Loogaroo

The Loogaroo is a creature of Caribbean mythology that is similar to a vampire or werewolf.

According to the myth, the Loogaroo is a woman who is in league with the Devil. She will have magical abilities only if she gives the Devil blood every night. She tries to give him blood of other creatures, or else he will take her own blood, causing her to die.

The Loogaroo can leave its own skin (usually under a "Devil Tree," a silk cotton tree) and turn into a flame or blue ball of bright light that haunts the night searching for blood to meet the terms of her deal. After she has collected enough blood she can return to her skin and retake human form.

This creature is apparently compulsive and must stop to count grains of sand spread upon the ground. So, a defence against her was to leave a pile of rice or sand near your front door. Hopefully, the creature would take so long to count it all that the sun would eventually return with the coming of morning. By that time the Loogaroo would have to return to her skin without making an attack. In some tales of the Loogaroo, her skin can be taken away from the Devil Tree so that she cannot find it when she returns.

The Loogaroo is an example of how a vampire belief can result from a combination of beliefs, here a mixture of French and African Vodu or voodoo. The term Loogaroo possibly comes from the French mythological creature called the Loup-garou, a type of werewolf and is common in the Culture of Mauritius. However, the stories of the Loogaroo are widespread through the Caribbean Islands and Louisiana in the USA. The writers of Lost In Space,in the episode Space Choppers, mistakenly confused the Loogaroo,with Loup-garou,other known as canus lupis,when Doctor Smith,was frightened by a werewolf.