Wednesday, June 14, 2017

The Restless Ones

Teluk Intan or previously Anson is a small town situated in the downstream of the Perak River in Peninsular Malaysia.

I was told that there were many very powerful Malay bomohs (shamans) practicised the infamous 'santau' (a type of poison) techniques until the late 70's. Naturally, these bomohs kept many servitor spirits known as 'hantu raya'.

These servitor spirits were said to be extremely powerful as they can build houses in the jungle and take the form of their masters to watch over the masters' properties. There is a catch though: if a master failed to give away his/her hantu raya, then he/she may not die until the spirit is removed.
According to a retired nurse, Aminah who worked in district hospital; she had seen many strange happenings related to bomohs whom refused to give out their last breathe.

In one occasion, an old man was pronounced dead by the doctor on duty and his body was moved to the morgue awaiting for his next of kin. 

Not long after the corpse was in the morgue, various strange sounds started to come out from the old man's dead body. 

As recalled by Aminah, the sound sounded as if someone was grasping for air coupled with moaning and groaning heavily. The drama continued until the body was buried.

In another incident, another female bomoh was sent to hospital after fainted in her house. Aminah was on night duty. She was cautioned by her colleague that the one in that particular sickbed was a powerful bomoh.

Aminah simply smiled as bomoh or not, the bomoh is still her patient.

It was around midnight, Aminah was performing her night rounds around the wards. Suddenly she saw someone in white was sitting on a tualang tree branch. 

Feeling strange rather than afraid, Aminah walked to the tualang tree and raised her head. Almost immediately she could recognize that the person was the old lady bomoh. So, she shouted to the figure: "Come down nek!"

But the figure continued to swing her feet while looking upwards at the moon while producing cricket like sounds.

After looking at the figure for a while, Aminah realized that an old lady couldn't be on the tree in the midst of the night. She immediately returned to the sick-ward and there saw the old lady was lying quietly.

In the next morning, before Aminah returned home, she saw the old lady had awakened. So, she greeted the old lady. But the lady grabbed Aminah's right arm and said: "You saw it didn't you?"
"What?" Aminah asked surprised.

"The pelesit (a type of female vampire)." The lady continued.

"It was looking for a new master as my days are limited. Do you want to inherit it? The pelesit can bring you big fortune..."

Without thinking too much, Aminah wriggled herself off and ran out of the sick-ward.

On resuming her night duty, Aminah heard the old lady had passed away. Perhaps someone among her colleagues had taken over the pelesit's ownership? Aminah dared not think further as she was retiring soon...

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