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A logical reasoning
Imagine you were walking late at night alone in a foggy cemetery
or in a dark tree-lined street. Your heart was beating fast when
you were engulfed in the spookiness of the environment. Suddenly
you heard a movement near the trees. At a glance you saw something
moving fast.
Something that looks like a bird, in grayish white color, slim in
the body and a big head. The big head has a human face! But you are
never sure what you saw. Its sudden appearance had already shocked
you out. As frightening as it gets, misjudgment is not uncommon on
you.
On the next day, when you are telling your friends your encounter,
at a pretty good chance they will say "wah liao, you saw a Pontianak,
man!"
Rumors then spread like wild-fire, in forums, in school gossips,
in pub talks or simply after dinner chats as told by your friends. The stories evolve more
and more dramatically, especially if people want to believe that
was a Pontianak. The original object that you saw on that night would have a white gown
added on it, then long hairs, trails of fragrance, red-eyes, and the list goes on.
Another scary Pontianak story is hence born.
Barn owls and brown hawk owls that have a
human face are common in Singapore
Human face owls
The above hypothesis is not impossible. In fact, in Singapore,
owls are common species and they are often seen especially at
night. They do have a human face somehow that look quite eerie.
Here are some facts about owls that can be found in Singapore. The
source of information is from "A Guide To The Common Birds Of
Singapore" sponsored by BP and published by Singapore Science
Centre.
"At dawn or dusk it is possible to hear and even see the Collared
Scops Owl and Brown Hawk Owl... A common sighting place is Sime
Road track that eventually ends at a forest area near the pipeline
where many forest species inhabit."
Sime Road pipeline is located in the water catchments areas around
the reservoirs to the centre of the island and is particularly
interesting because it provides easy access through thickly wooded
areas and enables many birds to be seen along the forest edge. And
for your information, Sime Road area is in fact the vicinity of
Bukit Brown Cemetery and Mt Pleasant Cemetery! Many so-called
Pontianak sightings took place there.
Barn Owl
World 133 species, S.E. Asia 26 species, Singapore 7 species. The
large eyes and round heads are familiar features of these
nocturnal birds of prey who use their hooked bills and strong
talons to great effect. Flight is very silent due to the soft
features and broad rounded wings and calls are very distinctive
aiding identification.
Brown Hawk Owl
A command resident more often heard than seen and frequents trees
near urban areas provided there is a suitable cover. As with most
owls, only active at night when it issues a monotonous two note
whistle 'coo-oo' fairly regularly every few seconds and has been
likened to a demented hiccupping. It is an attractive bird with
chestnut plumage and black streaks on a white breast and has a
white patch between the eyes but has no facial mask or ear tuft as
with many other owls. It prefers forest habitat and feeds on large
insects including cicadas, beetles and dragonflies.
Pontianak and logic
Assuming that Pontianak exists and they have all the typical
characteristic: woman in white, long hair etc...When people said
they saw a Pontianak, they are actually making a logical fallacy.
Let P be the statement "x is a Pontianak" and Q be the statement
"x wears white gown, has long hair, smell fragrant". What we can
conclude is that P->Q is true but not the other way round, i.e.
the converse Q -> P might not be true. It may be the necessary
conditions for Pontianaks to have those characteristics, but the
characteristics are not sufficient conditions to determine a
spirit is a Pontianak.
A harsh argument (from a SPI fan)
Hi SPI, there is one point i want to follow up. "How did one
supposed to become pontianak?"
You see, throughout the history of mankind or womankind, how many
women died during child birth, raped and killed, abused, raped and became pregnant and killed herself, etc...? Why
not every one of those women become a pontianak?
There seems to be under certain conditions, such deaths would
result the dead body to become a pontianak (if it ever exists).
Then what are the 'certain' conditions?
To me, pontianaks are more of a urban legend bullshit than a real
thing. I don't believe its existence ever. By saying this,
however, i am still keen to find out what made people believe
there existed pontianak in human history. Have they mistaken
something? or the urban legend is real?
We will investigate to the bottom of it till we get the answer. Go
go SPI go!
Some comments by SPI Mathwizard
Ok...without loss of generality, we assume langsuir/langsuyar is
the mother and pontianak is the stillborn child. This info is from
Malay Magic, a book written by William Water Skeat, first
published in 1900! My comment will be in blue.
