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O-shizu, Hitobashira — The Human Sacrifice of Maruoka Castle

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Chosen as Hitobashira, a human sacrifice to ensure the construction of Maruoka Castle, O-shizu were promised a bright future for her children. But when the promise were not honoured, her ghost came back to haunt the castle grounds.

The Maruoka Castle (丸岡城) is sometimes called the Mist Castle (霞ヶ城), because according to legend, there will be a protective mist around the castle whenever an enemy is close to hide it. It stands on the top of a hill protected ramparts as well as a pentagonal-shaped moat and perhaps it is the spirit of the human sacrifice entombed in the castle’s foundation that keeps it hidden in the mist? 

The Maruoka Castle is one of the oldest castles in Japan, sometimes called one of the twelve original castles and is located in the Fukui Prefecture and built at the end of the Sengoku period around 1576 by Shibata Katsutoyo. According to the legend, it was built with a human sacrifice to ensure its endurance.

Hitobashira — Human Sacrifices Entombed in Buildings

The act of a human sacrifice to be a pillar of a building can be seen throughout the world. In Asia, it was especially done to appease the deities and for protection. In Japan, the practice is known as Hitobashira (人柱), meaning human pillar and has been used since the 500 AD at least. 

As well as the spiritual belief it was believed that large constructions like castles, dams and bridges would destroy the feng shui of the land because of the moving of the soil. Because of this, the buildings would then be in danger of all sorts of disasters, both natural as well as man made disasters. The cultural practice of Hitobashira was done then to protect against evil spirits, natural disasters and to make the buildings strong. 

It wasn’t necessarily people that were forced to become the human pillars. Some actually chose this path for various reasons. The word Hitobashira can actually be linked to becoming a God as well. Hito is related to the word, kami, which means God in the Shinto tradition. Bashira can be a term used when being enshrined in an important way. So that the sacrifice would actually be more connected to the gods. 

But then again, there were also more earthly reasons to choose to become a Hitobashira. Poverty for one, as is the case with the Hitobashira that are under the grounds of the Maruoka Castle. 

The Human Pillars of Maruoka Castle

When they were building the Maruoka Castle, they kept running into problems that they couldn’t seem to find a solution to. The stone walls kept collapsing no matter how many times they tried to set it up and they were running out of ideas. Then a vassal suggested that they should have a hitobashira, a human sacrifice. 

The choice fell on O-shizu, a one-eyed woman with two children to feed. O-shizu agreed to be the sacrifice on one condition, that one of her children would be made a samurai. She was a poor woman and this way she could ensure a safer future for her children. 

O-shizu was then buried under the pillars of the Maruoka Castle, one stone on top of the other as she was slowly being crushed to death. It is said she was stoically standing there as the builders slowly killed her, fully knowing her children would be better off. After the sacrifice were done, the walls didn’t budge and the building of the rest of the castle continued without further problems. 

But Shibata Katsutoyo, the one building the castle didn’t follow through on his promise of making her son into a samurai, she came back to haunt Maruoka Castle. Her spirit became resentful and she was the cause of the moat overflowing every spring by the rain.  They called the rain that overflowed the moats the ‘Tears of O-shizu’.

To appease the spirit they erected a tomb to sooth her spirit and we today have a handed down poem about her haunting:

“The rain which falls when the season of cutting algae comes Is the rain reminiscent of the tears of the poor O-shizu’s sorrow”

The Maruoka Castle Today

Today we probably would say that the Maruoka Castle had a problem in its design, not because of the deities. And had it had a more stable way of construction, a hitobashira would probably not have been needed. But again, the castle is still standing to this day, so who is to say, really?

Cherry Blossom Festival: Today the Maruoka Castle is known for being a good place to watch the cherry blossoms every spring more than one of the hitobashira buildings.

Today when the mist is clearing and the castle is visible, there are cherry blossoms blooming in the spring. The castle grounds is a part of Kasumigajo Park and is well known for its 400 cherry blossom trees. There is an annual cherry blossom festival during the first three weeks of April. And in the evenings, there are over 3000 paper lanterns lit up in the dark. 

Perhaps this is appeasing the ghost of O-shizu enough to not overflow the moat with her tears anymore?

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Featured Image: baku13/Wikimedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitobashira

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maruoka_Castle

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The Haunted Barbie Doll in The Shrine on Pulau Ubin Island

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What would you have wanted as an offering after your death? According to this Singaporean legend, this young girl wanted a Barbie doll to appease her spirit in her afterlife. This is the story of the haunted Barbie doll in the shrine on Pulau ubin island.  

On Pulau Ubin, a boomerang shaped island in northwest Singapore, a peculiar yellow shrine still stands. Hidden away in the forest as one of the last remaining places in Singapore free from urban development, concrete buildings and paved roads, people come to give offerings and pray for their good luck in gambling to the deity of a young German girl that died and remained on the island with only a haunted Barbie doll as comfort. 

Read about: More Haunted Ghost Stories from Singapore

Pulau Ubin used to be a bigger population here, bustling with different businesses like plantations and granite mining. The very word Pulau Ubin means ‘Granite Island’ in Malay. Today, the granite quarries are empty or at least, abandoned. Reclaimed by vegetation or filled up with water.  

Pulau Ubin: The idyllic island is now a well known place to hike the trails and enjoy the nature in Singapore.
Photo: Zairon

The island used to have a few thousand settlers, but today, there are not even forty people left after the work in the quarries dried up. However, the one that still remains, is the spirit of the German girl that to this day, name is unknown. Several attempts have been made to trace the family of the girl back to Germany, but lack of public records of the family has still not been found. 

Now considered a taoist deity, the temple on Pulau Ubin is full of taoist offerings as well as more unique offerings. Most notably a haunted Barbie doll sits between the incense and the food offerings. People still pay tribute to the shrine and the haunted Barbie doll, in the form of make-up, nail polish, mirrors and small feminine things. This to appease the girl who asked for the doll beyond the veil. 

Background For The Haunted Barbie Doll

At the start of the 1900s, uneasiness spread throughout Europe and a full fledged war rippled through the rest of the world as well. Although WWI didn’t quite reach south east Asia in full force as other places, the effects were still real for many of the European settlers in the colonies. 

Singapore, being a part of the British Crown, was not very German friendly. During the 1910s, the island was home to two German families, the Brandts and the Muhlingans that ran coffee plantations according to the legend, although the proper sources for this are missing. 

In July 1914, the British started detaining Germans for security reasons as they were considered enemies to the crown. A military force was sent to Pulau Ubin to detain the two German families residing there. The Germans were, according to the story, sent to a detention barracks on mainland Singapore, mainly in the Tanglin Barracks. 

But the detaining would not go without a dramatic turn. A young daughter of one of the families became frightened and fled from the British forces into the wooded area and disappeared into the dark, never to be seen again. 

The Deity of the German Girl

Days went by without finding her body. And when she finally was discovered by Boyanese plantation workers, she was covered in ants. They concluded that she had died by falling down a cliff near one of the quarries that sustained the community on the island. The workers covered her body with sand and laid flowers on it. When they walked by the place, they said a prayer and lit incense for the girl. 

