Note 10 — Chapter VI · Magic Rites as affecting the Life of Man
Reading edition
The Peĕnanggalan is a sort of monstrous vampire which delights in sucking the blood of children. The story goes that once upon a time a woman was sitting, to perform a religious penance (dudok bĕrtapa), in one of the large wooden vats which are used by the Malays for holding the vinegar made by drawing off the sap of the thatch-palm (mĕnyadap nipah). Quite unexpectedly a man came in, and finding her sitting in the vat, asked her, “What are you doing there?” To this the woman replied, “What business have you to ask?” but being very much startled she attempted to escape, and in the excitement of the moment, kicked her own chin with such force that the skin split round her neck, and her head (with the sac of the stomach depending from it) actually became separated from the trunk, and flew off to perch upon the nearest tree. Ever since then she has existed as a spirit of evil, sitting on the roof-tree whinnying (mĕngilai) whenever a child is born in the house, or trying to force her way up through the floor on which the child lies, in order to drink its blood.10