The penanggalan is a nocturnal vampiric being of Malay ghost myth, appearing as a detached woman’s head with its organs and entrails trailing from the neck; from afar it twinkles like a will-o’-the-wisp. Its name comes from a Malay word meaning “to remove,” because its very form is a head taken off. By day it returns to its body and carries an odor of vinegar.
In the tales the penanggalan preys on new mothers and small children. Hiding beneath the stilts of Malay houses, it laps the blood of women who have just given birth, leaving an almost inescapable wasting disease. That split — an ordinary woman by day, a detached hunting head by night — meets our world’s dread of an identity sealed behind an everyday face.