This was her resting place at Pulau Ubin until Chinese workers recovered the remains of the body and buried the girl on a hill above the quarry. Being a roman catholic, they placed her Jiangsu urn with a crucifix and a number of coins as well as a few strands of her hair.

What happened to the family is still a mystery, but during the war, all German property was confiscated and their business halted. Today only the ruins and foundation of the plantation can be seen. In some versions of the legend, it tells that the family returned to Pulau Ubin after the war, searching for the remains of her daughter, but could’t find her tombstone due to language barriers. Little did they know her remains were kept in the Chinese Taoist temple in an urn on the hill. 

Bitter and sad about it, they left Pulau Ubin and Singapore, never to return. Which is an odd addition to the legend as the family supposedly managed a business on the island before the war, and it’s weird that there suddenly were a language problem when they returned, supposedly to the same people that lived there before they were detained. 

She has since been addressed as Na Du Gu Niang, meaning Datuk Maiden. Sightings of her ghost by the local villagers at Pulau Ubin have kept the legend of the nameless girl alive as well as the peculiar offerings to the shrine that eventually were erected in her honour. 

The Yellow Shrine on Pulau Ubin Island

The Shrine: The home of the deity and the haunted Barbie doll has gone through many changes. Here as it was in 2015.
Photo: Pascal Vuylsteker

While the granite business was still alive on Pulau Ubin, a quarry company built a more permanent shrine in 1974, which is the small yellow chinese temple that still stands today. It is named Berlin Heiligtum, meaning Berlin Sanctuary. 

They transferred the lock of hair and iron cross to the new temple. But when the man who helped to place the remains in the new vase in 1974 checked in 1990, it was already gone, at least that is one of the tales this particular man told over the many years.  

When the shrine was constructed over the grave, it became associated with good luck, especially for gambling as rumours told about people winning the lottery after praying to the shrine. Therefore gamblers from Singapore as well as Malaysia came to the shrine to make offerings, in hope that the German girl would bless them with good luck.

And today the offerings are perhaps more to a young girl’s taste with nail polish, makeup, perfume and the now famous haunted Barbie doll. 

The Haunted Barbie Doll in the Shrine

Today a haunted Barbie doll is placed as an important object in the shrine to the German girl in an enclosed box. Although not haunted as many other objects are rumoured to be, as in being possessed by the soul or a ghost, the origin of the doll is quite haunting. According to legend, and this is a more recent one, the legend will have it that the haunted Barbie doll was requested by the girl herself beyond the grave. 

Pink offerings at the altar: The German girl still gets many presents, many things are of what people think would suit a young girl. Like the now very well known haunted Barbie doll//Photo: Source unknown/via Tineye

An unnamed islander from Pulau Ubin who had moved to Australia kept having these strange dreams back in 2007. He dreamt of a European looking girl for three nights in a row that led him to a specific store with a specific Barbie doll. She asked for it to be placed at her altar back in Singapore. So when he found the same store and doll as he had dreamt of for so many nights, he bought the now haunted Barbie doll and brought it to the shrine. 

And over the years, the haunted Barbie doll itself has gained its own mysteries and haunted stories, giving new life to the story about the girl still not having crossed over from the mortal world entirely.

For more stories about haunted dolls lole Okiku, Ruby or Letta:

Ruby the Haunted Doll

This porcelain doll named Ruby will give the people playing with her an instant sorrow and sense of sickness, just by holding her. Family legend has it that the doll is haunted by a little girl that died with Ruby in her arms.

Keep reading

The Legends of Lies?

So who was the girl? Was there ever a girl? There is today no human remains in the grave as a definitive proof of the legend. Still, many people take the legend at face value today. But that is overlooking all the different tales that have been told throughout the years. Dr William L. Gibson, is one of the people that really took a deep dive into the legend and by just comparing the sources, found many discrepancies to the story told today in his excellent and detailed research you can read here.  

Many sources point to one man, named Chia Yeng Keng, a local on Pulau Ubin. The same man that claimed to be there when they transferred the lock of hair and the cross to the new temple. He has changed his testimony about the girl several times over the years. From claiming that the girls parents were Dutch for example. But seeing that Dutch citizens were not interned as Netherland was neutral during WWI, the story changed to German instead. Could it have just been a glip of details? Or a more elaborate story? As late as 2004, he claimed to not know anything about her at all. 

Although proof that a German family ran a coffee plantation on Pulau Ubin once, it is not proven that they ran it until being detained because of the war. According to The Singapore and Straits Directory, the only plantation on the island in 1914, was run by an Anglo-Irish, with no women recorded as living there.  

The first mention of the grave on Pulau Ubin was actually in 1985, in a Malayan newspaper that told the story of a princess from Java that fled to the island and died there. She was said to haunt the hill as a hantu puteri, meaning a ghost princess, seducing the many quarry workers to meet a terrible fate. The article included a picture of the shrine today known as the German girl shrine. But also this article as well as the story itself lacks proper sourcers. 

So for now, the haunted Barbie doll on Pulau Ubin belongs to a young girl that may or may not rest here. Better safe than sorry.

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References

Featured image: Unknown original source/via Tineye

Unravelling the Mystery of Ubin’s German Girl Shrine

German Girl Shrine 

Mysterious Pulau Ubin German girl shrine still sees visitors after 100 years in existence – Mothership.SG – News from Singapore, Asia and around the world

The Legend of a German Deity at Ubin | Remember Singapore

Click to access burris.pdf

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The Ghost of La Faraona Haunting the Agua Caliente Hotel

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Haunting the iconic Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel in Tijuana, the performer known as La Faraona remains like a ghost from the Golden Age of the Sin City.

During prohibition times in the US in the 1920s, people flocked to the borders to have a drink and a good time. The border towns also become a hot spot for smuggling activity and flourishing establishments that would quench peoples thirst. 

Tijuana was one of these border towns that saw a golden age and growth during this time. People came from the whole world to get a drink while gambling at their casino and watch horse racing and bullfighting. For the conservatives, Tijuana became known as a Sin City or was even called Satan’s Playground. 

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The demand for a good time was profitable however and attracted many people south of the border, and many resorts were established for this particular need. One of these places was Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel that opened in 1928. It was like the American Monte Carlo and Deauville that attracted American celebrities, Mexican politicians, diplomats, gangsters and gamblers alike during the 30s. This is the time that is remembered as Tijuana’s golden age. 

The hotel in Tijuana in Mexico in Baja California is said to be haunted now however, and the glamor it once held, is now under the layer of dust and only a footnote in history. It is now a high school and many of the reports of the haunting come from the students themselves. There are many stories, and especially about a woman walking past the student, whose feet don’t even touch the ground. The legend of this ghost has been called La Faraona.

The Dancing Ghost La Faraona

Agua Caliente is a place where performers had the chance of being discovered and making it big. Rita Hayworth was one of those while she was playing a show at the hotel. She went on to be a famous Hollywood star and a cultural icon. But there was not every performer that managed to get out of Tijuana. 

Satan’s Playground: The Agua Caliente was a famous tourist spot for a weekend away. It was also a place were many performers were employed and made famous. On the other end it was a place were many illegal activities took place. // Photo: Guy Sensor Landscape Photo, courtesy of San Diego History Center Photo Archive.

