Tiyanak

For this week's episode, we're zooming on over to the Philippines for a horrendous vampiric demon-baby, the Tiyanak! How do you help them pass over? Who are their main victim? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

We’re going from one vampire to the next apparently, this is bad planning from me and I apologise, but hey - we all love a vampire don’t we?!

DESCRIPTION:

This week, we’re heading back over to the beautiful Philippines for a monstrous baby, and looking at the horrifying Tiyanak!

I learnt about this monster through a listener, and she wasn’t recommending this, but she asked me to not cover this monster whilst she was pregnant - I absolutely understood and this episode was made a year after that, so thank you Maria for telling me about this one and hope your little one is doing well!

Obviously based off of this, there’s a bit of a content warning on this episode. There will be themes of child loss, child abuse, child death and abortion involved in this one, if these topics affect you - maybe give this one a miss and join us next week instead. 

So what is the Tiyanak? They are typically described as a vampiric creature that disguises itself as a baby or toddler in order to find victims. In appearance beneath the surface, they usually have goblin-like features, with small bald heads, sharp teeth, pointed ears, bloodshot eyes and disproportionate legs to each other. They are able to put on a disguise of a human baby, and shed this like a snake when approached to reveal their true form. 

They’re often called goblins, imps or demons, but they are usually vampiric in nature - mauling and biting their victims to drink their blood and kill. They are, though, formed from the bodies of dead children and their main targets are pregnant women. They attack the abdominal area of women, eating their reproductive organs and viscera to fulfill their need for a womb. Men do also get attacked, but often to a lesser extent and are usually only attacked if they stand in the way of the real target. 

Tiyanak are formed after a baby has been left to die in the woods because they are unwanted or neglected, but they can also arise from aborted babies too. Their souls are then corrupted and turned into Tiyanaks, destined to stay in the woods to feast on women. Destroying the body after death doesn’t seem to stop the transformation, however, there are some tellings where you can dissolve the corpse in sulfuric acid, which does stop it - sorry, this is kind of gross if you have an easier to turn stomach too. 

For their powers, they obviously have this transformation based power, but they’re also able to climb walls and in some tellings, are able to sprout extra limbs from their abdomen. They also obviously eat human flesh and drink blood too, so that’s kind of a power in the sense that they have teeth sharp enough to do this and the strength to do so too. They’re also extremely agile and fast, as well as very good at slipping away from danger.

There are some tellings that indicate that they can fly, but they’re a bit few and far between so - I’ll leave it up to you if you want to add that to their roster of powers.

You can find these in the wooded areas of the Philippines, crying out, waiting for a kind soul to come and find them, only for them to attack once they’ve got you close enough to reveal their evil presence underneath the baby disguise. 

You could stop them from attacking you though as there are countermeasures. You could break the enchantment pulling you towards the cry by turning your clothes inside out as the demon just finds it hilarious that you would embarrass yourself this way, and let you go about your day and retreat. You could also free the spirit by naming it and bringing it a white candle, which would guide its spirit to the afterlife. 

As well as that, anything that could repel Aswang, which is the umbrella term for anything vampiric in Philippine mythology, could be used, such as garlic and rosary. Lastly, you were generally safe on days such as New Years Eve, because the noise from the fireworks would scare them off, so you could also just bring a big noisemaker. 

ORIGIN:

Moving into etymology, the word Tiyanak comes from a Malay word, but a Tagalog translation of it. It comes from patianac, which is actually a whole other monster in Malay mythology, and the Tagalog translation for this is dead child. I’ll talk about the Patianac later on in this episode, and cover it properly on its own another time. 

For this one’s history, we actually have a super interesting backstory. If you weren’t aware, the Philippines were invaded by the Spanish in 1565 and their culture was considered almost tribal and was quashed to be replaced with the Spanish. Prior to this, the Tiyanak was seen as a spirit of the forest rather than being associated with babies or the death of babies in a horrible way. 

