HISTORY OF GHOSTS
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THERE COULD BE REASONS BEHIND GHOST'S PURPOSE?
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living .The deliberate attempt to interact/scare living being is their only purpose (As believed by many people). However, sometimes there are some tragic history of some ghosts behind their actions.
THE MANANANGGAL:
In a town in The Philippines a girl named Maria was about to get married with the man she loved(Mirmir,2021). Unfortunately, her groom did not come. She searched her soon-to-be husband until she found him in the arms of another women who was pregnant with his baby. It was then when this heartbroken women cursed herself and became The Manananggal. The agony and anger inside her was so strong that her body was torn into two, bat like wings sprouted from her back, her tongue grew long and she became a creature with extreme strength. But her power could only survive at night and she was triggered by garlic, salt and holy water. With the wings she starts flying and searching for the two people who hurt her the most, until it finally happened and she felt an unbelievable hunger. She fixated on the women's pregnant belly and her tongue ripped the woman's stomach and ate the baby.
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| The Manananggal |
Everyone in the village saw and that community never forgot about it.
THE CHUDAIL:
A Chudail is an Indian witch. An old woman, living all alone by doing odd chores was blackmarked by the villagers. Apparently, she used to gather the little children around and tell them stories. Some of the villagers found this disturbing (since the children seemed to enjoy her company & visit her everyday) and called up the Panchayat (the village council). Together, they pelted the old woman till she was running past her capacity & finally fell down after her lungs gave up. I believe such tragic deaths can sure result in the formation of vengeful Chudails who might strike back for their rightful justice.
So Chudail comes and haunts not only the people who caused her death but also some children as her revenge(wikipediA,2012).
THE SHAKCHUNNI:
Shakchunni is a ghost, probably a married woman who wears bangles in her wrist and is hindu(Jhuli.2001).
All her actions to act as a villain, but looking closer, we realize that there are many things we haven't asked about Shakchunni. To begin with, we should remember that we know nothing about Shakchunni's past. The only thing we know is that she gets what she wants in unethical ways. There's no telling if she was born that way. If she did become this way, was it because she received a punishment for committing a crime or was she a victim of misplaced rage directed at her.
Despite of being a ghost Shakchunni wanted nothing but a normal life. This teaches us how we are so used to normalize some certain quality, beauty characteristics that she seems scary to us.
While ghost are often explicitly meant to scare, sometime they do serve all sorts of purposes, from comedy to morality tales. Ghosts often appear in the narrative as sentinels or prophets of things to come. So as we don't judge a book by its cover, we must not judge ghosts by their actions only. Even if its all fictitious and there is more examples out there, we should not only enjoy these but also learn from this and do our research. Because knowledge is never ending.
REFERENCES:
1- Mirmir. S .2021 . Mananaggal. http://www.mangkukulam.com/folklore/349/Mananggal
2-WikipediA. 2012. Churel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churel
3-Jhuli. T. 2001. Shakchunnir golpo. https://arts.bdnews24.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/thakurmar-jhuli.pdf
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