It is said that a female performer haunts the former hotel that was built atop of a natural hot spring. In many versions she worked as a singer, but in the most detailed stories, she was a dancer in one of the more popular shows. A flamenco dancer from Spain. The stories told at the school call her La Faraona, apparently her stage name as the star in one of the many shows at the casino at the Agua Caliente. 

She was supposedly also known as being somewhat of a good luck charm to keep at your side by the gambling tables at the casino. By her many admirers, she gained a lot of wealth in the form of diamonds and jewelry and there are rumors that she hid her treasures by the minaret which is the place her ghost has been spotted many times.

Crime of Passion

La Faraona: According to the legend, La Faraona laced her lovers drink with poison and they both ended up dead.

She was in a relationship with a man at the resort. Some call him Mr. Patrick, a British gentleman and a dealer that had made money on the alcohol smuggling business. In some accounts, he was even in Al Capone’s mafia. In all accounts however, it ended in tragedy when La Faraona killed him.

Why she did it differs from one version to the next, but it is usually by poison. In some accounts, she only poisons him, but in many versions, she does it to both of them. She supposedly poisoned her lover after stealing his money or after she realized he wasn’t intending to bring her back with him to England. In some versions it was because she saw him with another woman.

Apparently she laughed in his face when she poisoned him and even told him there was an antidote for it that she wouldn’t give him. He ran after her to get the antidote from her but didn’t get it. He then shot and killed her. 

This also meant that he would never find the antidote to the poison as well and he too died. Or they both died by the poison she laced their drinks with. Now they both haunt the former hotel where they ended their days. 

A Real Murder at the Hotel

When we look at the historical facts, there are only one murder registered at the Agua Caliente, although who knows how many that never made it to the public really happenend, we will never know. 

But a dancer working for the past four months at the Agua Caliente was found on 26. March in 1934. Named Esperanza López was found murdered in one of the bungalows at the premise that were kept for the artists at the casino. She had been shot by her husband who also worked at the hotel named Rodrigo Prieto. 

The hotel closed down in 1938 when the prohibitions were lifted in the states, and Mexico forbade gambling. Then the building was turned into a private school named Lázaro Cárdenas High School where the stories about the hauntings mostly came from.

And the students at the school keep insisting on seeing her ghost roaming about the place as she is never leaving the Agua Caliente.  

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References

Encyclopedia of Haunted Places, Revised Edition: Ghostly Locales From Around the world Av Jeff Belanger

Tijuana Was Once “Satan’s Playground” | KPBS Public Media

In Tijuana, searching for Al Capone – The Washington Post

La bailarina del Aguacaliente | Noticias de Tijuana | EL IMPARCIAL

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Hoia Baciu — The Haunted Forest of Transylvania

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This haunted forest known to be the Bermuda Triangle of Romania with its eerily coiled trees and whispers of local legends reminds us all that Transylvania is not only haunted by the legend of Dracula and vampires. Take a walk in the Hoia Baciu Forest and hopefully you will get out as well.

Romania has a rich history of the unexplained and lores and legends that will creep into the bones of those listening. This forest is clouded in mystery and is no exception. Strange orbs of lights are said coming from inside the treeline, and rumors of it being a possible gateway to another dimension draws desperate people to try for themselves. The stories of the haunted forest has reached an international reputation now and is on most lists of “most haunted places in the world“.

Read More: Have a look at all our stories about haunted forests: Here

The forest has always had a paranormal undertone whispering in the wind from old legends, but modern lore of the forest being a hotspot for UFOs, missing time and has started to take hold as well. All of these legends are what has given it the nickname the Bermuda Triangle of Romania. The mysterious forest of Hoia Baciu, or Pădurea Hoia as it is in Romanian, has many haunted legends lingering among the trees. 

Hoia Baciu Forest: The Transylvanian forest is shrouded in mystery and intrigue, largely due to its peculiar trees, a dense thicket of gnarled, contorted trees with twisted branches that seem to reach out like spectral fingers. Local legends claim that the trees are imbued with supernatural energy, and many believe that they are gateways to other dimensions or portals to the spirit world.//Source: Wikimedia

The Haunted Forest for Ufology

It’s not only those living close to the Hoia Baciu forest, superstitious people or those seeking ghosts that claim there is something going on in between the trees. Even in academic circles there are those who were intrigued by the strange place and the subject has been dealt with by both national research as well as overseas.  

UFO Over the Treetops: This picture is one of the pictures Emil Barnea took of the sky above the forest, now believed to be of more strange origin.

Even some selected professors at the university in the city claim this particular forest is a place where paranormal activity happens, and in the modern world filled with strange disappearance legends, tales of aliens and UFO’s has started becoming a part of the lore of the haunted Hoia Baciu Forest. 

In the late 60’s a biologist named Alexandru Sift came back with pictures from the forest that he claimed were flying UFO’s in the sky over the twisted trees. Sift wandered into the forest to have a closer look at the strange vegetation that can be found in there as part of his research.

These pictures of the alleged UFO’s were published by his chemist friend of Sift, side by side with theories about the paranormal stuff happening in the old forest right outside the city. And what he found and reported off got more people interested in both the paranormal legends that had seemingly always followed Hoia Baciu.

The same claim about seeing a UFO inside of Hoia Baciu came from a military technician named Emil Barnea as well. In 1968 he took some pictures in the western part of the forest while he was camping in the forest. Barnea took a huge hit by publishing the pictures as the communist government at the time looked at tales like ghosts and aliens like madness and superstition. He even lost his job because of the publishing of the pictures.

But what was the truth behind the pictures? What flew in the sky that made people think it had to be aliens? Both of these cases, with what seemingly looked like picture evidence, helped to give the forest a sense of notoriety more than a local place filled with local legends.

When first delving into the local lore since the first trees started growing there, strange occurrences had been reported long before the 60’s and people started talking about UFOs. 

The Bermuda Triangle of Romania

Hoia Baciu Forest is located near the Cluj-Napoca city in the northwestern part of Romania, an old forest still stands only half an hour away from the city by car. The forest is in notorious Transylvania, and for many it is expected that a haunted forest should be placed right here. Although the city close to the forest is free from the Dracula tales of Bran Castle and the tourist attractions one might find in a lot of towns capitalizing on the vampiric lore of the country. But there is a certain eeriness to the trees bending in twisted ways with skeleton-like branches reaching out for the hikers. 

We are away from the bustling modern everyday life from the city and here in Hoia Baciu Forest and the only thing to hear is the falling leaves, whispering as they reach the ground, and the sounds of deer, walking among the trees. Some might say Hoia Baciu is much more scary than Dracula himself.

Strange Lights of Hoia Baciu: Another one of the pictures taken by Barnea in the 60’s showcasing strange lights that has been told legends about in Hoia Baciu throughout the years. What the lights and figures over the forest really was has never been found out, but has been the source of much speculation within the ufology community.

When saying the forest is an old one, it truly is. As in 55 000 year old. With such old places like the mysterious Hoia Baciu, there are old stories that no one really knows when they started or came from. Farmers in the valley claim the forest is haunted to this day, and especially stories about strange disappearances there are plenty of. The story about the strange disappearances are also why the Hoia Baciu forest is also sometimes referred to as: “The Bermuda Triangle of Romania.”

