pontianak & protest
found quite an interesting resource on pontianak on the web. seems like i have been confusing pontianak with langsuir with penanggalan -- mainly because of the stupid hantu exhibition i went to at the Sarawak museum, or maybe my bad recollection of what i read there.
so for clarification, these are the differance (according to derrida, this means both to differ and to defer, meaning negation of the self in 2 ways, temporally and phenomenologically; or in less desperate language, to say that "i" is both not you or now. meaning what? i have no idea. and this is only at page 5 of the non-preface. maybe the whole book is about non-being. if i am defined through a series of what i am not, then i can only be a puffy potential, malleable and fantastic. bla bla bla):
* pontianak, also known as puntianak or kuntilanak or matianak. is a female apparition, observed through her long hair and white dress (what kind? baju kurung? though think they have existed way before baju kurung was popularised in the region. pontianaks were recorded since at least the 17th century; and when baju kurung replaced the sarong or if it ever did, i can only guess.)
she is also notable for her shriek. if everyone in the vicinity can hear a pontianak shrieking in the dead of the night, and you're the only person who can't, it means the pontianak is near you. she is probably calling out in search of her child.
a pontianak is a woman who died in childbirth and her spirit cannot rest because of this. if you are caught -- or increasingly so, seduced -- by a pontianak, she will drink your blood till you die. i think neck is the location of choice.
in some stories, pontianaks have a hole in their nape which is their only point of weakness. it's covered by their long hair (which came first? the hair or the hole? hmm... :|). if you can stuff the hole with a nail, she'll remain as the gorgeous apparition that first ensnared you. but if it ever comes out... die la. in earlier stories, she flies around in the shape of a bird and kills an expectant mother and her child by driving her long claws into the belly. the motivation is generally cited as jealousy.
so while before, she kills women and their unborn baby (motivation = self & maternal desire), she now she kills perverse men who allow themselves to be seduced by women sitting alone in remote place (motivation = punishment of the other's/male desire). maybe this is also why some origin stories are blurred, with the pontianak becoming a pontianak from rape & murder, or suicide after being impregnated after rape.
a pontianak is usually caught by being secured in a see-through glass bottle. she's sometimes said to like hanging out under banana trees.
a sultan, Syarif Abdurrahman Al-Qadri, was so disturbed by a pontianak in the 17th century that he eventually named a land after this apparition in west Kalimantan of indonesia.
to chase the pontianak away, a canon was shot, and where it landed, was the heart of this new settlement, Pontianak.
there's also a a town called Pontian in Johor. but i have no idea if it has any relation with the hantu pontianak.
* langsuir, also known as langsuyar. female, and can appear either also as a beautiful girl|woman or as an owl with the face of a cat. the same dude who wrote the resource hypothesised that owl-sightings are mistaken as pontianak-sightings, but maybe it's just a case of mistaken langsuir sightings?
a woman becomes a langsuir if she and her child dies within the 40 days of her confinement period. sometimes, it is said that her dead child becomes a pontianak. sometimes, it is said that a mother was so shocked to find out that her dead child has become a pontianak, she clapped her hands and flew to a tree, becoming a langsuir. origin stories are sometimes quite circular and self-referential.
the features of both are very similar actually, and can be quite confusing. both have the unearthly shrieks, are often cited as beautiful women, have holes at the back of their necks and similar long black hair, kills by sucking their victim's blood, and have to do with thwarted journeys into motherhood. sometimes it is said that langsuir looks like owls, sometimes it is said that pontianak looks like owls. not sure which is which.
langsuirs hangs out on trees and they can fly. to prevent deceased mothers from turning into langsuirs or their dead child from becoming a pontianak, glass beads are put in the mouth to disable the shrieking, hen's eggs are placed under the armpits to prevent the flapping of arms for flying, and needles are placed at the palms of her hands so that "she may not open or clench them to assist her flight" (1951, The Malay Magician, Richard Windstedt).
both pontianaks and langsuirs have the status of jins. i am not sure if this is because the citations come from a charm that borrows from Islamic texts/culture, or if pontianaks existed after the 14th century after the influential golden age of Islam in the region's history. either way, it's linked to both Malay and Muslim systems of belief.
oh, and apparently, langsuirs like to eat fish, and if they are hanging about in a tree near you, you just have to get naked and they'll fly away.
