According to Ashanti lore in Ghana, the obayifu is a witch who leaves her body at night in the form of a small ball of light which flies through the air and sucks the blood of sleeping people, especially infants and children.
The Dahomeans have essentially the same belief, but they call this type of witch the asiman.
For more details on West African vampiric witches, see The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton (Visible Ink Press, 1994, 1999).
