Hmong Ghost Stories

[LADY-K-TUSHLUB]

lady-k-tushlub u got more stories.. im bored here!

Been busy, but yeah.  Got more.  I'll try and get one up today.

[babiie_gurlo]

Been busy, but yeah.  Got more.  I'll try and get one up today.

thanks.. i'll be waiting..

[LADY-K-TUSHLUB]

Folktales say it's a truth that goblins turn into beautiful humans upon being drenched in cow dungs. Haven't you heard how humans have been taken by ghosts and tigers and the only way to bring them back is to dig a hole into the ground, put the humans there and fill the hole up with cow dungs and leave things there for 3 days?  Then the ghostly skin would shed off and a newly-born adult human appears.  Txiv Nraug Xyu's bride got him back doing that, after his sould got snatched by some goblins in this secluded hillbilly village. 

And, oh, yeah, it would be a nice fairy tale to write.

I think most elders know this story, but because of the "Hmong gossip" network, the story has changed, parts are missing or added as the story goes from person to person, so nobody knows if it's true or anymore.  But this is the version I have heard.  Also, the original version I heard was supposed to be from Laos, but recently I heard someone else say that it happened to a person in Vinai, Thailand.  So who knows.  Anyway, onto the story:

Supposedly, there was this guy who went out (hunting, outhouse, whatever it was) and saw a ghost (poj ntxoob) and he caught it.  It is said that you need to hold onto the poj ntxoog's arm tight and not look away, because if you looked away or blinked, the poj ntxoog will replace its arm with a log or something and it will have run away.  Anyway, so the idea is to not look away.  I'm not sure how he got the poj ntxoog home without blinking.  Maybe he had friends with him, not sure.

So anyway, he got the poj ntxoog home and rounded up his friends and family and fellow villagers.  They dug a hole and filled it up with cow manure and put the poj ntxoog in the pit.  There were people around the whole time watching the poj ntxoog so that it couldn't replace its arm with something else and take off too.  It is said that if you put a poj ntxoog in cow manure for 3 days and 3 nights, it will turn back into a person.  I haven't heard of the shedding its skin, but from what I heard, the poj ntxoog turns from the poj ntxoog back into a person.

Well, after the friends, family, and villagers watched this poj ntxoog for 3 days and 3 nights, the poj ntxoog slowly turned into a young lady.  The young lady was said to be really beautiful, with long dark hair, but pale and bluish skin.  The lady's skin is pretty cold too to the touch.

Supposedly someone (don't know if it was the guy who found the poj ntxoog in the first place) married the lady and later, they had a perfectly normal human baby.  This lady was said to still be alive somewhere.  This was about 20 years ago.

[babiie_gurlo]

omg!! really.. so, why would the lady's skin be cold if the poj ntxoog has turn into a beautiful lady?

[IB THIAB NEEJ]

I think most elders know this story, but because of the "Hmong gossip" network, the story has changed, parts are missing or added as the story goes from person to person, so nobody knows if it's true or anymore.  But this is the version I have heard.  Also, the original version I heard was supposed to be from Laos, but recently I heard someone else say that it happened to a person in Vinai, Thailand.  So who knows.  Anyway, onto the story:

Supposedly, there was this guy who went out (hunting, outhouse, whatever it was) and saw a ghost (poj ntxoob) and he caught it.  It is said that you need to hold onto the poj ntxoog's arm tight and not look away, because if you looked away or blinked, the poj ntxoog will replace its arm with a log or something and it will have run away.  Anyway, so the idea is to not look away.  I'm not sure how he got the poj ntxoog home without blinking.  Maybe he had friends with him, not sure.

So anyway, he got the poj ntxoog home and rounded up his friends and family and fellow villagers.  They dug a hole and filled it up with cow manure and put the poj ntxoog in the pit.  There were people around the whole time watching the poj ntxoog so that it couldn't replace its arm with something else and take off too.  It is said that if you put a poj ntxoog in cow manure for 3 days and 3 nights, it will turn back into a person.  I haven't heard of the shedding its skin, but from what I heard, the poj ntxoog turns from the poj ntxoog back into a person.

Well, after the friends, family, and villagers watched this poj ntxoog for 3 days and 3 nights, the poj ntxoog slowly turned into a young lady.  The young lady was said to be really beautiful, with long dark hair, but pale and bluish skin.  The lady's skin is pretty cold too to the touch.

Supposedly someone (don't know if it was the guy who found the poj ntxoog in the first place) married the lady and later, they had a perfectly normal human baby.  This lady was said to still be alive somewhere.  This was about 20 years ago.

