Case file · Folklore / legend
Kuntilanak / Pontianak
A vengeful female spirit of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, often a long-haired woman in white, whose nearness is signalled by a baby's cry or the smell of decay.
1957 CE · 1.36, 103.82 · status: legend
The account
In some tellings she is the stillborn child of another ghost, the Langsuir. Pontianak films by Cathay-Keris from 1957 made the figure a screen icon.
The sceptical view
She is a folklore figure; modern sightings are shaped by film and television imagery.
Connections in the atlas
- Founding of Pontianak
- Pontianak / kuntilanak
- Old Changi Hospital
- Penanggalan
- Aswang
- La Llorona