultures (e.g., Old Hige, boo hag, azeman, etc.),

  • the importance of oral traditions, particularly the stories and folklore shared across generations in Trinidadian and other diasporic communities

  • how folklore functions as a way to preserve history, wisdom, and identity within families and communities.

  • Why such creatures are often linked to terror and what they symbolize within the context of societal fears, such as the fear of the unknown or of female power.

  • The session will encourage participants to critically think about the symbolism of the soucouyant, especially its ability to shed skin and transform into a ball of fire. This will invite discussions on themes of transformation, both literal and metaphorical, and what this act of shedding skin might represent in cultural and psychological terms.

  • how contemporary writers have reimagined the soucouyant, moving away from viewing the creature as purely evil, and instead reconfiguring it as a symbol of empowerment

  • why certain foods, such as rice, salt, and sorghum, are believed to hold protective power against the soucouyant

Cost

$35 - early bird until April 21, 2025

$45 - low income

$65 - standard

$90 - pay-it-forward (if you have financial abundance, this is our pay-it-forward option to fund our full tuition scholarships)

or access this knowledge share via our Living Library

For more information on sliding scale please check out this amazing work!

The zoom link will be sent upon registration. Recording will be available for 30 days.

Please apply here for a scholarship.

Living Library

You can access this knowledge share and all of our 2025 knowledge shares by becoming a member of the Living Library.

We invite you to become a member of our Living Library, Herban Cura’s digital school & archive. The Living Library, is a subscription giving access to over 200 hours of  present and past knowledge shares by wisdom holders, professors, land stewards, seed keepers, and investigators spanning Indigenous horse connections & dark sky wisdom, to seaweed medicine & more.

You can sign up here to become a monthly or annual member

Accessibility Information

Virtual Gathering

*ASR (automated) captioning provided

The knowledge share zoom link will be sent out immediately upon purchase, along with any other necessary information.

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

5:00pm - 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time

Class will be recorded and available for 30 days. This means you can join from anywhere in the world.

Facilitator

Giselle Liza Anatol is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Kansas, where she specializes in Caribbean, U.S. African American, and multicultural American literature, as well as portrayals of race, ethnicity, and gender in works for young readers. Her major scholarly monograph, *The Things That Fly in the Night* (Rutgers University Press 2015), explores representations of Black female vampires in literature from the Caribbean and African diaspora, particularly the skin-shedding, bloodsucking soucouyant figure from Trinidadian folklore. Anatol has also published several edited collections of essays on subjects ranging from Caribbean Studies to the Harry Potter series to the *Twilight* novels. Anatol has served as the vice president and president of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers & Scholars (https://acwws.org/), the director of the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at KU (https://sfcenter.ku.edu/), and is currently the director of the Hall Center for the Humanities (https://hallcenter.ku.edu/). She recently published her first picture book: *Small-Girl Toni and the Quest for Gold* (Viking 2023).

Previous
Previous
May 14

Ancestral Plants of Palestine