The Disappeared Shepherd

One of these disappearance stories from Hoia Baciu tells of a shepherd that went into the Hoia Baciu and vanished with more than 200 of his sheep without a trace, never to return. Perhaps a man could simply vanish in a forest by himself, but 200 sheep? The stories about many people disappearing are odd considering the forest is not that big compared to other places an covers an area of about 3 square kilometers.

Read More: Another forest where people seems to just disappear, check out: Spirited Away in the Forbidden Yawata no Yabushirazu

In some sources it is after the disappeared shepherd that the forest is named Hoia Baciu. The locals are at times afraid to enter the forest because of tales like this that have been handed down for generations. The once brave enough to venture in have also complained about feeling nauseous, itching as well as getting migraines when they are brave enough to enter. 

The Girl Who Vanished

Perhaps the most famous tale from this forest is of the 5 year old girl that wandered into the forest one day and got lost and disappeared from the face of the earth, at least for the rest of the world. Years passed and after five years of being missing she came back out from Hoia Baciu, supposedly in the same clothes she wore on the day of her disappearance, not looking a day older.

When asked where she had been and what had happened, she had no answers. She reappeared in the forest with no memories of where she had been and what happened to her, at least, she didn’t want to share it. For her it had apparently only been a little while, not many years.

Many accounts claim there are many, perhaps as many as thousands of people that have disappeared in this Bermuda Triangle of Romania over the years. But of course, no hard evidence is found of these occurrences. Because they never happened, or merely because they happened so long ago that evidence of this is long gone?

Ghosts Haunting the Forest

There are not only strange legends about people being whisked away for years or forever or pseudo science of UFO and aliens that are told going on inside of the forest. A part of the local legends of the forest also deals with ghosts haunting the trees.

One of the ghost stories tells of the ghosts of Romanian peasants that were murdered in the forest and is believed to still be trapped in the forest, unable to move on.

They are sometimes seen wandering among the trees in Hoia Baciu, observing the people entering their final resting place. Other tales of shadow figures, something looking like ectoplasms as well as hearing strange voices are also told by joggers and hikers. One of the ghosts are supposedly also wearing something that looks like the northern Romanian traditional clothing.

The Poiana Rotunda Inside Hoia Baciu

The Poiana Rotunda: The clearing in the forest were most of the strange happenings is taking place giving the nickname Bermuda Triangle of Romania// Photo: Lajsikonik

Most of the paranormal reporting has now started centering around a supposed vegetative dead zone found inside of Hoia Baciu. This place is called Poiana Rotunda, or ‘Round Meadow’ found west in the forest.

The Poiana Rotunda is a one kilometer area of grassland inside the thick forest and is a close to perfect circle on the ground where no trees grow from the soil, apparently without an explanation.

People claim that they feel nauseous or dizzy when coming close to this place, and most of the strange things that are told about the forest are said to have started or happened around this dead zone.

What happened here has been up for much speculation. Could it be from a UFO landing at this place, could it be a sign of the gateway to the parallel dimension that seems to have spirited away many people throughout the years?

The more earthly and natural reasoning for this mysterious meadow in the middle of the forest could also be caused by natural causes or illegal deforestation the forest is suffering from. Soil samples have been taken from the place, but as of now, we don’t really have a definite explanation for this phenomenon.

A Walk Inside of the most Haunted Forest in the World

No matter what really lies inside the forest, of it really is haunted or some sort of Bermuda Triangle of Romania, it certainly pulls the strangest and darkest things out from people visiting. It is a perfect setting to put on a tv-show, sell books claiming all sorts of stuff. 

Maple groves, gatherings of beech, ash and elm wrap around themselves, contorting to strange shapes that perhaps help the feeling of uneasiness and gives the forest an overall creep factor. Blocking out the sun, leaving us in a sort of eternal shadow below the trees, anything seems possible in Hoia Baciu.

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References:

Frights and sights in Transylvania: exploring haunted Hoia Baciu | Romania holidays | The Guardian

Haunted Forest – Hoia Baciu Forest

Pădurea Hoia Baciu, de la legendă, la adevăr. De ce copacii au forme atât de ciudate?

Haunted forest Hoia-Baciu – Cluj-Napoca

Solving the Haunted Hoia-Baciu Forest

Hoia Baciu travel guide: Inside the creepiest forest in Transylvania | The Independent 

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The Ghosts From Security Prison 21 in Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

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Cambodia is a land with a lot of hauntings. One of them being in the old prison known as Tuol Sleng or Security Prison 21 where almost 20 000 people were tortured and killed during the Cambodian Genocide. And even today, the building is known for its ghosts. 

In Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum that used to be a prison, some of the prisoners were never really freed. Even in their deaths, their souls lingers in what used to be their own prison cells. However, they have now people taking care of them. 

The people working in the former prison now turned into a museum are well aware of the past and try their best to honor the building’s gruesome history. There are many occurrences that are being reported on that the museum’s staff cannot explain. Objects are being thrown hard to the floor and high pitched screaming has been heard.

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The staff working there also leave out food for the ghosts when they go on lunch break as they can’t enjoy their own lunch because of the loud noises the ghosts will make when they don’t leave an offering. 

The Cambodian Genocide

To understand the hauntings of this museum, we must first understand a little bit of Cambodia’s dark past and how so many could die in a place like Tuol Sleng. 

After years of devastating civil war, Cambodia had already seen its fair share of bloodshed. But the worst was still ahead of them and from 1975 to 1979, Cambodia went through a systematic killing, later known as the Cambodian Genocide which killed nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population at the time. The exact death toll is uncertain, but it ranges from everything from 1.5 to 2 million people. 

The genocide was done by the Khmer Rouge, a popular name given to the communist party called Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), led by Pol Pot who wanted to ‘cleanse’ the population in order to establish a pure, self-sufficient communist state. 

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum: Known as Security Prison 21 or S-21 during its time of torture and killings where thousands of Cambodians died. Here is one of the buildings of Tuol Sleng in 2013 // Photo: Dudva/Wikimedia

The Story of the Prison Turned Museum

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (សារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង) literally means, ‘Hill of the Poisonous Trees’. It used to be a secondary school in the capital Phnom Penh until the Khmer Rouge regime took over and used it as a prison during the genocide. 

Prison Cells: The former school turned the classrooms into prison cells the museum has kept intact to this day.// Photo: Gerd Eichmann/Wikimedia

Known as Security Prison 21(មន្ទីរស-២១) or S-21, it converted the classrooms to prison cells and torture chambers in 1976. It is estimated that over 18 000 were killed in the S-21, including children. Of course, this is an estimate since the real numbers are uncertain and could also be much higher. Only 12 former inmates survived from the prison. 

When the prisoners arrived at S-21 they were photographed, forced to undress and had their personal belongings confiscated. Many of the prisoners didn’t even know why they were taken. There would often be nonsensical reasons like wearing glasses or speaking multiple languages, a sign of being an intellectual that could potentially speak against the communist regime.

