Sundel bolong

What it is

In the stories of Indonesia, the sundel bolong is a ghost who takes the shape of a woman. She wears a long white dress, and her black hair hangs long; that hair, the tales say, covers a large hole in her back. Javanese tradition counts her among the restless dead: a woman who died while carrying a child, or who lost her life in childbirth. People describe her as vengeful and active after dark, drawn to graveyards, houses held to be haunted, and the spots where deaths happened. Men who turn her away and small children are named as those she strikes. Her shape is much like that of the Pontianak, another female ghost of the archipelago.

Where it comes from

The name is drawn from the figure's looks: sundel is a word for a prostitute, and bolong means hole in Javanese, so the name as a whole describes a prostitute with a hole. Researchers of folklore trace the tale to Javan culture and hold that it grew during the era of the Dutch East Indies, the colonial rule of the islands, as a story meant to put people off prostitution. The tales themselves explain her wound through childbirth: a woman who died pregnant outside marriage was said to deliver in her grave, while a woman lost in labour was said to have the baby leave through her back, tearing the opening that her hair now hides.

What it is for

The clearest use given for the story is a social one: researchers hold that it was built to discourage prostitution in colonial-era Java. Inside the tales, her aims are revenge and replacement. A man who refuses her is said to be castrated, and children, newborns above all, are said to be carried off to stand in for the baby she lost. Story lists class her among vengeful ghosts and the undead who walk at night.

Peoples and places

The tales are set in Indonesia, and the name is drawn from local speech, with bolong identified as Javanese. Her close likeness to the Pontianak places her within a family of long-haired female ghosts shared across the archipelago's lore. She has also travelled through modern media: Indonesian horror cinema has retold her story across the decades, the game studio Digital Happiness put her among the ghosts of DreadOut, and the animated series Marvel Anime: Blade casts the sundel bolong as a kind of Asian vampire.

What people believe

As the tales run, she is a soul that did not rest: a woman who died in pregnancy or in childbirth and remains among the undead. She is said to move at night and to keep to graveyards, houses held to be haunted, and spots where a death occurred. Her wrath is said to fall on particular people. A man who turns her away is said to be castrated; children and especially newborns are said to be carried off, to serve in place of the baby she lost. Her hair has one duty in the stories: hiding the opening in her back from men's eyes.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Students of folklore treat the sundel bolong as a tale with work to do. In their reading, Javan culture shaped her during the Dutch East Indies years as a story to deter prostitution, and her name fits that account, since it joins the word for a prostitute with the word for a hole. Within the study of Indonesian myth, her likeness to the Pontianak marks the two as near kin among the region's female ghosts.

Compare and confuse

She is closely likened to the Pontianak, a female ghost of the same region with much the same appearance. Reference lists set her beside Bloody Mary, the Keres, Madam Koi Koi, the onryō, Phi Tai Hong and the White Lady, and name the Tai Thang Klom as a similar being.

Today

On screen and in games, the figure keeps returning. Sisworo Gautama Putra's adult horror feature Sundelbolong reached cinemas in 1981; Legenda Sundel Bolong followed in 2007, and a 2018 remake, Suzzanna: Bernapas dalam Kubur, brought her back again. Digital Happiness placed her among the spirits of its horror game DreadOut, and Marvel Anime: Blade recasts the sundel bolong as a vampire kind from Asia.

Questions people ask about Sundel bolong

Good reading and sources

• Sundel bolong on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data