*penanggalan, also known as hantu tengelong. she is female. in some stories, instead of a victim of tragic circumstances, she becomes a penanggalan through the practice of black magic. these magicians have mastered (mistressed?) the arts so well that they can separate their heads from their bodies.
in other stories, she is a normal woman who was seated in a large wooden tub (used to hold nipah vinegar) while performing a religious penance when a man suddenly surprised her by asking what she's doing. she jumped up and her head literally popped out of her body. the shrieking head flew to a nearby tree.
the detached head with trailing entrails (but i don't understand why the entrails start from the neck instead of the lower part of the torso) continues flying about at night especially to houses of expectant mothers, waiting to feed upon their blood. penanggalan also likes the blood of babies and young children.
their entrails are also their only point of weakness, as it can get caught on tree branches and thorns. the practice is to either plant trees or place thorns around the house to prevent them from getting in. the entrails also need to be soaked in vinegar and its discharge (or drops of blood depending on which story) is poisonous and can cause kudis as well as thorny weeds to grow. kinda a flaw since thorny weeds are the kinda things which can trap it.
anyway, there are much less lore about the penanggalan than the pontianak. probably because not so many movies are made about it. but maybe also because part of the origin stories of the penanggalan contains some element of agency and deliberate intent as opposed to the pontianak. but also maybe because a ghost with no tits in its strategy is less sexy.
so here we have it. the pontianak, langsuir and penanggalan. repeated symbols of long black hair, shrieking voices, birth, blood, dead babies. mixed in with a little seduction and tales of monstrous sexuality.
a fair bit more to deconstruct, but too penat. so later la.
----
protest against dodgy judicial appointments
first there was knowledge, then there was assumptions, then suddenly... you tube! check out the video clip yourself.
march & handover of memorandum on impartiality of judicial appointments, organised by the Malaysian Bar Council:
wed, 26 sep 2007
11am from the steps of the Palace of Justice to the Prime Minister's office
hop on the bus at the bar council at 9am
so for clarification, these are the differance (according to derrida, this means both to differ and to defer, meaning negation of the self in 2 ways, temporally and phenomenologically; or in less desperate language, to say that "i" is both not you or now. meaning what? i have no idea. and this is only at page 5 of the non-preface. maybe the whole book is about non-being. if i am defined through a series of what i am not, then i can only be a puffy potential, malleable and fantastic. bla bla bla):
* pontianak, also known as puntianak or kuntilanak or matianak. is a female apparition, observed through her long hair and white dress (what kind? baju kurung? though think they have existed way before baju kurung was popularised in the region. pontianaks were recorded since at least the 17th century; and when baju kurung replaced the sarong or if it ever did, i can only guess.)
she is also notable for her shriek. if everyone in the vicinity can hear a pontianak shrieking in the dead of the night, and you're the only person who can't, it means the pontianak is near you. she is probably calling out in search of her child.
a pontianak is a woman who died in childbirth and her spirit cannot rest because of this. if you are caught -- or increasingly so, seduced -- by a pontianak, she will drink your blood till you die. i think neck is the location of choice.
in some stories, pontianaks have a hole in their nape which is their only point of weakness. it's covered by their long hair (which came first? the hair or the hole? hmm... :|). if you can stuff the hole with a nail, she'll remain as the gorgeous apparition that first ensnared you. but if it ever comes out... die la. in earlier stories, she flies around in the shape of a bird and kills an expectant mother and her child by driving her long claws into the belly. the motivation is generally cited as jealousy.
so while before, she kills women and their unborn baby (motivation = self & maternal desire), she now she kills perverse men who allow themselves to be seduced by women sitting alone in remote place (motivation = punishment of the other's/male desire). maybe this is also why some origin stories are blurred, with the pontianak becoming a pontianak from rape & murder, or suicide after being impregnated after rape.
a pontianak is usually caught by being secured in a see-through glass bottle. she's sometimes said to like hanging out under banana trees.
a sultan, Syarif Abdurrahman Al-Qadri, was so disturbed by a pontianak in the 17th century that he eventually named a land after this apparition in west Kalimantan of indonesia.
to chase the pontianak away, a canon was shot, and where it landed, was the heart of this new settlement, Pontianak.
there's also a a town called Pontian in Johor. but i have no idea if it has any relation with the hantu pontianak.