Also religious, ethnic and political reasons were why you were being singled out as a potential threat to the regime. Often whole families would be taken at the same time so that no one would be able to seek revenge for them. Pol Pot said himself: “if you want to kill the grass, you also have to kill the roots”

After a grueling questioning to make them give up information, they were taken to their cells. Some were shackled to the floor in small prison cells, others were shackled together with others in large rooms. One of the common hauntings people report on is the sound of shackles rattling from the cells. The prisoners were forbidden to talk to each other and had to follow the rest of the rules. Any action, just sitting up or turning over had to be approved by the Khmer Rouge guards, and they would be severely punished if they broke the rules. 

The goal was to get the prisoners to confess before executing them. Either that they themselves were betraying the party and the revolution, or give up names of those that did. They got the prisoners to confess to anything by the use of torture and submersion in water, electric shock or being hanged from the gallows by their hand until unconscious were some of the methods. Once they got a signed confession, they had to face their execution. 

The Killing Fields

The prisoners were killed on site at first, but then they also started to execute at what would be known as the killing field outside of the city known as Choeung Ek. The prisoners often had to dig their own graves before being killed. 

These fields have numerous stories of being haunted themselves. In the field in Choeung Ek, a site with mass graves where many graves are visible above the ground. During rainfalls, bones and clothes surface from the shallow graves.

This relentless killing and torture lasted for many years. The prison closed down in 1979 when the Vietnamese army invaded and ended the rule for the Khmer Rouge. And ever since then, Cambodia has tried to rebuild the country, piece by piece.

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Security Prison 21 never returned to being a school for children. It was instead turned into a memorial and a museum that would remember and showcase the atrocities that the people suffered during those years.   

From 1979 until 2002, they displayed a huge map of Cambodia made up of 300 skulls of victims to the regime. It was displayed to show the brutality of the regime until it was dismantled to give the skulls a proper burial at last. 

But did it also bury the rumors of the prison being haunted?

The Haunting at the Museum Today

From the outside rumors about a haunting of ghosts started spreading. Neighbors claimed to hear the rattling of shackles and terrified screams from inside the former prison. Also from within the museum, countless reports of something paranormal going on started to spread. Many of the staff at the museum claim to have witnessed the hauntings, both cleaners, guides and the security guards, especially those working the night shifts. 

Map of Skulls: This is the infamous skull map that was on display in the former S-21 prison camp at Tuol Sleng in January 1997 // Photo

“There was one night that I woke up to go to the bathroom when I saw a black figure bending towards me, and that made my hair stand on end. I was very frightened; I climbed back into my bed and waited until the morning to tell my colleagues,” Nong Saveoun, a security guard who both worked and lived at the genocide museum said to the Phnom Penh Post back in 2016.

There is also a story about a security guard that heard the shower start running after he saw a dark figure opening the toilet door. When he went to investigate, there was no one there. 

Three times a year they hold blessing ceremonies at the Tuol Sleng museum where they invite both government officials and monks to give a prayer to the victims on the Khmer new year, the Pchum Ben festival and on Visak Bochea Day. Perhaps that is the way to appease the soul and finally free the ghostly prisoners from their cells and their shackles to this world. 

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Featured Image: Pete Stewart/Wikimedia

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum – Wikipedia

History of the Museum

The 10 Most Haunted Places on Earth – Days to Come

NST Region: Five most haunted places in Cambodia

Land prices undaunted by genocide museums’ history and hauntings | Phnom Penh Post

https://www.wired.com/2002/03/skull-map-dismantled/

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A Haunting in Malaysia — Kinarut Mansion

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Malayan ghost lore is deep and it is ancient. And something leaves more questions than answers. Such is the case of the mysterious Kinarut mansion in Sabah and what became of it. 

The ruins of a former manor house sits on a hill surrounded by woods. It looks over the Kawang River near Kinarut in Malaysia. Today, the ruins of the manor house is considered to be the Malaysian state, Sabah’s, main attraction. And it is apparently not only the living it attracts.

The Mansion in the Jungle

Once this area of Malaysia used to be called North Borneo, a British protectorate where Europeans came to get their hands on natural resources of the land, like rubber. And in 1910, a German manager of a rubber plantation called Kinarut Rubber Estate built a manor in Graeco-Roman style, pretty unique as the one of the very few stone houses in North Borneo. 

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It was an Indian architect that stood for the design, and the construction was massiv. Around 200-300 workers from Java and maybe even Hong Kong worked on the house for four years to complete it with 152 windows, 45 doors and no less than 42 huge chandeliers. 

Asimont died only a decade after the building was done and the manor itself was destroyed in 1923 by a British company. The question of why though, is still unanswered. What happened to the house? Or based on the stories that have been told ever since, what happened in the house to leave such a legend?

The Fall of The Kinarut Mansion

In its prime, there seemed to have been a bustling life with a full community, jobs and even cultural events like sports competitions. The mansion was well maintained and the rubber plantation seemed to be thriving until the Great Depression. But that hit the global market first after the mansion was supposedly demolished. So again, what happened?

In the Jungle: There is according to legend, something in the trees surrounding the mansion.
Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas

A house such as this is simply not complete without the haunted backstory. Locals living near the mansion reports that the area is haunted by a “Hantu Tinggi”, a type of Malayan ghost, usually disguised as a tree in a forest. It literally means tall ghost as stories of it often tell about a body so tall the waist up is hidden by clouds. and only exists in Western and Eastern regions of Malaysia. 

The Rediscovery of the Haunted Mansion

Years went by without anybody paying the ruins any mind. The locals had only tales of demons and ghosts from this place. The rubber trade had dried up and North Borneo was now the modern Malaysia on the map of today. But the house would not be forgotten by history, not just yet. 

The rediscovering of the house was made in 1990 when the Sabah Forestry Development Authority led an exploration of where to plant trees. Throughout the years it had been forgotten and rarely does people wander in this area. Why is that?

People passing by claim that they have seen something fast moving and voices in the night. This is mostly attributed to a pontianak, a Malayan female ghost that prays on human flesh. So perhaps this wasn’t the greatest place to erect a mansion at all. All that is left of the enormous building are ruins. The steps of white stone leading nowhere as the questions asked about the truth about the Kinarut Mansion.  

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Feature Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas

 Rumah ‘hantu tinggi’ bongkar sejarah industri getah Sabah

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Myrtles Plantation and the Ghosts that Remains

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Now a quaint Bed and Breakfast, the old Myrtles plantation manor houses more ghosts than living guests. 

The old splendor of a plantation in Louisiana, not so far from Baton Rouge, is still quite clear when looking at the Myrtles Plantation. The antebellum mansion was first built in 1796 and is decorated with hand-painted stained glass featuring a French cross to allegedly ward off evil, the walls filled with Aubusson tapestry and from the ceiling, Baccarat crystal chandeliers hang. 

But among the Carrara marble mantels and French furnishing there is something more sinister, more primitive than any riches, gold and luxury can cover over — The blood stained history and the legend of ghosts still haunting the place. 

The old plantation was handed down from many people and in 1950, the house was sold to Marjorie Munson. It was she who started noticing strange things happening around the Myrtles Plantation and started talking about ghosts, that we still talk about today. 