They were originally considered Pontianak , this other Malay monster that I mentioned earlier - they are the supposed demon mothers of Tiyanak, and before the Spanish turned up, it’s believed that Islam had started to spread north towards the Philippines, and this monster came with it. The myth was that the spirit was actually of a child whose mother died before giving birth, therefore was born in the ground - the Pontianak was the actual mother of that child reborn into a vengeful spirit.

But what the Spanish also brought over to the Philippines was Catholicism, and this is what changed the Tiyanak myth completely. Instead of this mother monster, the baby was born and was believed to have come from specifically, unbaptised children whose souls were lost and vengeful because they were not brought into the Catholic faith before they died. This is because the Spanish Catholics, especially those from Spanish taken Mexico were intent on converting the locals to Catholicism, and this convinced them if their babies died and were not baptised, they would turn into Tiyanaks - changing their local beliefs. 

Interestingly, why we believe it was the Mexican Spanish is because they have a similar monster from Aztec mythology, the Chaneque, and we believe it’s because these local Mexican travellers believed Catholicism saved them from this monster, so they could save the local Filipinos by doing the same to them.

In the modern day Philippines, this myth is still very commonly believed in and actually this has extended to aborted babies, who they believe have returned from death to seek revenge on those who deprived them of life. It’s also said that they can’t go onto the afterlife because they are not given names, so they are searching for a name before they can pass on, hence the countermeasure of giving them one and helping them pass on.

I do have some extracts about the Tiyanak from missionaries from way back when, here’s one from 1738; 

Pregnant women could not cut their hair, for they said that the children that they would bear would have no hair. When a woman is about to give birth, some men undress until they are stark naked. Then taking shields and catans, one takes his stand in the silong, and another on the ridge of the house, and they continually fence with the wind with their catans as long as the parturition lasts. I have removed some from this performance by force of punishment. They say that it is to keep the patiànac and the osuàng away from the woman. These are witches among them who come to obstruct the success of the childbirth, and to suck out the souls of children; and the people act thus in order to prevent them. He who does not wish to have this observed in public, through fear of punishment, removes his wife to another house for the parturition, if he thinks that the witch is in his.

And here’s another from 1803; 

They have many other superstitions, as that of the patianac, a spirit or ideal being, whose employment or amusement consists in preventing, by certain means peculiar to itself, the delivery of a woman in labour. To counteract the malignity of this spirit, the husband, fastening the door, reduces himself to a state of complete nudity, lights a fire, and arming himself with his sword, continues to flourish it furiously, until the woman is delivered.

Now in terms of real life comparisons, the reality is, I imagine back in the day, if you didn’t want a child - leaving them in the woods would be something a desperate woman would do, be that anywhere in the world and unfortunately, something we know did happen. Child birth and child bearing is incredibly difficult, as I’m sure many of you listening would agree, and in a time of less-education, medicine and support, it would be something that is unfortunately, inevitable and this is folklore’s way of inflicting guilt in a supernatural way. 

For mythical comparisons, we have mentioned two, the Chaneque and the Pontianak. I’ve kind of talked about the Pontianak enough, and I will do an episode on this one soon so you can have the full story from Malaysia to the Philippines, but the short story is that they are a gut-eating, pregnant spirit from Malay folklore that target men to enact revenge on them for their death during labour or even for getting her into that state in the first place.

The Chaneque were actually exactly alike to the Tiyanak, they were sometimes child-like in appearance, and they would lead people astray, but they typically did not kill them then and there - however, were considered full demons. They’re actually represented both positively and negatively within Mexican folklore, but I’ll cover these another time. 

Lastly, we do have to think about Poroniec from Polish folklore, these unborn babies that were hastily buried stillborn or aborted were often considered vampiric and would attack pregnant women and babies under a full moon, and they are most like our Tiyanak. I covered them in maybe my fourth episode back in 2021, but I warn you that my older episodes do need to be remastered before you listen!

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, there’s a bunch around for this one, mostly from the Philippines, but I’ve also popped in some child vampire bits to fill this out too. 

