Coming Back To Haunt Us
We all know vampires and ghosts and the undead in general. They haunt our dreams and wake us up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. But let's ask ourselves, what is the monster at the end of the bed made from? How did it get here? What is it want?
In Indonesian mythology, there is a certain type of spirit. Women who die while pregnant usually become this spirit. The death of both mother and child creates a horror born from pain and loss. These creatures are usually depicted as pale skinned women with long black hair and red eyes. Their clothing is smeared in blood. Their presence is said to be detected by a pleasant floral aroma which quickly turns into an awful stench. The ghosts, the Pontianak, are vampiric spirits that dig into the body of victims with sharp fingernails and devour the internal organs. Sometimes, if one has his, they only pray on males by the way, eyes open when the ghost is near, she will suck them out of the victims head. The odd thing is that this ghost locates her prey by sniffing out hanging laundry outside and to this day some Malaysians will refuse to leave any piece of clothing outside their house overnight.
The next ghoulish ghoul on our list is the lady in red. Similar to the white lady of international folklore, the red lady is more attributed to a jilted lover or prostitute killed in a fit of passion. The stories usually depict her as a woman of vanity before her death. Wearing A blood red dress, sightings of a red Lady have been attached to historic monuments, hotels, theaters and other such public places. A higher frequency of sightings however, come from mining communities. From California to New York, stories of lovers murdering lovers, speakeasy dancers being gunned down by rival gangs during prohibition, and saloon girls caught up in gun fights scream loud and clear through United States history. While the woman in white has become associated with an innocent perishing or a woman with kind passion long after death. The woman in red has become associated with vanity and bloodshed so far as be called a succubus in some locations.
And now we come to one of my favorite types of ghost. People get enraged, it happens to all of us. But what happens if someone dies in the throes of rage? Princes of Japan have made cults around the spirit, hoping to inflict harm upon their enemies. Popular culture knows two of them quite well. Two spirits that cause people to avoid wells and TV static.
Vengeance is a powerful thing. Traditionally in Japan, the spirits were driven by it and were thought capable of causing not only their enemies death but capable of causing natural disasters as well. This spirit above all others should teach us to forgive and have mercy.
Sugawara No Michizane was publicly and politically disgraced and died in exile. Those who plotted against him died painfully soon after and catastrophes especially lightning damage ruined many a fine building. The enraged spirit of Sugawara was attempted to be contacted by the court of ancient Japan to try and see what can be done to appease the spirit. The old rank and position was reinstated to Sugawara and the terror stopped. The spirit was then deified and named a Tenjin, a Shinto Kami (god) of academics, scholarship, and learning.
Now you're probably wondering what the Spirit is named. Most of us have seen the two movies which the spirit dominates. The Ring and the Grudge were two of the first Japanese horror movies remade for American audiences. Samara and Kayako are two of the most terrifying ghosts I have seen on the silver screen! Onryo spirits, the legendary horrors brought upon us by our own evil actions, will haunt us forever.
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