And the tales that are told are many — supposedly, the old plantation is one of the more haunted places in America with reports of at least 12 ghosts inside this Creole cottage style manos sitting on a hill. Although it is only historical records about the murder of William Winter, the number of murders in the house is allegedly 10. 

The Legend of Chloe

The most famous ghost on Myrtles Plantation is without a doubt Chloe, or in some records, Cloe. She was supposedly a slave owned by Clark and Sara Woodruff, who took over the plantationin 1817 after Saras father, General David Bradford, who first built the plantation. 

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In 1992 a picture surfaced after the plantation took some photos of the property to send to the insurance company. When looking closer at the picture, something that looks like a girl can be seen. This is believed to be the ghost of Chloe, who still haunts the Myrtles Plantation with her green turban. 

According to the stories, Chloe was one of the slaves that worked in the house rather than out in the field, which was a much more straining work than inside doing the cleaning and cooking. But perhaps it came with other dangers than grueling labor. According to the stories, she was forced by Clark Woodruff to become his mistress.  

In some accounts though, Woodruff started having an affair with another girl and Chloe feared she would have to start working in the fields instead of in the house. And she started listening in on conversations to find out her faith or pick up on something that she could use against them. 

In any case she was caught listening by the doors and punished by her slave owners. One of her ears was cut off and she wore a green turban to conceal it. 

The Revenge

The Haunted Mirror: Where the spirit of Woodruff and her children lingers.
Photo: Chris Light/1999

But it wasn’t the end at all, as Chloe planned her revenge on her slave masters. She baked a cake that she had poisoned with oleander leaves, which is extremely poisonous. Even the question of why she poisoned the cake is up for discussion. 

Most accounts claim she did it for revenge after cutting off her ear. Another variant saying she was trying to gain favor with the family again as she was planning to cure the family for the poison and come out as a hero instead. 

But according to the story, the plan backfired and only Sara Woodruff and the two daughters ate the cake and died from the poison. Chloe was then hanged by the other slaves and thrown in the Mississippi river, as a sort of final punishment for her or to not be punished themselves by Clark Woodruff for harbouring her. 

A mirror in the house is supposedly holding the spirit of Sara Woodruff and her children. According to custom at that time, the mirrors were covered by a cloth so the spirit would not disappear into them. But after the poisoning, this particular mirror was forgotten and the ghosts of the victims can be seen in the mirrors and there are reports of handprints being left in the mirror, as their spirits are now trapped in the mirror. 

The story about Chloe as a ghost is also told by the previous owner, Frances Kermeen, who also wrote a book on all the strange hauntings that she herself reported about experiencing on her second night in the house: 

 “I looked up and standing over me was a black lady. Her head was wrapped in a green turban,” I could see her [holding an] old-fashioned tin with the loop in it [through] the candlelight and I lost it. I started screaming…I reached my hand out to touch her, I could tell she was a ghost because she was see-through, but as my hand passed through her, she faded away.”

Frances Kermeen told the podcast Mysterious Universe in 2015.

The Uneven Facts

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Do historical records support this though? There is currently not found any records of the Woodruffs owning a slave named either Chloe or Cloe. The legends say that Chloe killed both the wife and the daughters, but one of the daughters, Mary Octavia, survived and grew up to become an adult. And it is said that Sara and the other daughter, Cornelia, were not killed by poison, but by yellow fever in 1823 and 1824. 

Either way, despite the historical records refuting the story, the legend about a woman wearing a green turban haunts Myrtles Plantation. Perhaps trying to tell a story that no historical records can?

The Other Ghosts

There are several pictures you can find on the postcards found in the souvenir shop at the plantation, the Chloe postcard being one of them. Another picture that stirred up quite some stories was the picture of a young girl dressed up in classic antebellum clothing that seems to look out from a window. She is now referred to as “The Ghost Girl” on the plantation. 

Burial Ground

But the legend of Chloe is not the only claim of ghost sightings at the plantation among the Spanish Moss hanging from the giant oak trees. There is the classic tale that the house itself is built on an Native American burial ground, a trope of American ghost story tales that rarely can be substantiated. But even so, the ghost of a young Natice American woman has been reported. 

In this case, the burial ground would be of Tunican tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, and the truth is that the land the manor now stands on used to belong to the Natives before being seized by the Spanish. 

Civil War Soldiers

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Another legend is about the Civil War and about how the houses were ransacked by union soldiers, and three people were killed. But exactly who was killed? The soldiers or the people living in the mansion? At the time, it was then Ruffin Gray Stirling and his wife Catherine Cobb that lived on the plantation with their slaves. It is true that they were robbed of their fine furniture and luxury items. 

According to some of the  variations of the legend though, it was the Union soldiers that were shot dead on the premises by the Confederates. 

But something that is more up for debate is the supposed blood stain in the doorway, around the size of a human body remains that never will be completley clean after the supposed murders that happened then, no matter how well you scrub it. 

The Voodoo Practitioner

The plantation is also the home of the ghost of a young girl that died in 1868, sometimes thought to be the girl in antebellum clothes from the picture. She was treated by a local voodoo practitioner in one of the 22 rooms in the manor, but died. She appears now in the room she died in and has been reported to practice voodoo on people sleeping in the room. 

William Drew Winter

One of the other ghosts haunting this place is someone that either staggers or crawls up the stairs. He always stops on the 17th step. This is rumoured to be the ghost of William Drew Winter, the verified murder victim in the house. He was shot on the front porch of the house by a stranger. To get away, he crawled up the stairs but only reached the 17th step before he collapsed and died. 

Several guests staying at the now B&B have claimed to hear the crawling coming from the stairs, and believing it could be other guests have gone to check. But when reaching the stairs, they find that no one is there, or worse, the apparition of his ghost, begging for help. 

Although here, we have discrepancies in the story as a local newspaper reported that Winter died of a single shot that killed him instantly, and he had no possible way of crawling the stairs after the shot. But did he manage to in his afterlife?

The Plantation

No matter the fact we can now verify, the stories found of plantations from way back cast long shadows. All from the first contact between the natives and Spanish, throughout slavery and a bloody war. The darkest chapters of this plantation, is most likely the stories that we don’t know about. 

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Featured image: Bogdan Oporowski

The Myrtles Plantation

Legend of Chloe And Ghosts | Myrtles Plantation

The South’s Most Haunted Plantation – Myrtles Plantation Louisiana

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Nale Ba – The Bridal Ghost of Bangalore

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In the 90s, rural parts of Bangalore in India were haunted by a fear of a ghost walking from door to door. To protect themselves from death, they used to write Nale Ba – come tomorrow. 

The sound of a knock on the door can be one of the more terrifying things when you are not expecting someone. In lores and legends, opening the doors for strangers are the biggest mistakes you can make, as you have no control once the door is open.

But what if the voice on the other side sounds familiar, like that of a friend or a family member. What do you do then? Before the big urbanization of Bangalore in more recent times, there used to be some pretty rural parts where a particular urban legend struck fear in those who lived there. 

Nale Ba or Come Tomorrow

Haunting the streets: The movie Stree’s take on the legend showed the ghost of the Nale Ba legend as a ghostly woman in red sari.

