What exactly is a
Manananggal?
 “According to folklore in the Philippines, your
typical Manananggal appears to have the body and face of a
beautiful older woman, with a couple of
minor differences, such as its leathery
wings and its ability to detach its torso
and fly away sans legs. Manananggals
terrorize the Visayan islands, where the
local people
hang large amounts of garlic around their
houses as a deterrent to the Manananggal,
to keep them away.”
- This is folkloric fantasy, and a
remnant from the Philippines tribal past
- a cautionary tale to provide tribal
control, or simply a fire gathering
ghost story.
- A real creature poorly understood,
then exaggerated beyond recognition,
such as harmless large fruit bats.
- A witch tale, usually based upon old
people cast off from their society and
foraging in the wild.
- A local variation of the universal
myth & legend of the Vampire.
- A local variation of the Mothman
creature now known world-wide.
The main
problem with verifying the existence of the Manananggal, is the degree
of fakery. Factual, believable reports
are extremely few. Another problem for
this cryptid is the confusion and merging of
the characteristics of both the
Aswang and the
Manananggal - a significant number of
reports confuse one for the other - making
it difficult to recognize one from the
other, and thus validate credible reports.
 A Manananggal
is a mythical creature of the Philippines
Islands. It is sometimes confused with
the Wak Wak in some areas. It is
similar to the Penanggalan in Malay folklore
. It resembles a Western vampire, in being
an evil, human-devouring monster. The myth
of the Manananggal is popular in the Visayan
region of the Philippines, especially in the
western provinces of Capiz, Iloilo, Antique,
though most Filipinos know of it. 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 - in fact
these can be fatal to them. 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 neighboring
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.
 With the face and body of an older woman, and
features leathery wings. According to
local legend, is able to detach its torso and
fly away leaving its legs behind. 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.
Known to feed on pregnant women, using a
proboscis-like tongue to suck out the hearts of
fetuses or the blood of an unsuspecting,
sleeping victim. Legend also says the
Manananggals propagate themselves by spewing a
black chick into someone's mouth.
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.
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.
According to
one source, the Manananggal can also mate
like ordinary humans, and have normal
offspring, which continue to be outwardly
normal until maturity,
Like most
entrenched legends, this one appears to have
been elaborately embellished. However, at
its root is the winged monster that has appeared
to many Filipinos.
Tik-tik:
Manananggals are sometimes referred to as
tik-tik, the sound it makes while flying.
Folklore dictates that the fainter the
sound, the nearer the Manananggal is. This
is to confuse the victim. Black cats and
crows often signal a tik-tik's presence, and
deformed faces or bodies in children are
allegedly signs of the aftermath of a
tik-tik attack.
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