Combing Ritual to Summon Pontianak

Confession by Kai

It was during my secondary school days, on one of the June holidays. A group of us decided to do a barbecue at East Coast, near longkang 6, or Drain 6. It was located near the old tennis court at the corner of East Coast. It was a Thursday evening if I wasn't mistaken.

We decided that it was a good place as it was quiet and far away from the general public. It was pretty normal at the start. Until one my friends decided that it was a good idea to play a game, to kill the boredom.

"Lai, let's play this game. Lets go the that big tree there and invoke whatever spirits that live there" he said. "All we need is three guys to scratch the soil near this tree, with a comb and say, spirit of the tree, come and play with us".

The rest of us nodded. He asked for a comb. All of us hesitated at first. But I gave in and handed mine.

"So who's the other two who is going to invoke the spirit?". Two of my friends raised their hands and complied.

One after another, my friends combed the soil beneath the tree and whispered under their breath. But by the time the second guy started doing the ritual, some of us began to see two red eyes staring at us from on top of the branches. It was blood red, like saga seeds. The hairs on my neck stood up as i stood there, staring back and wondering what that was that appeared out of nowhere. As the third guy began the ritual, it became clearer now. In place of the red eyes, a lady with long black hair, and white dress, lay in its place. She was... combing her hair, as she laid on top of the branch. Her long haggard hair was flowing down the tree, covering most of what lies beneath. Although it was dark then, I could have sworn i saw her... smiling at us.

It was then that one of my friend shouted... "Pontianak! Run!..." before he could even finish his sentence, half of us was already ahead of him. Some of us grabbed our bicycles and made a run back to our barbecue pit. It was then that I noticed that the last guy who did the ritual was having problems trying to cycle. I tried to wait for a few seconds but he was taking to long. In my head, my instincts was telling me to make a run for it and leave him. So i did. All of us made it back to our barbecue pit, except for the last guy. We waited. It was a good 5 minutes before he returned.

While he seems to be just jogging back, his face tells a different story. He looked pale, his eyes seemed dazed. After calming him down, he finally spoke. He told us that the bicycle he was riding suddenly jammed, which made it impossible for him to cycle. Try as he might, he just couldn't peddle. It was as if, that 'thing' had grabbed the wheels to his bicycle. It was after a few attempts that he finally gave up, threw his bicycle aside and ran back to the pit. It was then that i thought, maybe we should go back and ask for forgiveness from the spirit, for disturbing its peace.

​I shared it with my friends. Everyone agreed. So we came back to the tree and pleaded with the spirit to forgive us for our ignorance. Fortunately, that was that. Everyone came back home safe from the incident.