The story of Nale Ba is a popular folk legend that is told primarily in Karnataka, in the south western region of India that truly blew up in the 1990s, making it perhaps more of an urban legend than folklore as it was centered around the more developed areas.

During the crazy times in the 1990’s there were around 5 million people living in Bangalore and city experienced a rapid urbanization that turned the place to one of India’s most populated cities.

But this was then and many of those living there lived in fear of Nale Ba. Villagers wrote the words Nale Ba on the walls and doors for many years to protect themselves, giving the name to both the legend and the creature haunting them. Nale Ba or sometimes spelled Naale Baa (ನಾಳೆ ಬಾ) is a Kannada phrase that means come tomorrow in English. 

They wrote this exact phrase to protect their home from an evil spirit that tries to break in. What type of entity Nale Ba was supposed to be, was unclear. She was often referred to a so called Bridal Spirit as she was out to get a man to stay with her for eternity. She is also sometimes also referred to as a witch more than a ghost.

What her intentions were varied, but in some of the earlier versions she wore ragged clothes, had messy hair and asked for alms like a classic ‘do not open the doors to strangers’ legend.

But one of the more popular and retold stories is that she is roaming the streets hunting down the men to claim for herself. 

The Manhunt of the Bridal Ghost

In some variations of the Nale Ba legend it is a bridal ghost that is looking for a husband among the villagers, and she will stop at nothing to get him. Although the legend will probably never be as infamous as it’s peak in the 1990s, the urban legend have a habit of popping up from time to time.

What is also curious is that it is very similar to the widow ghost legend in Thailand where there also is a female entity hunting down the men:

The bridal spirit will usually go for the only son or the man of the house who is the only member of the family earning money, and therefore bringing bad luck not only to the poor man that is taken away, but to the entire family as they are left in ruin. 

Nale Ba: According to this legend there is a bridal ghost that goes from door to door in Bangalore in search of a man she can take with her to the afterlife.

She goes from door to door in the night and knocks on the doors, trying to get in. When she speaks through the door she speaks in the voice of your kin or familiar person, calling you by the name, so that you will open the door for her. But if you open it, you will most likely die according to the Nale Ba legend. 

This is why the villagers came up with the idea of writing Nale Ba on their doors and walls of their homes to protect themselves. The idea is that the bridal ghost or witch will read the words and come back another time. And the cycle will only continue and you will be protected. 

Leaving Nale Ba in the Past

The legend of Nale Ba, the haunting bridal ghost roaming the streets of rural Bangalore, continues to captivate the imaginations of locals and visitors alike. While the fear it once instilled may have subsided, the tale remains an intriguing part of the city’s folklore.

Over time, as Bangalore underwent urbanization and transformation into a bustling metropolis, the legend of Nale Ba gradually faded into the background. The growth and development of the city brought about new stories and urban myths, yet every now and then, a whisper of the infamous bridal ghost resurfaces.

In today’s modern era, the streets of Bangalore are abuzz with the sounds of progress and innovation, leaving behind the ghostly echoes of its past. Yet, hidden beneath the surface, the essence of these legends lingers, shaping a city that embraces its rich heritage while moving fearlessly towards the future.

So, next time you hear a knock on your door late at night, remember the spirit of Nale Ba and the importance of remaining vigilant. And should you ever encounter the whispers of an ancient legend, embrace it as a testament to the vibrant history and enduring spirit of the city of Bangalore.

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Okiku — The Haunted Doll of Hokkaido

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The Okiku Doll, is a legend of a haunted doll that grows hair in Japan and is preserved in a temple looked after by monks. Allegedly it is haunted by the ghost of a girl that once received it as a gift.  

There is something about dolls that makes us fall into a confusion about what is and isn’t real and we both love them and hate them in equal measure. The haunted doll trope is one of the most famous and creepiest. There is something about the almost lifelike object that takes us through the uncanny valley and makes us believe that maybe, just maybe, there might be something more behind those glass eyes. 

This is the case with the Okiku Doll (お菊人形), a type of Ichimatsu doll (市松人形) which is a type of traditionally dress up dolls in Japan, often clad in nice kimonos with dark glass eyes. The chubby cheek dolls are as cute as they are creepy, and perhaps the creepiest that has been named Okiku lives now in a monastery, well looked after by the monks. This haunted doll must not be confused by the ghost story of Okiku, the maid:

Read the full story:

Banchō Sarayashiki — the Ghost of Okiku

The tale of Banchō Sarayashiki (番町皿屋敷, The Dish Mansion at Banchō) is a well known Japanese ghost story (kaidan). It was popularized in the kabuki theater tradition, and lives on in popular culture and folklore alike.

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At first glance, Okiku just looks like an old doll, weathered by time with frayed hair and old clothes like so many dolls forgotten by their children. But there is a legend surrounding this particular haunted doll, and the legend keeps growing, apparently, just like the doll’s hair. 

The Two Girls

The Okiku Doll: This Ichimatsu doll is called Miss Shimane and is a Japanese friendship ambassador doll.
Photo: Daniel Schwen

There are some variations of this legend, as there often is when they happened a long time ago. The most told version of it, though, starts In Hokkaido, north in Japan, in 1918 at the Taishi Expo in August, bustling with life, people and stuff to buy, including dolls. 

A teenager named Eikichi Suzuki bought a doll for his younger sister in the shopping street of Tanukikoji in the city. Often, the girl is given the same name as the doll, but in most Japanese sources, they were not named the same, but the girls name was either Kikuko or Kiyoko. The seventeen year old brother was visiting Sapporo for a marine exhibition and the doll almost called for him to be bought for his dearest little sister. 

The two or three year old sister grew very fond of the doll that was a gift from her brother and they became inseparable. The porcelain doll had an okappa hair style which was common for traditional dolls with cropped hair around the jawline and a short fringe over the forehead. It was around 40 cm tall and dressed in a traditional kimono.  

She carried it everywhere and slept with it every night the following year, but the child-like play would come to an abrupt end. The little sister died however after falling ill the following year after some complications of a severe fever. Very likely to be Yellow Fever or the Spanish flu as it was ravaging across the globe during this time period of time. Or in some cases, Pneumonia is also mentioned as the cause of death.

The Haunted Doll at the Family Altar

The family initially wanted to place the doll together with their daughter in the grave but wasn’t allowed, or in some sources, simply forgot to put the doll in the coffin. The family mourned the loss of the daughter and placed the doll on the family kamidana altar instead, a practice common in some Japanese households to remember and honor the dead. There Okiku could look out at the mourning family that paid her tribute as if Okiku was their own daughter. 

They prayed every day by the altar and started to notice strange things about Okiku. According to them, they found out that the hair of the doll was growing just like human hair. And the short okappa haircut grew longer, just like the hair grows of a 3-year-old child would have grown.

The haunted doll at the altar: The Okiku doll who once was a little girl’s favorite toy, is now placed in an altar to appease the spirit inside. She is know known as the doll that grows hair in Japan.// Photo: Picture first found source/via TinEye

At night they dreamt about Okiku and when they woke in the morning, sometimes they would find the haunted doll sitting by their side without having put her there. The strange occurrences started to get more intense and scarier with light flickering, banging in the house and strange voices and noises. The scary manifestations were usually around certain dates, like their dead daughters birthday and the day she died. 

