Vengeful ghost
In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or cremation ceremonies are important, such vengeful spirits may also be considered as unhappy ghosts of individuals who have not been given a proper funeral.
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.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.
Exorcisms and appeasement are among the religious and social customs practiced by various cultures in relation to the vengeful ghost. The northern Aché people group in Paraguay cremated old people thought to harbor dangerous vengeful spirits instead of giving them a customary burial. In cases where the person has been killed and the body disposed of unceremoniously, the cadaver may be exhumed and reburied according to the proper funerary rituals in order to appease the spirit. Others have been known to salt and burn their body, the place where they were killed or the instrument that they were killed with.
Media
Vengeful ghosts have been featured in many contemporary movies of different countries such as Candyman, The Grudge, The Pit and the Pendulum, , Poltergeist, Ghost, The Fog, High Plains Drifter, The Ward, Cassadaga, Kaal, Left for Dead, Bees Saal Baad, Darling, Ragini MMS, Dark Shadows and the Troublesome Night film series, as well as television series Spooky Valentine, Spooky Nights, Charmed, Ghost Whisperer, Supernatural and the popular Thai television soap opera Raeng Ngao. They are also part of the theme of novels such as Tamír Triad and Tamsin, comics such as Gentleman Ghost, animated television series like Danny Phantom and adventure games such as Chzo Mythos.Examples
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.
Ancient Greece
- Keres, spirits of violent or cruel death in Greek mythology.
- Vrykolakas, a creature similar to a zombie.
British Isles
- The Green Lady. A restless female spirit said to haunt certain locations in Scotland such as Crathes Castle, Knock Castle 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.
Eastern Europe
- Strigoi
- Moroi
- Strzyga
Jewish Culture
- Dybbuk, a malicious spirit that possesses living people.
China and Vietnam
- Mogwai, a vengeful ghost or demon in Chinese mythology
- Nü gui is a vengeful female ghost of the Chinese folklore. She appears with untied hair.
- Yuan gui, the spirits of persons who have died wrongful deaths.
India and Pakistan
- Chudail, a female ghost of Indian folklore, well known in North India and Pakistan. This spirit is said to originate in a woman who died either in childbirth, in pregnancy or during her menstruation, in a state of ritual impurity.
Japan
- Onryō. A generic name of the Japanese folklore for ghosts 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 are 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
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.
- La Llorona. Also known as 'The Weeping Woman'. Can be a female spirit from Mexico who drowned her own children because her husband left her.
- La Sayona. A female spirit who believed her husband had an affair with her mother in Venezuela and Colombia.
- 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 murdered 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.
North America
- Chindi. Vengeful ghost that causes dust devils in 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."
- Krasue, known as Ap in Cambodia, as Kasu in Laos, and Palasik, Kuyang, and Leyak in Indonesia a nocturnal female spirit of Southeast Asian folklore.
- Phi Tai Hong, the restless spirit of a person that suffered a violent or cruel death in Thai folklore.
- Phi Tai Thang Klom, also known as Phi Tai Thong Klom, a Thai ghost, the wrathful spirit of a pregnant woman who committed suicide after being subsequently betrayed and abandoned by her lover.
- Suanggi is a malevolent spirit in the folklore of the Maluku Islands, Indonesia.
- Sundel bolong, in Indonesian mythology, 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.
- Wewe Gombel, a female ghost in Indonesian mythology. It is said that she kidnaps children.