The Curse

This story was told by a friend in Kuching. The true incident happened at his kampung across the river from pending, which is nearby to the current toll bridge.

One day, back in the late 70’s, one of the kampung people who was working at the old JKR building in Pending (located at the current PUSPAKOM), was returning home from work. Back then there was no bridge connecting to the village and the only way to cross river was by “perahu tambang”.

As he reached the small jetty at his kampung, he saw another fellow villager, who is also his colleague at JKR, sitting under a tree nearby, motionless. Thinking that the friend probably fainted, he placed his friend’s head on his lap. He kept talking to his friend but there was still no response.

Upon further checking, he found that his friend was not breathing and there was no pulse. The friend was dead. Most probably by heart attack..

But suddenly, the eyes opened, starring directly at him. He panicked at first, but he then said “Stop this! Please respect the dead”. He knew what was going on. The friend had turned into a Hantu Bangkit !

You see, the friend that passed away has a family history of turning into hantu bangkit. As the other elderly kampung villagers said, he was cursed. It was said that long time ago, their descendant have one time chopped down a big kedondong tree (Kedondong - ambarella, otaheite apple, or great hog plum) that was blocking sunlight to their kampong. There were spirits living in the old tree and this made it unhappy. The man and his future generations were cursed into becoming hantu bangkit when they died.

The dead villager was buried immediately. The whole kampung villagers knew about the incident. After the funeral, everyone stayed home after dark, safely locking themselves in, as they knew the hantu bangkit will roam the kampung at night. True enough, upon checking the next morning, the kampung was filled footsteps with dirt from the very cemetery the dead villager was buried in. This goes on for 7 days.

My friend was in primary school when it happened and every elders at the kampung can still recall the incident.

So be careful when you chop down any old tree, you never know what might be living in it….