This obscure monster hails from the jungles of Guyana in South America and has its roots in Caribbean folklore.
The Bush Dai Dai will take the form of a beautiful woman and appear to travelers or in miner’s camps, and seduce a weak man she might take a fancy to. After having her way with the unfortunate she will change into a wild animal and eat her victim as they sleep. She is a mixture of the succubus myth with a dash of werewolf thrown in for good measure.
Her animal form can vary but most stories say she will become a jaguar or a huge bat as these are some of the most terrifying animals to be found in the rainforest.
The Bush Dai-Dai is part of a group of monsters known as Jumbees. A Jumbee was once a human who commited some grave evil during their lives and are punished after death by becoming a bloodthirsty monster.
Like the Dai-Dai itself the Jumbee is a strange fusion of different cultural folktales. It is an eclectic mixture of Amerindian (the indigenous native people of South America) and Afro-Guyanese (People from Africa who immigrated to South America) heritage. Also at the time of the Jumbee’s first appearance Guyana was colonized by the British, Dutch, French and even the Spanish who have all influenced the area’s mythology in some way.
- Source: Alphabeastiary (2016), http://alphabeastiary.blogspot.com/2010/10/b-bush-dai-dai.html
- Image Source: fc03.deviantart.net
