The Bulalacao

The Bulalacao are by far my favorite out of all the aswangs! These monsters are the Filipino's explanation for shooting stars. They are human-like in form, are able to fly, and have fire for their hair. Thus, whenever they fly through the air at night, their flaming scalp is what we Americans perceive as a shooting star. You can tell the males from the females by whether or not the shooting star has a tail. If there is a tail you are looking at a girl with her long hair. If it has no tail then you're looking at a male with his short hair. I really never heard many stories about the Bulalacao other than that. The rest was left to my imagination and because they were never depicted as bad I imagined them to be helpers and protectors of sorts. With all the scary aswangs out there I knew there had to be noble ones and these are the ones that fell in that category! And because I imagined them as noble protectors I attached the image of the native Philippines to them. I dressed them in native clothes, gave them native bracelets, and, lastly, the tattoos. The women were traditionally topless but I wasn't going to have my noble protectors be skanks!The men had tattoos all over their bodies and the more they had the higher up in the tribe they were. The women usually only had tattoos on their arms and legs to accentuate their sexual appeal. They also believed that the tattoos held magical and protective powers and that's why in my picture I drew clouds and scales on the male. These tattoos gave him the power to fly (the clouds) and to protect (the scales). So, the next time you happen to see a shooting star you can ponder where the Balulacao are off to. Next week.....the Kapre!