Penanggalan

The penanggalan is a woman. By day she is indistinguishable from anyone else. She may be a midwife. She may attend births, hold the newborn, and congratulate the mother. At nightfall, she returns to her home, speaks a prayer or incantation, and her head separates from her body at the neck. The stomach, intestines, and lungs come with it, dangling below the floating head like wet roots. The body remains seated where she left it. The head flies.

The Hunt

The penanggalan hunts pregnant women and women in labor. She lands on the roof and extends her tongue, which can elongate to unnatural length, through cracks in the floorboards or walls. She drinks blood from the mother or the newborn. In some accounts, the child sickens and dies. In others, the mother develops a wasting illness that no medicine can cure.

The Defense

Thorny plants are the primary defense. Pineapple leaves, jeruju (a thorny aquatic plant), and other spiny vegetation placed around the house catch the dangling organs as the penanggalan tries to approach. Tangled in thorns, she cannot flee before dawn reveals her. Vinegar is sometimes mentioned: the penanggalan must soak her organs in vinegar to shrink them enough to fit back inside the body.

The Thai Krasue

In Thailand, the equivalent creature is the krasue: a floating female head with viscera trailing below, glowing with a green or red light. Thai television and film have made the krasue one of the most recognizable horror figures in Southeast Asian media. The image of a beautiful woman’s face floating above dangling organs is shared across Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines, suggesting the tradition predates the modern borders.

Sources

Bibliography. The same list is held in the article’s frontmatter for the citation tools that read it programmatically.

• Malay folk tradition
• Walter William Skeat, Malay Magic (1900)