Wakwak
Also known as: Wak-wak · Visayan night flyer · Segun (related severed-self being in some regions)
Definition
The wakwak is a vampire-like creature in Philippine folklore, especially in the Visayas, that severs itself and flies through the night while making a characteristic “wak-wak” cry, and is believed to feed on the blood or internal organs of the sick, the dying, and the unborn. Folk belief holds that the louder the cry sounds, the farther the creature is, and that silence means it is already near.
Identities
| Database | Identifier |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Wakwak |
| Wikidata | Q7961228 |
| DBpedia | N/A |
Also Known As
- Wak-wak
- Visayan night flyer
- Segun (related severed-self being in some regions)
Examples and Analogies
The wakwak operates like the local counterpart of the manananggal, but where the manananggal leaves its lower torso standing in a rice jar, the wakwak is more often described as a bird-like night predator whose cry works like a reversed siren: the sound fading to silence is the signal that danger has arrived rather than passed.
Usage Scenarios
The wakwak appears in oral storytelling to discipline children against wandering at night, features in horror films, comics and television documentaries about Philippine monsters, and is studied by folklorists as one of the aswang family of beliefs used to explain illness, miscarriage, and sudden death in rural communities.
Strategies
Traditional protective practice combines keeping buntot-pagi (stingray tails) and garlic at doorways, salt and rice scattered around the house, prayers and anting-anting amulets, and community vigilance: folk narratives typically end with villagers locating the creature’s human daytime identity and destroying it.
Security and Safety Measures
Within folk practice, night movement is restricted for the sick and pregnant, infants are guarded during sleep, and homes are secured with ash lines and blessed objects said to bar entry; modern retellings add the practical counsel that unexplained deaths should be reported to authorities rather than attributed to monsters.
Historical Context
Belief in the wakwak predates Spanish colonization and was documented in colonial-era ethnographies of Visayan religion, where self-severing fliers and flesh-eating ghouls were already part of the spirit world; missionaries recorded such beings as evidence of native superstition, and the lore persisted by attaching itself to isolated neighbors and healers accused of aswang nature.
Challenges and Controversies
Folklorists and anthropologists caution that aswang-family accusations have historically functioned as social violence against marginal women, elderly neighbors, and outsiders, and modern public health messaging works to redirect belief in wakwak attacks toward medical explanation of nocturnal deaths and pregnancy complications.
Related Topic
Aswang