By the grace of ‘There is no god but God,’” etc.
To prevent a stillborn child from becoming a Pontianak the corpse is treated in the same way as that of the mother, i.e. a hen’s egg is put under each armpit, a needle in the palm of each hand, and (probably) glass beads or some simple equivalent in its mouth. The charm which is used on this occasion will be found in the Appendix.
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]
The only two spirits of this class which now remain are the Polong and the Pĕlĕsit, and these, as I have said, partake to a great extent of the character of familiar spirits or bottle imps, and are by no means confined to a single “rôle” as the preceding ones have been.
The Polong resembles an exceedingly diminutive female figure or mannikin, being in point of size about as big as the top joint of the little finger. It will fly through the air to wherever it is told to go, but is always preceded by its pet or plaything (pĕmainan), the Pĕlĕsit, which, as has already been said, appears to be a species of house-cricket. Whenever the Polong wishes to enter (di-rasoki) a new victim, it sends the Pĕlĕsit on before it, and as soon as the latter, “flying in a headlong fashion (mĕnĕlĕntang mĕnjĕrongkong),” has entered its victim’s body, which it usually does tail-foremost, and begins to chirp, the Polong follows. It is generally hidden away outside the house by its owner (Jinjangan), and fed with blood pricked from the finger. The description usually given of a Polong tallies curiously with the Malay definition of the soul.[12]
The last of these spirits, the Pĕlĕsit (or house-cricket?), which is the Polong’s “plaything” or pet, flies to and fro (rasok sini, rasok sana) till it finds the body which its mistress has ordered it to enter, harm only being done when it enters tail-foremost, as it generally does. It is occasionally caught and kept in a bottle by Malay women, who feed it either on parched or saffron-stained rice, or on blood drawn from the tip of the fourth finger which they prick for the purpose, and who, when they wish to get rid of it, bury it in the ground. When a sick person is affected by a Pĕlĕsit (one of the signs of which is to rave about cats)[13] the medicine-man comes and addresses the Pĕlĕsit (or Polong?), which has taken up its residence in the patient’s body, with the words: “Who is your mother?” To this question the Pĕlĕsit replies, speaking with the patient’s voice, but in a high falsetto key, and giving the name of the person who sent it, whereupon prompt measures are taken to compel the owner to recall it. It now only remains to describe the means employed by the Malays to secure one of these familiar spirits, which can be guaranteed to cause the greatest possible annoyance to your enemy, with the least possible trouble on your own part.
Receipt for securing a Pĕlĕsit
“Go to the graveyard at night and dig up the body of a first-born child whose mother was also first-born, and which has been dead less than forty days. On digging it up, carry it out to an ant-hill in the open ground, and there dandle it (di-timang). After a little while, when the child shrieks and lolls its tongue out (tĕrjĕlir lidah-nya), bite off its tongue and carry it home. Then obtain a cocoa-nut shell from a solitary ‘green’ cocoa-nut palm (niyor hijau), and carry it to a place where Three Roads Meet, light a fire and heat the shell till oil exudes, dip the child’s tongue in the oil, and bury it in the heart of the three cross roads (hati sempang tiga). Leave it untouched for three nights, then dig it up and you will find that it has turned into a Pĕlĕsit.”[14]