Vengeful ghost
In
Cultural background
The concept of a vengeful ghost seeking retribution for harm that it endured as a living person goes back to ancient times and is part of many cultures. According to such legends and beliefs, they roam the world of the living as restless spirits, seeking to have their grievances redressed, and may not be satisfied until they have succeeded in punishing either their murderers or their tormentors.[2]
In certain cultures vengeful ghosts are mostly female, said to be women that were unjustly treated during their lifetime. Such women or girls may have died in despair or the suffering they endured may have ended up in early death caused by the ill-treatment or torture they were subject to.[3][4]
Media
Vengeful ghosts have been featured in many contemporary movies of different countries such as
Examples
Africa
- Madam Koi Koi is the ghost of a female school teacher in African urban legend who haunts boarding schools after some students caused her death.
Ancient Rome
- Lemures in Roman mythology are the wandering and vengeful spirits of those not afforded proper burial, funeral rites or affectionate cult by the living.[6]
Ancient Greece
- Keres (Κῆρες), spirits of violent or cruel death in Greek mythology[7]
- Vrykolakas, a creature similar to a zombie
United Kingdom
- The Green Lady, a restless female spirit said to haunt certain locations in Scotland such as Crathes Castle, Knock Castle (Isle of Skye) and Ashintully Castle. In some tales she was murdered in a green dress, and then stuffed unceremoniously up the chimney by a servant. It is said that her footsteps can still be heard as she walks the castle in sadness.[8]
Eastern Europe
Jewish culture
- Dybbuk, a malicious spirit that possesses living people
China and Vietnam
- Mogwai, a vengeful ghost or demon in Chinese mythology
- Nü gui, (Chinese: 女鬼; pinyin: nǚ guǐ; lit. 'female ghost') a vengeful female ghost of Chinese folklore. She appears with untied hair.[9]
- Yuan gui (Chinese: 冤鬼; pinyin: yuān guǐ; lit. 'ghost with grievance'), the spirits of persons who have died wrongful deaths[10]
India
Japan
- Onryō, a generic name in Japanese folklore for ghosts (yūrei) who come back from purgatory for a wrong done to them during their lifetime. Onryō are mostly women and often manifest themselves in physical rather than spectral form.
- Funayūrei (船幽霊 or 舟幽霊, lit. "boat spirit"), ghosts that have become vengeful spirits at sea. They are mentioned in the folklore of various areas of Japan.
- Kuchisake-onna, the vengeful ghost of a woman mutilated by her husband
- Goryō, a certain type of spirits, usually the ghosts of martyrs, from Japanese mythology[15]
Latin America
- Dama Branca, also known as Mulher de Branco, meaning 'Woman in White' in Portuguese, is the ghost of a young woman who died of childbirth or violent causes in Brazilian mythology.[16]
- Corpo-Seco ('Dried Corpse'), is the ghost of a man who was so evil when alive his soul was rejected by God and the Devil and so was cursed to haunt the living as a undead corpse in Brazilian mythology.[17]
- La Llorona, also known as 'the Weeping Woman'; can be a female spirit from Mexico who drowned her own children because her husband cheated on her with another woman and subsequently left her.
- Patasola, a female spirit from South America that appears as a beautiful woman. She attracts men and lures them to the depths of the rainforest, where she turns into a beast and devours the man.
- Sihuanaba, a female spirit who had an affair and attacks unfaithful men in El Salvador and Guatemala
- The Silbón, a young man who killed his father after the father would rape the youth's wife. His grandfather then cursed him to roam the Earth forever with his father's bones, so the youth's ghost kills people if they act like either of the men who hurt him, mostly womanizers and drunks.
- Tulevieja a female spirit of Costa Rica who punishing lustful men and irresponsible fathers.
North America
- Navajo mythology
Southeast Asia
- Dambir ow, in the mythology of the Asmat people of western New Guinea, are ghosts of women who die in labor. Anthropologist Jan Pouwer writes that they have "frightening looks, a sharp nose, sharp teeth, long nails, and eyes as red as their hair. They take revenge on men by carrying them to the underworld, where they torture them to death with thorns."[18]
- Krasue (Thai: กระสือ), known as Ap (Khmer: អាប) in Cambodia, as Kasu in Laos, and Palasik, Kuyang, and Leyak in Indonesia, a nocturnal female spirit of Southeast Asian folklore
- Phi Tai Hong (Thai: ผีตายโหง), the restless spirit of a person that suffered a violent or cruel death in Thai folklore[19]
- Suanggi, a malevolent spirit in the folklore of the Maluku Islands, Indonesia
- Sundel bolong, in Indonesian mythology, is the ghost of a woman who died when she was pregnant and gave birth in her grave so that the baby came out from her back, where she has a large wound.[21]
- Wewe Gombel, a female ghost in Indonesian mythology. It is said that she kidnaps children.[22]
See also
- Ghost
- Ghosts in Chinese culture
- Ghosts in Vietnamese culture
- Hun and po
- Ju-on (franchise)
- Revenant
- Yotsuya Kaidan
References
- ISBN 978-0-521-88061-9.
- ISBN 978-1-316-19435-5.
- ISBN 978-8120601376
- ISBN 84-7254-801-5
- ^ Pierre Clastres, Chronique des indiens Guayaki. Ce que savent les Aché, chasseurs nomades du Paraguay. Plon. Paris, 1972
- ^ St. Augustine, The City of God, 11.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 211, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White
- ^ Crathes Castle
- ^ Nu Gui (女鬼) at the anime festival in Shenzhen, China
- ^ Kong Zhiming (孔志明) (1998). "左傳中的厲鬼問題及其日後之演變 (The ideas of vengeful spirits in the Zuo Zhuan and later developments)" (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
- ^ Janet Chawla (1994). Child-bearing and culture: women centered revisioning of the traditional midwife : the dai as a ritual practitioner. Indian Social Institute. p. 15.
- ISBN 978-0-00-721148-7.
- JSTOR 1177740.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-4452-6.
- ISBN 0-87421-179-4
- ^ É de arrepiar: Mulheres de Branco - Supernatural Brasil
- ^ Corpo-seco: quem é, origem e o que faz - Brasil Escola
- ISBN 978-90-04-25372-8.
- ^ Phi Tai Hong Thai book
- ^ Ghosts in Thai Culture
- )
- ^ Indonesian Ghosts