The pontianak (Dutch-Indonesian spelling: boentianak, Jawi: ڤونتيانق) is a female vampiric ghost in Malaysian and Indonesian mythology. It is also known as a matianak or kuntilanak, sometimes shortened to kunti. Pontianak is called Churel, or Churayl, in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. The pontianak are said to be the spirits of women who died while pregnant. This is despite the fact that the earliest recordings of pontianaks in Malay lore describe the ghost as originating from a stillborn child. This is often confused with a related creature, the lang suir, which is the ghost of a woman who died while giving birth. The word pontianak is reportedly a corruption of the Malaysian perempuan mati beranak, or “woman who died in childbirth”. Another theory is that the word is a combination of p