For art, I would generally recommend looking at independent art this week but there’s also some great but scary stuff from the Trese animation and comic if you’re into your modern interpretations!

In movies, we have; 30 Days of Night, Blood Red Sky, Tianak (1953), Interview with a Vampire, Near Dark, Tiyanak (1988), Modern Vampires, The Hamiltons, Juan Tanga, Abigail, Shake, Rattle and Roll 2 and 9, Labyrinth, The Little Vampire, The Hallow, Vamp, The Hole in the Ground, Impakto, Daybreakers, Tiyanaks, What We Do In The Shadows, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Batman vs Dracula, Hotel Transylvania, Scary Godmother, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School & T’yanak.

For TV, we have; Castlevania, School for Vampires, Adventure Time, Super Inggo, Juan dela Cruz, Gravedale High, The Comic Strip, My Babysitter’s a Vampire, Lil Horrors, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Vampirina, Monster High, American Horror Story, Forever Knight, Interview with a Vampire, Dracula (2020 & 2013), Blade: The Series, The Simpsons, Super Monsters, Angel, True Blood, Being Human, Van Helsing, What We Do In the Shadows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Strain & Trese.

In video games, we have ones such as; Hellmaster, Ragnarok Online, Pathfinder, Changeling: The Lost, The Witcher, Vampire Wars, Castlevania, Skyrim, Last Half of Darkness, Quest for Glory 4, The Sims, Touhou Project, Dark Romance, Blood Oath, King’s Quest 2, Vampire Saga, Tsukihime & BlazBlue.

My book recommendation this week is actually some fiction first, with The Tiyanak by Dan Wright. If you’re more into your factual stuff like me, there’s Philippine Monsters Unleashed by AS Mapa or Philippine Myths, Legends, and Folktales by Maximo D Ramos, who does a great collection of mythology from all over the world!

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

I’m torn on this one. Do I believe that there are vampiric babies crying out for blood in the forests? No, but do I believe that people could believe this based on their history, absolutely. I think colonialism, especially as I come from one of the worst offending countries for this, truly destroyed and changed local culture, myths and legends in their enslaved countries and I think it’s one of the saddest things we have to deal with as humans. 

But I do think the Spanish intervention in this myth is incredibly interesting. We've gone from a monster determined to get revenge on men to a baby determined to punish any woman for their mother abandoning or aborting it. It definitely reeks of old-school Catholicism and definitely has turned something that was very pro-women, to something that literally demonised their decisions. 

Yes, I think leaving your baby in the woods to die is pretty abhorrent, but back in the 1500’s, I imagine it was pretty commonplace unfortunately - but this is across the world too. People still do this to this day across the world, I mean look at the Chinese one-child policy days to see it happen a lot in recent years if you don’t believe me, or even UK news where desperate people put their babies in bins, in drains - it’s tragic either way. I think the other tragedy is that people feel such a lack of support that they do this, that’s what we as a species can improve on to make sure this myth doesn’t continue to come true across the world.

But away from modern politics, I wouldn’t appreciate helping a baby crying in the woods out by it ripping out my guts - so I think I would generally move away from that if I ever heard it in the future. It’s kind of given me the willies for any wooded cries - but any forest based culture will tell you that you should mind your own business there anyway, so maybe heed those words.

But what do you think? Did the Tiyanak lay in wait for a kind victim in the Philippines? Let me know on social media!

OUTRO: 

What a horrific monster, I certainly wouldn’t want a vampiric toddler grabbing me for doing it a favour - I’d punt that baby faster than I could a football. But a great monster to cover, thank you again to Maria!

Next week, we’re heading over to my favourite home away from home in Germany for the first time in ages, and looking at a really big monster group, rather than one specifically. Grab your scythes because we’re farming for the Feldgeister next week!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got loads of social media for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, YouTube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, twitter is mythmonsterspod and BlueSky is mythmonsters. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk, and you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.