There are many Malay ghost myths (Malay: cerita hantu Melayu ; Jawi: چريتا هنتو ملايو), remnants of old animist beliefs that have been shaped by Hindu-Buddhist cosmology and later Muslim influences, in the modern states of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and among the Malay diaspora in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. The general word for ghost is hantu, of which there exist a wide variety. Some ghost concepts such as the female vampires pontianak and penanggal are shared throughout the region. While traditional belief doesn't consider all ghosts as necessarily evil, Malaysian popular culture tends to categorize them all as types of evil djinn.
Read more about Malay Ghost Myths: History, Traditional Beliefs, Birth-spirits, Ghost As Agents of Shamans, Other Ghosts, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words ghost and/or myths:
“The ghost of the heart of manred Cain
And the more murderous brain
Of Man, still redder Nero that conceived the death
Of his mother Earth, and tore
Her womb, to know the place where he was conceived.”
—Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)
“In New York—whose subway trains in particular have been “tattooed” with a brio and an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shame—not an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.... Even the most chronically dispossessed appear prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the “haves.””
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Cleaning and Cleansing,” Myths and Memories (1986)