‘Ghost’ Startles Malay Villagers.
Stones and firewood thrown about house.
Young bride spat at.
The whole village of Guar Prahu, near Kubang Semang, Province Wellesley, is startled by reports of a house haunted by a “poltergeist,” who hurls firewood and stones at the inhabitants and pours sand over bathers. The scene of these mysterious happenings is a Malay house in an idyllic spot a mile away from the nearest road, shaded by trees and alongside a stretch of paddy fields. In the house there live an old woman, her newly married daughter and her husband, her son, and her grand-daughter. The disturbances which are in the true “poltergeist” tradition take the form of sticks and stones hurled about the house.
It all began less than a month ago when the young couple had been wedded but three days, and has continued intermittently ever since. The whole village corroborates the story and several people besides the dwellers in the house have actually witnessed the phenomenon. A somewhat sceptical Malay policeman, a lance-sergeant, visited the house a few days ago and was convinced by the evidence of ghostly spitting. A spitting noise was heard and expectoration was mysteriously deposited on the arms of the young bride.
The ghost, if such there be, is a dirty one and has malicious habits. One of its most daily habits is to deposit human ordure about the house and, according to the old woman this is dispersed or swept up by a piece of wood motivated by no visible energy. Firewood leaps up and glances past the inhabitants and stones hurtle past them. Clothes and cloth have been invisibly picked up and hurled into the roof. Another nasty side of the so-called “hantu” is to pour sand over each person when they bathe.
There is a story among the neighbours of a rejected suitor, somewhat of a “bomor” who lives at Kulim and that it is he who has cast a spell out of spite upon the house. The inhabitants of the house have come to regard the disturbances without fear, and regard them merely as unpleasant.
After a week or so the police at Kubang Semang were informed, and the information was passed on to Bukit Mertajam but the police decline to deal with complaints of this nature, and regard the spirit world as outside their sphere. Meanwhile pieces of wood are run over the floor and mattresses are moved and shaken at night apparently by superhuman agency. Such things are known to happen occasionally in many different parts of the world the usual manifestations of a “poltergeist” is more violent and less messy, and consist of hurling furniture about. If anyone is sufficiently interested in psychical research, he can go and spend a few hours in the house at Guar Prahu. Anyone for several miles round will direct him to it.
Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, 17th June 1939.