"If a woman dies in childbirth, either before delivery or after
the birth of a child, and before the forty days of uncleanness
have expired (40 days have their
counterparts in other vampire legends, see below *), she is
popularly supposed to become a langsuyar, a flying demon of the
nature of 'white lady' or 'banshee'. To prevent this a quantity of
glass beads are put under each arm-pit, and needles are placed in
the palms of the hands. It is believed that if this is done the
dead woman cannot become a langsuyar, as she cannot open her mouth
to shriek or wave her arms as wings , or open and shut her hands
to assist her in flight. (Indicating that it
is a physical transformation rather than a spirit? Also note that
why she can't move her arms or hands. Vampires of the west are
believed to be obssessive, if you throw beads or anything
scattered on the ground, they will pick all of them up, so the
langsuir might not want to drop them in the first place....)
The superstitions about the Langsuir, however, do not end here,
for with regard to its origin the Selangor Malays tell the
following story: The original Langsuir (whose embodiment is
supposed to be a kind of night-owl) is described as being a woman
of dazzling beauty, who died from the shock of hearing that her
child was stillborn, and had taken the shape of the pontianak.
(which is?) On hearing this terrible
news, she "clapped her hands," and without further warning "flew
whinnying away to a tree, upon which she perched." She may be
known by her robe of green (not white! so
how did people relate lady in white with langsuir or pontianak?
somewhere has got mistaken or twisted), by her tapering
nails of extraordinary length (a mark of beauty), and by the long
jet black tresses which she allows to fall down to her ankles in
order to conceal the hole in the back of her neck through which
she sucks the blood of children! (God knows
how does the hole work?) These vampire-like proclitives of
hers may, however, be successfully combated if the right means are
adopted, for if you are able to catch her, cut short her nails and
luxuriant tresses, and stuff them into the hole in her neck, she
will become tame and indistinguishable from an ordinary woman,
remaining so for years. Cases have been known, indeed, in which
she has become a wife and a mother, until she was allowed to dance
at a village merry-making, when she at once reverted to her
ghostly form, and flew off into the dark and gloomy forest from
whence she came. In their wild state, a Malay once informed me,
these woman-vampires are exceedingly fond of fish, and once and
again may be seen "sitting in crowds on the fishing-stakes at the
river mouth awaiting an opportunity to steal the fish."
* For example, in Crete, Katakhana is
believed to be a vampire originated from persons who had led evil
lives or especially those excommunicated before death. After their
burial, their bodies were deemed inhabited by a demonic spirit,
which then wandered about terrorizing the islanders during a
forty-day period. It could be frightened away by gunfire, but
after 40 days, it was considered indestructible. Also in Bulgaria,
vampires remain in the ground for 40 days until the skeleton forms
from a gelatinous substance. These vampires include Krvoijac and
Ubour. The Ubour being the most common species, created when a
person meets a violent, sudden death, when a cat jumps over a
corpse, or when a spirit refuses to leave a body by sheer force or
will. It only drinks blood when no other form of nourishment is
available. It has only one nostril, possesses a barbed tongue, and
emits sparks during the night. Info taken from:
http://www.sacrosanctum.org/hvamps/encyclopedia.html.
Pontianak is derived from a Filipino legend?
According to some Philippine lore, an infant who dies under
certain conditions may become a vampire called the Tiyanak, or
Patianiak.
In the article “Philippine (Tagalog) Superstitions” by Fletcher
Gardner (Journal of American Folk-Lore vol. 19 (1906)), it is said
to be called the Tiyanak or Patianiak, and is described as “the
soul of an unbaptized child living again in a new body in the
forest, sucking the blood of any unfortunate woman whom it may
find asleep, or who, in compassion, may give it suck.”
But the article continues: “By Padre Ortiz, the Spanish word
duende, or goblin, is used as a synonym for Patianak. The whole
subject is confused and need elucidation. It is likely that a more
detailed study would find the fundamental idea overlaid with a
mass of local tradition.”
One of my own Philippino correspondents still living in the
Philippines wrote to me in 1998 that the “tiyanak” is a “creature
who appears to be a crying baby in the woods. Unsuspecting
passersby will think it to be an abandoned baby and will bring it
home. Once inside, it will change into its original grotesque
shape and attack the inhabitants while they sleep.”
Therefore, according to Filipino legend of a "Tiyanak," a demon
which disguises itself as a crying, abandoned baby. I wonder,
given the partly Malay roots of Filipino culture, if the two myths
are related.
Either way, I think the visual of a ghostly woman with a white
dress and long dark hair is pretty much a literary archetype,
isn't it? Nakata and Takahashi (and Suzuki, too, I guess) just put
a fresh new spin on it by combining it with the modern technology
of the VCR.
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