This led them to believe that the soul of their daughter was not at peace yet, and had entered the doll. They had shamans come to the house and meet Okiku and confirm it and believed they had to appease the spirit through the doll. 

Offered and Displayed in Mannen-Ji Temple

They kept Okiku on their family altar until 1938 when the family decided it was time for them to move away from Hokkaido. In some sources they moved even further north to Sakhalin, an island between Japan and Russia. They felt that the best for the spirit of Okiku would be to remain on the island where she had been born and spent her few years alive. 

It was then the family decided to offer the doll to Mannen-ji Temple located in Iwamizawa. The monks promised to care for the haunted doll and pay it the respect it had received at the family altar. The Okiku doll was given a special wooden box like at the home altar and placed at the altar with the monks looking after and taking care of her every need.

The monks at the temple noticed too that the hair of the haunted doll kept growing. When it was around 25 cm, they decided to cut it for the first time, and the doll’s hair was cut many more times over the years as the hair just continued to grow. Apparently, some of the monks at the temple had a dream that the doll wished for the hair to be trimmed regularly. 

And after the war, when many Japanese were deported from Sakhalin, the brother who bought the doll came back and saw for himself how the doll had changed over the years. When he saw what the doll had become, he asked that the haunted doll had to stay at the temple permanently.  

The Science of the Hair?

Dolls have always had some sort of an unfair reputation as haunted across the globe, and in Japan, this type of doll is no stranger to having supernatural and haunted rumors surrounding them. But this one is by far the most famous example in the country and of its kind. 

Some sources try to claim that the doll has been examined by scientific tests that the monks have sent out to have tested, showing that the haunted doll’s hair really is of a human toddler, and growing just like one, although no one can explain just how this is happening. The place of the supposed test was sent to Hokkaido University School of Medicine according to some sources. 

There are of course non paranormal theories as to why the hair seemingly grows from the haunted doll. The use of human hair on dolls is a well known phenomenon, especially before synthesized hair became the norm. One way they did it was to fold a long human hair, making it seem like strands of hair on the doll. Over time the strand of hair can glide out of place and look like it has grown. But then again, it is supposed to stop at one point in time, not just continue to grow indefinitely. So what is happening at the temple where the doll is still displayed? 

Visiting the Haunted Doll

You can still visit the Mannen-Ji temple in Japan to see the haunted doll whose hair is reaching its knee, but you are not allowed to photograph it as the doll apparently has told you that it doesn’t like it at all. We must simply just take the monk’s words for the strange doll. The legend of the doll is continuing to grow, and has been the base of many movies and horror tales as well as the traditional kabuki plays.

According to the legend, the power of the haunted doll is only growing, bit by bit, just like the hair grows. and another rumor surrounding the doll nowadays is that if you get close enough to the haunted doll, you can also now see the growing of human teeth. 

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Feature image: Ellie

Japan’s Doll Legends – Culture

Okiku – Hair kept growing out of this haunted doll! | MRU MEDIA

Okiku: The Haunted Japanese Doll That Grows Human Hair

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萬念寺 お菊人形

お菊人形 【昭和の心霊事件】 : 合気道月光流道場長・チョコ助と伊東健治の公式ブログ 「骸(むくろ)をつけていま一戦(ひといくさ)せん！！」

髪が伸びる恐怖「お菊人形」 – 心霊現象

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Agnes Keith and the Ghost in her House

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From a house that has seen it all, this American author wrote about the ghost that lived with them. 

“I don’t believe in ghosts. But every day, I see a tall gaunt woman telling her husband goodbye, taking her baby, and walking down the path alone, standing at the bottom of the path and looking back,”

White Man Returns, Agnes Keith
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This is a quote from American author and journalist Agnes Keith’s novel, “White Man Returns” from 1951, a novel she wrote about returning to her beloved house after being imprisoned by Japanese during the war. 

Among the detailing of her everyday life in Malaysia and in that house, snippets of a darker corner of the house take shape. And often, the ghost that resides in the Newlands House is what remains to this day. Especially when the museum itself wants to focus on the dark tourism aspect of it all. 

The Land Below The Wind

Agnes Keith was living with her husband and her son in Sandakan in what we now know as Malaysia. She came to this place in 1934 and found a new place to call home. Being under the British Crown at the time, they lived in the colonial-styled architectured house with their servant. She was writing books like “Land Below The Wind” in 1939 about their life in the then called British North Borneo, which is was then called, with her husband working as a Conservator of Forest. 

The house: Newlands, the home of Agnes Newton Keith in Sandakan, Borneo from 2007.
Photo: Warren Apel

She loved their house and their home and was said to be very well liked by those around them. The house on the hill had a grand view of Sandakan Bay in the front and the Sulu sea from the back. But then the war came and it would be a long time until she would live in the house again. 

The Scar of the War

Like many Europeans on the island Agnes Keith and her family were put in internment camps when the Japanese invaded Borneo. The whole family survived though, and it is said that one of the Japanese camp commandants had read Agnes’s work and made sure to treat the family well. They stayed in the camp until the end of the war in 1945, but she was never the same again. 

“The story of war is always the story of hate; it makes no difference with whom one fights. The hate destroys you.”

Three Came Home, Agnes Keith
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When they returned to Sandakan in 1947, they found their beloved house destroyed. They decided to rebuild nearby, and named the house for Newlands, although it is more known as Agnes Keith House today. But the haunting memories from the war seemed to also manifest in the house as well. Through her writing, she notes about the paranormal activity going on around her. 

They left North Borneo for good in 1952 when she moved to Canada and the house passed to someone else. But the legends about the hauntings didn’t stop with the highly imaginative writer.

The Woman by the bed

G.L Carlson took over the husband’s position as a forest conservator after the Keiths left for Canada. His wife, Rosemary also told stories about apparitions in the bedroom when her husband was away. She woke at dawn and heard the door to the room open and close several times. When she opened her eyes, there was someone there, staring at her. 

“There was a figure standing, leaning over, and looking down at me. The figure appeared to be a female with a white bandage around her head. She was pale faced. She was dressed in what looked like a white, short-sleeved T-shirt or blouse with a wide-shoulder-strapped, dark-coloured pinafore dress. (…) She was quite a short person of normal build, and I could not see the lower part of her body. At this stage, I must have passed out. When I came to, it was already dawn and I was alone.”  

– Rosemary Carlson

The Ghost Resident

Maids, visitors and security guards can tell the same story about a woman shoving up in the stairs or in the corner of the rooms in the house. Places where she doesn’t belong. Or perhaps she belongs there more than anyone else at this point? 

By now the Agnes Keith house has fallen into the hands of the Sabah Museum Department and restored to become a public museum, to keep the house intact as well as the lingering residents that may still be there. 

  

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References

Agnes Keith: the American author who loved Sabah | Free Malaysia Today (FMT)

Spooktacular Sabah: Agnes Keith House first stop in state’s haunt jaunt push | Malaysia | The Vibes

https://web.archive.org/web/20190614110302/https://www.thepatriots.asia/misteri-kisah-seram-rumah-agam-agnes-keith-sandakan/