image by F Lamiot

I’m not sure there’s a person who hasn’t either seen or, at the very least, heard of The Exorcist. Who can forget Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil, a child possessed, spewing pea soup and vulgarities?

As with most fiction, there is always an underlying element of truth and Pazuzu, the demon that possessed Regan, was drawn from ancient Assyrian and Babylonian culture. Also known as Fazuzu or Pazuza, this demon is the king of the wind demons and the offspring of the god Hanbi. He is represented by the southwestern wind and brings with him storms and droughts as well locusts and famine.

Physically, he is often depicted as a mish-mash of body parts – the body of a man, the head of a lion or a dog, talons instead of feet, two pairs of wings, and a scorpion-like tail. In most depictions, his right hand is raised while his left is down, symbolizing a sort of yin/yang of creation and destruction as well as life and death.

Even though The Exorcist portrays Pazuzu as a harmful and evil demon, Pazuzu has also been viewed as a protector and portrayed as either a rival or the husband of Lamashtu, a malevolent demon who harms a mother and her child(ren) during the birthing process.

Pazuzu is also able to repel other evil beings, providing a layer of protection from plagues and other calamities. Because of this, his image was depicted on charms or plaques used as means of protection.

As with most boogeyman lore, the Sack Man is used to scare children into coming home at an early hour.

Specific countries have their own depictions.

• Spain: el hombre del saco is a gangly, malicious, and hideous old man who cannibalizes the children he captures.
• Brazil: o homem do saco is typically a homeless vagrant who kidnaps naughty and rebellious children and sells them.
• Chile and Argentina, el viejo del saco is an old man, not mythical or fantastic, but a psychotic murderer who either takes disobedient children given to him by their willing parents or any child who is out wandering the streets by sundown.

Many non-Hispanic / Latin American countries have their own depictions of the Sack Man:

• Haiti: Tonton Macoute
• Hungary: zsákos ember
• Turkey: Öcü or Böcü
• Poland: babok, bebok, or bobok
• Czech Republic and Slovakia: bubák – note: this version is used to frighten children, but kidnapping doesn’t typically come into play.
• Belarus, Russia, Ukraine: babay, babayka, or buka
• North India: Bori Baba
• Lebanon: Abu Kees
• Vietnam: ông ke
• Sri Lanka Goni Billa
• South Africa: Antjie Somers

In other countries, the Sack Man is seen as the antithesis of Father Christmas (as opposed to the Americanized Santa Claus) who will take away bad children instead of leaving them presents.

• Bulgaria: torbalan will kidnap the bad kids. Sometimes seen as Father Christmas’ opposite, other times he is known as Baba Yaga’s partner.
• Netherlands: Zwarte Piet serves Santa Clause by delivering presents on December 5th and uses the empty sacks to take the bad kids.
• Switzerland: Schmutzli is the Swiss equivalent of Zwarte Piet
• France: Père Fouettard is the French equivalent of Zwarte Piet

I think it’s awesome that Father Christmas has an antithesis. I did a quick Google search to see if somewhere back in the day Americans had an antithesis to Santa Clause. I thought perhaps we’d have had our own version of Zwarte Piet at some point since we ultimately got Santa Claus from the Dutch. I couldn’t find anything except for maybe Krampus, but he’s not associated with Santa Claus in the U.S., so I’m excluding it as a tradition until I gather more information.

What other Sack Man traditions do you know of?

She makes her home in the dense forest, living in a hut that moves and spins on chicken legs. While it’s spinning, it emits horrific screeches that lead to creaks and groans when the magic words are spoken and it stops. Baba Yaga, herself, herself, moves around quite well on her own, flying in a mortar with a pestle as her weapon. She is also many times to found with a mop or broom. Her keen sense of smell can detect the scent of a Russian with ease.

Even though she is normally portrayed as an evil incarnation, she is sometimes portrayed as an old wise woman, an Earth Mother who is associated with forest wildlife. Seekers of her wisdom must come with pure intentions.

What wisdom would you approach Baba Yaga for?

photo: gfpeck

These days we don’t have the same unknowns to be so intrinsically afraid of and yet kids are still afraid of the boogeyman. Maybe it’s the monster under the bed or in the closet waiting to devour them. The safety of a nightlight helps ward off the danger, but the boogeyman is Scary and it follows us into adulthood. How many of us adults, who rationally know there is no fiend hiding in the shadows, create rituals to ward off the Scary. How many of us make sure that we dangle no limbs over the side of the bed or double and triple check a firmly shut closet door before we turn out the light?

The boogeyman, it seems, is ingrained in our collective human psyche. Our fears have changed to match our modern sensibilities, but our modern unknowns – worries that a sexual predator or murderer will snatch a child are not completely baseless, albeit statistically low – have replaced the dark forest and wild animals. Fear, just like sex, sells, and when a child goes missing, we now get all the details on the always-available news channels, further feeding into those fears.

Since the boogeyman is alive and well, we’ll look at some of the different manifestations over a series of blog posts.

In the meantime…

What form did your boogeyman take and how did you ward him off?

As you can imagine, a website devoted to monsters and maniacs is a huge undertaking, especially when starting from scratch.Quite frankly, it’s a bit overwhelming at the moment and I’m still trying to decide where to start. That’s where this weekend will come in handy.

Please stick around and keep checking back. It won’t be too long before things are up and running.