The tree hugging the side of a small mountain at our village fifteen years ago was already large. Our hut stood just a few meters distant from that tree on a higher spot of the mountain. From there we could hear all kinds of birds roosting for the night on its branches, which came as a surprise to the older folk of the village because the tree did not have fruits. It only had plenty of leaves and branches. Birds were usually noisy at roosting time, but they quieted down as soon as darkness came, like it was a signal for them to sleep.
I was in high school then. Five of us from Campiraw had to walk down to the school six kilometres away on early mornings and sometimes took a passenger jeep going home in the afternoons. We would arrive just before dark as the temperature suddenly dropped and fog occasionally enveloped our village like a white protective mantle.
As the stories went, it was during full moons when our neighbours could see strange men and women, smartly dressed, walking by the road and abruptly disappearing when they came near the tree. One time they saw a large snake, a boa constrictor perhaps, crossing the road and going in the direction of the tree. No one had seen the snake during daytime, not even old Ando who would hunt for these creatures for their delicious meat.
The stories were of course told at daytime. At night when the strange men and women passed by outside the huts, everybody kept their silence. They could hear the shuffling of feet and the eerie barking of dogs, their tails tucked between their hind legs. We, who lived on the upper portion of the small mountain, never had the occasion to see those strange apparitions, but we had our own peculiar experiences as well. One evening in November, when the cold winds from the east came like miniature typhoons, my older brother Nardo heard some noises.
“Psst….psst.”
He turned around, but he saw no one. I was late from school that day and our parents went to town to buy provisions. So he was decidedly alone with the goats and the chickens and a dog which rarely barked. Again the noise came.
“Pssst…Pssst.”
Then there appeared a small bonfire at the dirty kitchen, where small pieces of firewood were placed in a pile for burning. Nardo later nervously told me someone played tricks on him that evening. We dismissed the incident as one of those strange phenomena that rarely happened again.
Our unseen friends made themselves more tangible, it seemed, after a strong typhoon when many small huts were blown away by the wind and our neighbours rebuilt their houses and cut trees in the nearby forests. First, it was Dido who felt an unseen foot kicking his groin so painfully that he could hardly move. He had to be carried to his bed and fed in bed because even sitting down was a torment. On the fifth day when he thought he was already dying, his father brought him to a faith healer living in the next village.
Julio, the faith healer, looked at his face, felt his pulse and placed his hand over his head, muttering a silent prayer. Then he blew over his head and prayed again, this time in a louder voice. Moments later, the ritual was over. But he told Dido to make an offering of a white chicken at the foot of the large tree that clung to the side of the mountain. Julio said Dido might have offended the spirits living there. Dido rested for a while but afterwards, he could walk slowly.
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When Dido returned home, he did what the faith healer told him to do. After the offering, he seemed relieved and continued working on his damaged hut. But he stopped cutting trees.
His neighbour Esmeraldo was the unbelieving type who doubted the stories. Naturally he did not see the strange men and women on moonlit nights. So he kept on cutting trees as he made repairs of his hut and expanded his kitchen. That night, he felt his left ear was swollen, but believed that was just one of those insect bites, maybe the sting of a bee.
Later in the evening, he had a fever and he was chilling. He felt the swelling had transferred to the top of his head then moved to his other ear and finally stopped on his forehead. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he was like a prize fighter who just had the beating of his life. He drank pills for pain relief and fever. The swelling would not stop. His head felt heavy for no reason.
So he had to stop working on his house. His wife shook her head and told him he had caused the ire of the spirits. But he refused to believe her. Six days later, the pain in his head became so unbearable and he started hearing voices in his ears that he had to cover them with his hands. On the seventh day, he asked his wife Marissa to accompany him to Julio.
Julio told him bluntly that a spirit was mad at him. He had to make an offering of a suckling pig, sprinkling its blood around the tree and on its roots that protruded from the soil, and that he had to bring some incense burnt with coconut coir. The prayers said over Esmeraldo’s head also took longer to finish because he was an unbeliever.
Two days after Esmeraldo fulfilled everything the healer said, he was completely cured. He had not stopped believing since then.
However, the village folk continued to cut trees in the vicinity of the large tree to repair their damage homes. Nothing happened until two days later, when Donah’s 15-year old daughter, my high school classmate, disappeared. Donah said Ella was told to buy vinegar at one of the village stores one early evening after she returned from school. To go there, she had to pass by the large tree that clung to our hill. The store owner testified that he had had seen the girl and given her a bottle of vinegar. But the people living closest to the tree, old Ando, Dido’s family and Esmeraldo, did not see the girl returning home. Nobody slept that night.
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When daylight broke the next day, people started to gather early near old Ando’s place, eyeing the tree suspiciously. One of them hinted that the tree should be cut down because it brought bad luck to the village. Others just looked at the man. Would he volunteer to cut it down? One asked. The man remained silent. In our village, no one was brave enough to cut down the tree.
In the old days, when somebody disappeared or was believed kidnapped by unseen spirits, they would make a lot of noise with empty cans or a drum, if there was one, invoking the spirits or whoever they were to please return the person they had taken. Sometimes it worked, sometimes nothing happened. In many case, persons would be declared lost forever.
That morning, Ella’s mother Donah invited Julio to Campiraw. Even from afar, Julio could feel strange vibrations in his body, like something unseen was trying to push him away from Campiraw. He crossed himself then muttered a silent prayer. The vibrations stopped. But as he neared the tree, the push became so strong that he had to be supported by four men so he could move forward.
Julio had come armed with a bottle of holy water given by a priest and an old prayer book with Latin prayers. He read these as he sprinkled the holy bottle on the tree, invoking in a loud voice the return of Ella and taking him instead if they want. He took a newly slaughtered white suckling pig and sprinkled its blood all over, continuing his Latin prayers. Then he signalled those who brought empty cans to beat these so that the noise would awaken Ella from her sleep.
The ritual was over in an hour. The crowd slowly thinned out, leaving the ones that lived near the tree. The disappointment was evident. They probably expected Ella to suddenly emerge from the tree. She did not. But hours later, they found her lying on the grass a few meters away from the tree, muttering: ”Mother, tell them to stop cutting trees.” At first they thought she was having a nightmare.
But some of the women heard Ella and repeated what she said. The words spread out and people started to believe that the bad luck had started when they cut down the trees. They realized that spirits had lived with them in peace until the village folk cut the trees.
When I visited Campiraw last week, a lush and verdant forest surrounded our village. The tree had grown bigger. It was even cooler in the evenings when the fog descended on the village rooftops.
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