* langsuir, also known as langsuyar. female, and can appear either also as a beautiful girl|woman or as an owl with the face of a cat. the same dude who wrote the resource hypothesised that owl-sightings are mistaken as pontianak-sightings, but maybe it's just a case of mistaken langsuir sightings?
a woman becomes a langsuir if she and her child dies within the 40 days of her confinement period. sometimes, it is said that her dead child becomes a pontianak. sometimes, it is said that a mother was so shocked to find out that her dead child has become a pontianak, she clapped her hands and flew to a tree, becoming a langsuir. origin stories are sometimes quite circular and self-referential.
the features of both are very similar actually, and can be quite confusing. both have the unearthly shrieks, are often cited as beautiful women, have holes at the back of their necks and similar long black hair, kills by sucking their victim's blood, and have to do with thwarted journeys into motherhood. sometimes it is said that langsuir looks like owls, sometimes it is said that pontianak looks like owls. not sure which is which.
langsuirs hangs out on trees and they can fly. to prevent deceased mothers from turning into langsuirs or their dead child from becoming a pontianak, glass beads are put in the mouth to disable the shrieking, hen's eggs are placed under the armpits to prevent the flapping of arms for flying, and needles are placed at the palms of her hands so that "she may not open or clench them to assist her flight" (1951, The Malay Magician, Richard Windstedt).
both pontianaks and langsuirs have the status of jins. i am not sure if this is because the citations come from a charm that borrows from Islamic texts/culture, or if pontianaks existed after the 14th century after the influential golden age of Islam in the region's history. either way, it's linked to both Malay and Muslim systems of belief.
oh, and apparently, langsuirs like to eat fish, and if they are hanging about in a tree near you, you just have to get naked and they'll fly away.
*penanggalan, also known as hantu tengelong. she is female. in some stories, instead of a victim of tragic circumstances, she becomes a penanggalan through the practice of black magic. these magicians have mastered (mistressed?) the arts so well that they can separate their heads from their bodies.
in other stories, she is a normal woman who was seated in a large wooden tub (used to hold nipah vinegar) while performing a religious penance when a man suddenly surprised her by asking what she's doing. she jumped up and her head literally popped out of her body. the shrieking head flew to a nearby tree.
the detached head with trailing entrails (but i don't understand why the entrails start from the neck instead of the lower part of the torso) continues flying about at night especially to houses of expectant mothers, waiting to feed upon their blood. penanggalan also likes the blood of babies and young children.
their entrails are also their only point of weakness, as it can get caught on tree branches and thorns. the practice is to either plant trees or place thorns around the house to prevent them from getting in. the entrails also need to be soaked in vinegar and its discharge (or drops of blood depending on which story) is poisonous and can cause kudis as well as thorny weeds to grow. kinda a flaw since thorny weeds are the kinda things which can trap it.
anyway, there are much less lore about the penanggalan than the pontianak. probably because not so many movies are made about it. but maybe also because part of the origin stories of the penanggalan contains some element of agency and deliberate intent as opposed to the pontianak. but also maybe because a ghost with no tits in its strategy is less sexy.
so here we have it. the pontianak, langsuir and penanggalan. repeated symbols of long black hair, shrieking voices, birth, blood, dead babies. mixed in with a little seduction and tales of monstrous sexuality.
a fair bit more to deconstruct, but too penat. so later la.
----
protest against dodgy judicial appointments
first there was knowledge, then there was assumptions, then suddenly... you tube! check out the video clip yourself.
march & handover of memorandum on impartiality of judicial appointments, organised by the Malaysian Bar Council:
wed, 26 sep 2007
11am from the steps of the Palace of Justice to the Prime Minister's office
hop on the bus at the bar council at 9am