The Malaysian Langsuyar

Similar to the Sundel Bolong of Indonesia, the Langsuyar, which is found in both Malaysian and Indonesian cultures, is a woman who died as a result of childbirth. The legend tells of a beautiful woman who was so shocked at having delivered a stillborn baby that she died instantly upon hearing the news. After this death she turns into an evil spirit. She becomes in her afterlife a nocturnal figure much like a vampire in some cases. She is said to roost in the trees and attack children, sucking their blood using a special hole in her neck. In some legends, it's said that she turns into an owl, and she will haunt and attack pregnant women, disemboweling them out of spite and jealousy since she lost her own life and child.

Some telling actually say the Langsuyar can go on living and often pass as a normal woman, getting married and having "elfin" children after she turns in to a Langsuyar, but that she will go on afterwards regardless sucking the blood of other people's children, draining men of their vigor, and like the Sundel Bolong, sometimes castrating them.

There are ways to prevent women from turning into Langsuyar, such as placing glass beads in her mouth after she has died, and eggs underneath each of her armpits so that she will not stretch her limbs out to fly for fear of dropping them. There are also legends about domesticating Langsuyars so that they might live a normal life after they turn.  These methods involve cutting her hair and nails--symbols of beauty--and shoving them in the hole in her neck. Once this is done, the Langsuyar can go on living a normal life. However, after you have "domesticated" her, legends warn you must never let her dance. If she dances, she inevitably turns back into a demonic entity.

Spite and jealousy are major motivators for why female ghosts manifest; specifically, spite around not being able to achieve a milestone associated with their gender identities such as marriage or childbirth. It's interesting that the way to cure a Langsuyar of its demonic nature is associated with removing signifiers of feminine beauty--as if vanity has something to do with why she is the way she is. The legends do tend to specify that before the turn the Langsuyar was a beautiful woman--many of the ghostly apparitions that are women specify the same thing--that they are beautiful, for the most part, but that something is off or troubling about the beautiful women.