Penanggalan
A disembodied head trailing organs, hunting pregnant women and children.
The penanggalan is a nocturnal vampiric entity from Malay ghost myths, appearing as a floating disembodied woman's head with organs and entrails trailing from its neck. It is said to twinkle like a ball of flame from afar, similar to a will-o'-the-wisp. The name derives from the word tanggal, meaning 'to remove or take off', and it belongs to a constellation of similar mythological entities found across Southeast Asia.
Quick Facts
- Type
- Nocturnal vampiric entity
- Origin
- Malay ghost myths
- Name meaning
- From tanggal, 'to remove or take off'
Facts from the source article.
Nature
In Malaysian folklore, a penanggal is a mortal woman who turns to black magic. She becomes one by meditating during a ritual bath in vinegar, keeping only her head above the surface. The creature only flies at night and must regularly dip her organs in vinegar to make them small enough to fit back inside her body. Wherever she goes in this form, she leaves a trail of vinegar smell, and by day she returns to her body and looks like any other woman, though the scent gives her away. The Hikayat Abdullah from 1845 describes her as a woman who made a pact with a demon, serving it day and night until she could fly—her head and neck detaching from her body with her entrails hanging down, while her torso stayed behind. She would fly to her victim’s home to drink their blood. More recent stories suggest she might be cursed or have broken a demonic deal. One tale involves a young woman bathing in a tub that had held vinegar. A man startled her, and she jerked her head up so fast it came off, pulling her organs out through the neck. Furious, she flew after him as a flying head dripping venom, leaving her empty body behind in the tub.
Victims
The penanggalan's victims are traditionally pregnant women and young children; men are usually avoided, and they may spy on them throughout the night to protect the expectant mother or newborn. In traditional Malay stilt houses, the penanggal would hide under the stilts and use its long tongue to lap up the blood of the new mother. Those whose blood the penanggalan feeds on contract a wasting disease that is almost inescapably fatal. Anyone brushed by its dripping entrails will suffer painful open sores that will not heal without a bomoh's help. The most common protection is to scatter the thorny leaves of a local plant called mengkuang, which can trap or injure the exposed organs as the penanggal flies. These thorns can also be looped around windows to snare the trailing organs, commonly done when a woman has just given birth. Shards of glass glued to the top of walls serve the same purpose. As an extra precaution, a pregnant woman may keep scissors or betel nut cutters under her pillow, as the penanggalan fears these items. Midwives who become penanggalans appear normal in daytime but can be identified by avoiding eye contact and licking their lips when performing midwife duties. The penanggal may be permanently destroyed by pouring broken glass into its empty neck cavity, which severs internal organs upon reattachment, or by sanctifying and cremating the body, or preventing reattachment by sunrise. A non-lethal method is to turn the body over so the head attaches reversed, revealing its true nature.
In popular culture
The penanggalan appears as a monster in the 1981 Dungeons & Dragons rulebook Fiend Folio. It is partly the basis for the 1981 Indonesian horror film Mystics in Bali, and features in the Creepshow season three episode 'Drug Traffic'. It also appears in the Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others comics and the Image Comics title Cry Havoc, and is a playable character in the 2016 video game Dead by Daylight.
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