Saturday, May 19, 2018

Tangki Vs 5 Ghosts (乩童斗五鬼)

This is my late grandma's story. The story took place somewhere in the 1920's in Guangxi (广西).

During that time, my grandpa has already traveled to (British) Malaya to work as a rubber tapper in Lenggong, Perak. My grandma was still in her Guangxi village then taking care of her family farm.

One of grandma's neighbor, Ah Moi would suddenly disappeared from her room and only to reappear somewhere before dawn. At first Ah Moi's parents thought their daughter was simply sleep walking but even after Ah Moi was locked in her bedroom, she would vanish in the middle of the night and to be reappear in the morning in the room. People who guarded by Ah Moi's bed would suddenly fall asleep for no apparent reasons.

Later Ah Moi's mother found Ah Moi's clothing would become somewhat disorder in the morning with scent of intimate relationship. The parents became very anxious as Ah Moi was already engaged with a young man and she was to be married soon. If news of misbehavior traveled outside, not only Ah Moi would be denounced by the villagers; the parents also would feel shameful.

Even stranger was that Ah Moi has no recall of what happened to her during her time of disappearances. Just as when Ah Moi's parents were troubled by this inexplicable happenings, a tangki (spirit medium) who stayed outside of the village came to visit.

The tangki was no stranger to the villagers. So, Ah Moi's parents let him in.

As soon as the tangki was seated,in a chair, he said that he could see a lady who resembles Ah Moi sit in a sedan chair carried by 4 people with a person leading in front during midnight hours. The procession would pass by his shrine at night and then return before dawn. 

The tangki felt something had happened to Ah Moi and he just dropped by to satisfy his curiosity. With some hesitation, Ah Moi's parents told the tangki of Ah Moi's strange incidents. Tangki nodded and told Ah Moi's parents that he would investigate if the sedan chair passed in front the shrine again.

A few nights later, the procession went by tangki's shrine and he quickly followed behind the procession quietly. The procession went around a few hills to a neighboring village and then stopped in front of a house.

The tangki ventured to approach one of the windows and peeped inside the house. There he saw Ah Moi was having intimate acts with a young man.

At this point, tangki quickly sneaked back to the village to inform Ah Moi's parents and the village headman. A team of villagers was quickly assembled and rushed to the house.

The crowd banged onto the door but no one came to open the door. They forced open the main door only to find Ah Moi lying half naked in a bed. There was no trace of any young man. The team also found 5 human skulls underneath the bed perhaps the man has left in a hurry and had to abandon those skulls.

After some frantic search, the villagers decided to destroy the skulls and returned empty handed.

Later in the morning, the news somehow spread within the village. My grandma visited Ah Moi who was then sober. According to Ah Moi, she used to have a lover who was an exponent in Taoist magic. This sorcerer vowed to marry Ah Moi but he was disliked by Ah Moi's parents hence was the end of Ah Moi's love with the sorcerer.

No one has seen the sorcerer again since the raid. Ah Moi was finally married. People believed that the young sorcerer was killed by his own 5 ghosts because he has lost the human skulls which controlled the spirits.


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