DAEMONOLATRIA

T

T'an Mo

A Chinese devil of desire.

Tase

In Burma, the ghosts and spirits the villagers are most afraid of, are an army of death-fiends known as the Tase. They are disembodied souls of dead men and women who are both vampires and spreaders of disease.

There are several different orders of Tase, and each legion has its own way of torturing mortals. Thabet Tase are the malignant spirits of women who have died during childbirth, and these come back from the dead as succubi. The demons make their appearance around twilight, lurking near the dwellings of the villagers, and haunting men in particular.

The Thaye Tase are grotesque looking giants manifesting themselves most frequently during the epidemics of smallpox and cholera. They are the souls of those who died a violent death. Their greatest pleasure is to materialize by the bedside of a dying person, giggling and laughing hideously at their victim's agony.

Hminza Tase is the name of a third and lesser group of demons. These are able to enter the bodies of certain animals such as crocodiles, dogs, and tigers. Haunting the dwelling grounds of their past existence, they wreak vengeance on anyone that crosses their path for the misfortunes they themselves endured during life.

Great precautions are taken by the Burmese to ensure that the Tase do not come back to haunt them. Often no gravestones are erected in the hope that the dead, forgetting who they were in life, will now haunt the house that was formerly theirs. Sacrifices, death dances, and festivals are all attempted to appease the Tase. If they do appear, the people make a din by beating pans or sides of their houses, hoping that the loud noise will repel the fiends.

Tengu

The Tengu is a Japanese demon mentioned in written sources going as far back as the eighth century and in contemporary Japanese chronicles.

In early times the Tengu often manifested himself as a crow, or as a man with a crow's beak. In medieval times, haughty and insincere Buddhist monks were said to be reborn as Tengu. In the course of time the crow's beak of the demon gave way to a more human looking shape; namely a large, round, red nose. But beak or nose, the importance of this organ depends on its size, which is directly proportional to the demon’s powers. This relationship allows any aware person to judge the strength of an attacking Tengu at first sight, so that appropriate precautions can be taken.

Although human in form, the Tengu is a winged creature, his fingers and toes ending in long and extremely sharp nails. Tengu has often been seen by mountain people who claim that he fells trees and flutters around cackling madly.

He appears at times clad in the shabby garb of a strolling monk, carrying a fan, a stick, and a sword. He does not seem to have any definite predilection for any particular evil deed, yet he appears to be quite an imaginative character who is able to use just about any given situation to commit his crimes. Some of his actions resemble the mischief of the European poltergeist. He has also been known, especially by the mountain people, to indulge in kidnappings. The first instance of someone abducted by a Tengu swooping down from the sky goes back to the fourteenth century. Even nowadays, when a child is lost, the village people assemble to beat drums, calling upon the Tengu to bring it back.

Th'uban

An Islamic demon that looks like a dragon.

Thamuz

The demonic ambassador to Spain.

Tonga-Hiti

A Polynesian head-ache demon, one of the two Ponaturi that managed to escape Urutonga's revenge for the death of her husband.

 The wife of Hema and mother of Tawhaki and Karihi. The Ponaturi, semi-spirits, killed her husband but saved her, having her stay outside the house. She hid her sons until nightfall when they saw the Ponaturi arrive, flying in from the sea, thousands of them. They all piled up in the house and went to sleep there. When no more came, Urutonga told her sons to close every

opening and crack in the house. When they finished, dawn was approaching. The Ponaturi chief asked Urutonga if it was dawn yet, but she replied that it was not. This went on until the sun rose. Then the two brothers opened the door of the house, and all the Ponaturi died in the bright sun rays, except Kanae, who became a flying fish, and Tonga-Hiti, the head-ache demon.

Typhon

Typhon was a powerful Egyptian demon who stood in constant opposition to the beneficent Osiris. This was during the time when Osiris was a god of fertility (later he was brutally murdered, and his soul became the just lord of the underworld.) When Osiris brought water to an arid tract of Egypt, Typhon made the greatest effort to bring heat and drought. Typhon's consort, Nepthys, fought against Isis, Osiris' wife. As the land of Egypt, fertilized by the waters of the Nile, was the kingdom of Isis, so the desert which lay beyond the influence of the river, remained in the power of Nepthys.

Typhon was also associated with the wind that came up from the Sahara, the southern blast that destroyed everything that was vulnerable to its heat. Thus, a forceful wind became called a typhoon.

Typhon was often depicted as a monster of enormous bulk. He had several heads, wings sprouting from his shoulders, and his legs ended in a tangle of serpents. Having imprisoned Osiris in an ark, he drove Osiris' son, Horus, onto the island of Chemmis. There, he compelled all the other deities to flee and save their lives or to take refuge in the guise of various animals; these later became sacred to the Egyptians in memory of the gods' transformations. At the same time, all animals whose disposition was fierce or untameable, such as the crocodile and the hippopotamus, came to be known as Typhon's beasts. Typhon was finally conquered by Osiris, who chased the monster to Sicily, and hurled him onto Mount Etna which belches blood-red lava to this day.

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