Berbalangs

The little island of Cagayan Sulu lies at the southern end of the Philippine group. In the center of the island is a small village inhabited by a people called the Berbalangs. The Cagayans live in great fear of them. The Berbalangs are ghouls, and must eat flesh occasionally or they will die. They have a very distinctive look in that the pupils of their eyes are not round, but rather oval with narrow slits, like those of a cat. They dig up graves and eat the entrails of corpses; but in Cagayan the supply is limited, so when they feel the craving for a feed of human flesh they go away into the grass, and, having carefully hidden their bodies, hold their breath and fall into a trance. Their astral bodies are then liberated. They fly away, and entering a house make their way into the body of one of the occupants and feed on his entrails. The Berbalangs may be heard coming, as they make a moaning noise which is loud at a distance and dies away to a feeble moan as they approach. When they are near you the sound of their wings may be heard and the flashing lights of their eyes can be seen like dancing fire-flies in the dark. Should you be the happy possessor of a cocoa-nut pearl you are safe, but otherwise the only way to beat them off is to cut at them with a kris, the blade of which has been rubbed with the juice of a lime.

If you see the lights and hear the moaning in front of you, wheel suddenly round and make a cut in the opposite direction. Berbalangs always go by contraries and are never where they appear to be. The cocoa-nut pearl, a stone like an opal sometimes found in the cocoa-nut, is the only really efficacious charm against their attacks; and it is only of value to the finder, as its magic powers cease when it is given away. When the finder dies the pearl loses its luster and becomes dead.”