This one was tough to research and there wasn’t a whole lot of information on it but what I could find was extremely interesting! Africa is a land rich in beauty and history. This gorgeous continent isn’t only home to jaw-dropping scenery and ferocious wildlife, but also to some of the most unique vampire legends out there. It is not just the natural predator that hunts the deserts and jungles of darkest Africa. Some of these nocturnal creatures are anything but natural. Moldavian and Transylvanian villagers might have recognized aspects of African witch lore as related to their own striga.
The Betsileo tribe in Madagascar describes the legend of the ramanga. Whilst officially mostly Protestant or Catholic now, they still draw heavily on indigenous religious beliefs, including belief in the presence of witches and diviners among other things. The strange kind of living vampire is not that well recorded, but it is mentioned occasionally.
The Ramanga takes a purely human form and is closer to our idea of what a vampire looks like. Human in form but undead and deadly. The ramanga is a person that performs disgusting services for the chiefs of the tribe. Whenever a person of high standing had his or her nails clipped or endured a medical treatment in which blood was spilled, the ramanga was expected to eat the nail clippings and drink the blood in order to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands like those of a witch. If there wasn’t a ramanga nearby at the time, the clippings and blood were carefully preserved until the return of the ceremonial vampire.
Other legends say that when this deadly creature of the night attacks people, it drinks their blood and eats their finger nails rather than being at the side of nobles to take care of them.
“In Africa there are any number of folkloric or legendary creatures that subsist on the blood of the living, but these are not truly the undead.”
John L. Vellutini, Editor of the Journal of Vampirology, Interview 2016
Danger Level: Unsafe
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