In Visayan accounts Amalanhig are described as aswang who failed to transfer their monstrosity or power to a living relative before death; as a result they rise from their graves and go on to kill humans. The failure to pass on that role is given in sources as the causal origin for the corpse’s return to prey on the living.
Sources describe Amalanhig as externally identical to humans but commonly exhibiting an enlargement of the upper canines. Some retellings add a sharp, pointed tongue used to feed; accounts also describe a corpse-like stiffness that affects their movement in some versions.
Amalanhig rise from graves and seek out living people. Killing methods reported in sources include biting the neck to suck blood, using a sharp pointed tongue (in some summaries), and an alternate folk variant in which they chase and tickle victims until they die of laughter and terror. Many accounts emphasize limited locomotion (stiffness) that causes them to walk in straight lines and portray them as flightless in several retellings.
Weaknesses
- conditionbodily stiffness that forces straight-line walking
- conditionaversion or fear of deep bodies of water
Wards
- otherrun zigzag (evade by not running in a straight line)
- otherclimb trees or high platforms to escape reach
- otherenter deep lakes or rivers (they reportedly fear deep water)
Aswang
The most feared supernatural being in Philippine folklore — a shape-shifting monster that appears human by day but transforms at night to prey on pregnant women and children.
Vampire (tradition)
A class of revenant beings in southeastern and eastern European folk belief that subsist by feeding on the vital essence (generally blood) of the living. Recorded chiefly in early modern to modern oral traditions, these vampires are typically described as reanimated corpses whose presence explains unexplained illness, death, and post-mortem disturbances in their communities.
Aguingay
Aguingay (also Agingay) is a legendary woman from the Bulusan epic of Sorsogon, Philippines. Presented as a mortal of exceptional beauty and tragic fate, her life and death are etiologically linked to local landscape features (Mt. Bulusan and two lakes) and commemorated in an annual festival.
Alan
A class of non‑human spirit-beings in Tinguian (Philipine) folklore associated with reproductive wastes and springs; said to transform discarded menstrual blood, afterbirth, or miscarried tissue into human children whom they rear, and to dwell in fine houses near springs. Key described features include wings and backward-pointing fingers and toes.
Angalo
Angalo is a primordial culture-hero and giant in Ilocano mythology credited with shaping the landscape of Luzon and explaining natural phenomena; narratives present him as the first man and an ancestral figure whose bodily acts produced mountains, valleys, seas, and celestial features.
Anggitay
A Philippine folkloric female equid–human hybrid often described with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a horse. Frequently compared to the Greek centauride and sometimes presented as a female counterpart to the tikbalang; traditionally associated with an attraction to gemstones and jewelry and with a local homeland in Santo Tomas, Batangas in some accounts.
Anito
Anito is a category of non‑human and post‑human spiritual beings in indigenous Philippine animistic worldviews, encompassing ancestor spirits, nature spirits/local deities, and sometimes carved effigies (taotao) that house or represent those spirits. They mediate relations between the living and the unseen world, functioning as household guardians, owners of places, intercessors, or occasional agents of harm when offended.
Aswang
The most feared supernatural being in Philippine folklore — a shape-shifting monster that appears human by day but transforms at night to prey on pregnant women and children.
Bakla
Bakla is a Philippine social and gender category—commonly an assigned‑male‑at‑birth person who adopts a feminine gender expression and is often treated as a third gender. Historically some bakla served as indigenous ritual specialists (babaylan, katalonan), but the term itself denotes a social identity, not a supernatural being.
Bakunawa
A dragon- or serpent-like mythic being from Philippine tradition associated with the moon and eclipses; its actions explain lunar eclipses and some natural phenomena and were integrated into ritual practice and calendrical knowledge.
Bal-Bal
A Philippine folkloric undead/monster that steals corpses from funerals and graves and feeds on them, noted for keen scent for dead bodies, sharp claws and teeth, foul breath, and reportedly leaving a banana‑tree trunk in the coffin as a substitute for the stolen corpse.
Bathalà
In pre‑colonial Tagalog religion Bathalà (also Maykapál) functions as the transcendent supreme creator-preserver — the originator and ruler of the universe. The lexeme also served as an honorific applied to lesser tutelary spirits and portentous phenomena, and was later syncretized with the Christian Dios after Spanish contact.
Batibat
The Batibat is a vengeful, tree-dwelling female spirit in Philippine (Ilocano and Tagalog) folklore associated with causing suffocative sleep afflictions, nightmares, and sleep paralysis when trees that house it are felled and used near human sleeping spaces.
Berbalang
Berbalangs are a class of corpse‑eating, astral‑projecting beings described in a late‑19th‑century ethnographic account from the island of Cagayan Sulu (Mapun). The report portrays them as a village community whose members are said to dig up graves to eat corpses and, by entering trance, liberate an astral body to possess and feed on the living; protective measures recorded include lime and a coconut pearl talisman.
Community Record
- [1]Amalanhig - Wikipedia. Wikipedia: "Amalanhig (also called 'Maranhig' or 'Amaranhig') are creatures in Visayan mythology... Aswangs who failed to transfer their monstrosity causing them to rise from their graves to kill humans by biting their necks."wiki
- [2]Amalanhig | Cryptid Wiki. Cryptid Wiki summary: "The amalanhig or maranhig ... are flightless aswang that came back to life after death. They rise from their grave after failing to pass their power to a relative... At night they go to nearby villages to prey on the residents using their sharp, pointed tongue."folk
- [3]Amalanhig : The Undead Vampire - Mythlok. Mythlok summary (secondary): discusses Amalanhig as undead vampires tied to aswang origins and recounts feeding and pursuit motifs.other
- [4]Mini Vampire Myths – Vampires. Popular-summary list referencing Philippine undead/vampiric motifs including Amalanhig.other
- [5]4 unconventional short fiction pieces about Philippine mythology - INQUIRER. Cultural commentary referencing Philippine mythic figures and their modern transmission.literary