MANANANGGAL

A manananggal is also called wakwak in some areas Filipino folklore or penanggalan in Malay folklore is a mythical creature. It resembles a Western vampire, in being an evil, human-devouring monster or witch. The myth of the manananggal is popular in the Visayan region of the Philippines, especially in the western provinces of Capiz, Iloilo, Antique. There are varying accounts of the features of a manananggal. Like vampires, Visayan folklore creatures, and aswangs, manananggals are also said to abhor garlic and salt. They were also known to avoid daggers, light, vinegar, spices and the tail of a sting ray which can be fashioned as a whip. Folklore of similar creatures can be found in the neighbouring nations of Indonesia and Malaysia.

A manananggal is described as being an older, beautiful woman (as opposed to an aswang), capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge bat-like wings to prey on unsuspecting, pregnant women in their homes; using an elongated proboscis-like tongue, it sucks the hearts of fetuses or blood of an unsuspecting, sleeping victim. The severed lower torso is left standing and it is said to be the more vulnerable of the two halves. Sprinkling salt or smearing crushed garlic or ash on top of the standing torso is fatal to the creature. The upper torso then would not be able to rejoin and will die at daybreak. The name of the creature originates from an expression used for a severed torso: manananggal comes from the Tagalog, tanggal (cognate of Malay tanggal) which means to remove or to separate. Manananggal then means the one who separates itself (in this case, separates itself from its lower body).

Superstitious folk in the Visayan provinces still hang cloves of garlic or onion around windows, doors, etc. with the purpose of repelling this creature as well as the aswang. They are a favorite theme for sensationalist tabloids. They may be a product of mass hysteria or intentionally propagated to keep children off the street, home at night and wary or careful of strangers, or simply to entertain them.

Different regions have different stories on how manananggals proliferate. One story relates that manananggals have black chicks in their throats, which provide them with their power. A manananggal cannot die until the chick is removed, which be done by smoking the manananggal upside down in a tree or spinning her until she vomits the chick up.[1]

Another story says that heredity or contamination by physical or supernatural means can turn someone into a manananggal. For example, contaminating someone's meal with an old manananggal's saliva or human flesh can pass it on. A third story relates that a girl who later became a mananaggal confided in her human boyfriend that she felt the urge to eat sick people's sputum.