The story
From Pontianac, an older spelling of Pontianak, a port city in West Kalimantan, from which the resin was shipped, named for the ghostly pontianaks which supposedly once inhabited the site.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
pontianac
Today it means: A fossil resin historically used in the production of some rubber, produced from the latex of Dyera costulata. Full definition →