***
I refer to the Star Online’s ‘Mysterious spirit’ haunting housing estate.
The article reported:
Residents of Taman Helang Jaya, Nibong Tebal*, have been living in fear over the appearance of a “mysterious spirit” in the area for the past month, Malaysia Nanban reported.
* presumably that’s the one in my home state of Penang
Residents claim they have heard of the sighting of a headless body** dressed in white, usually appearing around midnight and making noises like a crying baby.
There were occasions when iron gates of the houses were shaken during the night. One resident said he heard this mysterious spirit had knocked on doors and bitten the hands of the house owners.
There has also been an increase in the number of soothsayers in the area hoping to appease the spirit.
** Sounds as if it’s the other component of a hantu penanggalan, though supposedly in a hantu penanggalan, the headless body would be lying inert at home while the head roam or fly around on its hungry but ghoulish mission. I wonder how the headless ghost could wail like a crying baby or bite anyone as reported by the newspaper, but trust most ghost stories to not allow inconvenient facts to detract from the sensation of telling them?
The Thais call such a occult creature a krasue, while the Cambodians refer to it as an ap. It's quite a common occult belief in most south-east Asian countries as the Filipinos have their own manananggal, the Vietnamese tribes of the Western Highlands ma lai, and the Laotians phi-kasu or kasu.
In Penang we call it hantu tengelong. Apparently the Penang Chinese call it si low baan. The hantu tengelong is not so much a 'ghost' in the western meaning of this word, but rather a woman dabbling in the occult who could, through black magic, detach her head from her body to go flying around for blood, especially those of women who had just delivered. It particularly relishes the placenta and the blood of childbirth, hence village women in our part of worldly beliefs, would ensure the post-birth placentas would be buried deep in the ground at unrevealed locations.
The typical hantu tengelong has a slight baggage problem. Her inner organs (including and especially the intestines) would still be attached to her head as she goes hunting.
When she returns to her body, belief has it that she has to dip her entire appendages (except for the head) into a vat of special fluid, usually jampi-ed vinegar (vinegar subjected to occult incantations), in order to shrink them so she could re-insert her innates into her body.
‘Twas often claimed, if one was able to remove or obstruct the vat of vinegar, the hantu wouldn’t be able to shrink her inner organs and thus would fail to reunite with her human body, and by sunrise she would suffer incredible pains and possible death, not unlike the western vampire.
Apparently there is also another tactic to screw up its 're-union' with its body, by flipping the headless body over (face down instead of face up?). But all these would only only possible if you know the witch. I have to say I knew a few when I grew up but they were all too pretty and hot for me to bother about their intestinal aspects, when I was far more interested in their other anatomical properties.
I recall as a small boy, around 10 - 12, that whenever there were claims of a hantu tengelong around our village, I would join the local 'vigilante corps' in a hantu-tengelong-hunting exercise. Unsurprisingly, the mob would be a dozen youngsters of my age group.
Come dusk, we would arm ourselves with bamboo poles which would be adorned with barbed wire strands at the attacking ends. The logic then was that we could snarl up the hantu’s intestines with the barbed wires. What we proposed to do after that wasn’t very clear – I bet no one thought through on that possibility, wakakaka.
Those who could ‘borrow’ their fathers’ torch lights became instant heroes. Others brought along pathetic oil lamps. Some silly ones (like moi) even equipped themselves with their mothers' votive candles wakakaka. We patrolled the village throughout the night (coincidentally a Saturday) and while away our time speculating wildly on who the witch could be - our suspicion would usually fall upon the meanest woman in our village, the one who seemed to be able to successfully catch us raiding her rambutan or papaya trees wakakaka.
The only damage we inflicted was that on the following morning many adult neighbours would wonder why some parts of their barbed wire fencing were cut ;-)
Hmmm, I wonder whether the headless hantu in Taman Helang Jaya, Nibong Tebal could be the hantu tengelong sending out its other half to confuse the ‘enemy’, no doubt boys like I once was, and who would be armed with barbed wired bamboo poles.
