Lagahoo

What it is

Tales told in Trinidad and Tobago describe the Lagahoo, also written Lugarhou, as a monster that changes its shape. In daylight it is said to pass for an ordinary person. After dark the account turns stranger: it walks as a headless man with a wooden coffin resting on its neck, three candles burning on the lid, and a chain fixed at the waist that drags along the ground behind it. Chains are also said to hang at its neck and to grow or shrink. One of its limbs is described as facing the wrong way.

Where it comes from

The creature is described as a cousin of the French loup-garou and of the Germanic werewolf, which sets it beside the shape-changing night beings of European story. In Trinidad and Tobago it belongs among the island's folk characters, a set that also passes into its poetry and fiction. Retelling has carried it as much as fireside telling has: a poetry collection of 2004 gives it a restless life of its own, and later novels borrow the name for strangers from other worlds.

How it is done

The account of doing away with the Lagahoo describes a beating spread over nine days. A stick is first treated with holy water and holy oil, the blessed water and oil of Christian practice, and the creature is struck with it each day. Under the blows it is said to turn into one creature after another: a snarling dog, a horse, a cat, a pig, a wild bull, then surging water. At the end it is said to disappear into black mist.

Tools and materials

The story hangs a few objects on the creature. A wooden coffin rides on its neck, with three candles lit on the lid. A heavy chain sits at its waist and its length trails behind, and further chains at the neck are said to change size. Against it, the counter-rite uses a plain stick together with holy water and holy oil. The coffin, candles and chains are the signs by which the monster is recognised in the telling.

Peoples and places

The belief belongs to Trinidad and Tobago, where the Lagahoo is counted among the local folk characters. The name has since moved into writing. Wayne Gerard Trotman uses it, spelled Ligahoo, for a shape-changing alien in two novels, one of them narrated in part by a Trinidadian character. James Christopher Aboud built a 2004 poetry collection around it. Francis Escayg gives it a role in Escape From Silk Cotton Forest, and Tracey Baptiste mentions it in her 2015 children's novel.

What people believe

The tale treats the Lagahoo as a demon, a harmful being rather than a spirit to be courted. It is also said to swell from tiny to enormous in a moment, and to take the shapes of horses, pigs and goats, often as something close to a centaur, the horse-and-human figure of Greek myth. Holy water and holy oil are the means said to work against it.

When it is done

The Lagahoo is a creature of the night: the headless walk, the candles on the coffin and the chain dragging on the ground all belong to darkness. Daylight is when it is said to look like anyone else. The one count of days in the account is the nine days of the beating, the span over which that rite is repeated.

Compare and confuse

Two European relatives are named: the French loup-garou, the werewolf of French story, and the Germanic werewolf, both night beings that change shape. The Lagahoo is their Caribbean cousin. Its name shifts in the telling too, written Lugarhou in the folk account and Ligahoo in some recent fiction, so a reader who meets the word in a novel may find either spelling.

Today

The figure keeps a place in the region's writing. Aboud's Lagahoo Poems of 2004 makes it ageless and restless, owing nothing to a master except its own hunger and desire. Trotman carries it into science fiction, where a shapeshifter from another planet imitates the island's folk characters. Escayg's Escape From Silk Cotton Forest imagines Lagahoo who want only to live peaceably, and Baptiste's The Jumbies mentions them for younger readers.

Questions people ask about Lagahoo

Good reading and sources

• Lagahoo on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data