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There are many Malay ghost myths (Malay: cerita hantu Melayu; Jawi: چريتا هنتو ملايو), remnants of old animist beliefs that have been shaped by Hindu-Buddhist cosmology and later Muslim influences, in the modern states of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore and among the Malay diaspora in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries.
Reportedly haunted locations in Malaysia (2 P) Pages in category "Malaysian ghosts" The following 15 pages are in this category, out of 15 total.
The Malay word for ghost is hantu. However, this word also covers all sorts of demons, goblins and undead creatures and are thought to have real physical bodies, instead of just apparitions or spectres. The most famous of these is the pontianak or matianak, the ghost of a female stillborn child which lures men in the form of a beautiful woman.
The penanggalan or penanggal is a nocturnal vampiric entity from Malay ghost myths. It takes the form of a floating disembodied woman's head, with its organs and entrails trailing from its neck. From afar, the penanggalan is said to twinkle like a ball of flame, similar to the will-o'-the-wisp phenomenon.
Hantu is the Malay and Indonesian word for spirit or ghost. [1] In modern usage it generally means spirits of the dead but has also come to refer to any legendary invisible being, such as demons. [2] In its traditional context the term also referred to animistic nature spirits or ancestral souls. [3]
The word hantu is most often translated as ghost in modern Malay, but is actually closer in meaning to "spirit". The word raya roughly means "great" or "high". The term hantu raya (therefore meaning "great ghost") is sometimes mistaken as meaning a supreme demon which rules over all ghosts, but its high status comes not from its position and instead refers to the spirit's power, being one of ...
In Malay, the term hantu is used to describe demon, ghost or ghoul and similar to the Japanese Yōkai. Malay folk stories also adopted elements from the Islamic world, of middle eastern and Persian origin, which are somewhat differ from what Malays now refer to as angels or demons.
In his book Malay Magic, Walter William Skeat, an English anthropologist, recorded the origins of the langsuyar myth, as told by Malays in Selangor: . 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.