Bal-Bal

Sources do not provide a detailed origin myth for the Bal-Bal. Ethnographic and secondary summaries consistently classify it within Philippine traditions of necrophagic undead and flesh-eating supernatural beings. It is commonly grouped with other corpse‑focused creatures such as the aswang, amalanhig, and busaw; this classificatory placement frames the Bal-Bal as part of a moral and cosmological category of beings that transgress the boundary between the living and the dead and threaten burial integrity and community order.

Descriptions in the available sources emphasize functional anatomy: the Bal-Bal is said to possess sharp claws and teeth capable of ripping clothing and tearing corpses, and to have foul breath as a consequence of eating only corpses. Sources also describe it as a fearful or intimidating creature and compare it to Western vampire-type figures to communicate its necrophagic character, but do not supply a consistent, detailed physical portrait (such as skin color, stature, or precise humanoid vs. bestial morphology).

The Bal-Bal actively seeks, steals, and consumes human corpses at funerals and gravesites and is described as having a strong sense of smell specifically attuned to dead human bodies. It tears apart corpses with its claws and teeth and consumes the flesh. A distinctive behavior reported in the sources is that after eating a corpse the Bal-Bal will leave the trunk of a banana tree inside the coffin to create the illusion that the body remains, thereby tricking the living.