Update:
She's now a fellow PHer living in the US of A.   

[LADY-K-TUSHLUB]

thanks! would you have to make an offering? Like give the tree food?

No.  No need to give an offering.

[LADY-K-TUSHLUB]

You sure? What benefits would the tree get for protecting you?

The tree gets nothing.  It's not a take and give situation.  Look at it more as a favor.  A better way to look at it, trees aren't mobile creatures.  Live creatures, animals, are like livestock -- they have a keeper.  The trees don't (Well, they do, but not the same way as animals do.)  The trees are more like part of the habitat and have their own agenda -- they are more like bystanders.  Don't bug it and it won't bug you.  But trees provide shelter for all things, including humans.  That's why you can just ask it for shelter and it will give you shelter.

One other thing to look at -- trees don't eat.  That's why you don't give.  You only give to things that eat.

As far as giving something though, if you eat food that you packed yourself, then you shouldn't offer either.  But, on the other hand, if you are eating game that you killed, then you need to offer the keepers of the animals some before you eat.  You are taking the caregiver's livestock, so you should repay it.  In that case, it is a give and take.

[LADY-K-TUSHLUB]

This one happened in California, so if you know close relatives of these people, you should have already heard this one.

There was a group of hunters who went hunting.  That night, they camped out.  There was a hoot owl that landed on a dried out tree near the camp and starting "whoo whoo"-ing.  One of the guys came out of the tent to take a piss in the middle of the night.  The guy was annoyed by the owl, so he said in a low voice, "Stupid owl, gonna keep everyone up."

The owl asked the guy in Hmong, what they were doing there.  He answered that they were there hunting for deer.  The owl told the guy that they shouldn't come back.  He didn't think anything, so he went back into his tent. 

The owl kept hooting.  This time, of the guys came out, with rifles and shot at the owl.  One of them hit the owl and it fell to the ground.  When it fell though, it was as if a 50-ton boulder hit the ground.

The guys took the owl and cooked half of it on the following day.  The other half, they took home.  Anyway, they were boiling it, but no matter how long cooked it, the meat would never cook.  Well, the guys (all of the hunters) ate it.

When they came home from their hunting trip, the guy who shot the owl died.  When they looked, "it" had already pulled out his intestines through his bottom and ate it.  The rest started getting sick.  One of the guys, however, managed to take the leftover half of the owl to a monk to examine.  Immediately, the monk knew it was a phiv nyuam vaim.  The monk told the guy what to bring back to help save the guy's life.  He did, so the guy survived.  As for the other guys, it was too late.  The phiv nyuam vaim already killed them by the time the guy got back.

Anyway, what the monk told the guy was, the owl was just an object that the phiv nyuam vaim used to replace itself.  The real phiv nyuam vaim wasn't even there.  When the shooter shot the phiv nyuam vaim, the phiv nyuam vaim had already taken the guy's life.  The guy didn't even know it, that's why he was able to shoot the owl.

It is said that if you are suspicious a phiv nyuam vaim is after you, you need to take any green leaf and stick it up your bottom.  When the phiv nyuam vaim tries to take your intestines and eat it, it will see the leaf, which means that some other phiv nyuam vaim has already eaten your intestines.  It won't bother you.

Also, the thing to know about a phiv nyuam vaim is that it never comes to you on a first visit.  The actual phiv nyuam vaim never comes first.  It always sends an object as itself.  If you challenge it, it will already have had you.  But if you can defeat the first object (by the rules of nature), then it will come as a fiercer object next.  If you can defeat that second object, then you will be faced with the actual phiv nyuam vaim.  So it's the third time you face "it" is the actual phiv nyuam vaim.  In this case, the guys shot the first object only, which was an owl.  They thought they got the real thing.

[LADY-K-TUSHLUB]

I almost forgot these ones ....

1 -----------

Remember one of my stories about a lake and a cave with the white hand waving?  Well, there is a highway which pretty much drives around most of the lake -- the lake is in the mountains and the highway is a bypass to the other side of the mountain.

Anyway, because of the altitude of the highway, during the winter, the fog would become real thick -- thick to the point where you cannot see past the front of your hood.

People say during these times, if you are driving along, you will see a lady dressed in white walking across the highway.  When it seems like you can't stop and you run over her, you just drive right through her.  Apparently she's an apparition.


2 -----------

Out in the boondocks where there are still some ranches left, there is a 4-way stop intersection.  There are a couple of houses close to the intersection.  Notably though, there is a driveway and a mailbox that is about 30 feet from the intersection.  

On late, semi-foggy nights, drivers will see a white lady in a white night robe walking up on the driveway to check mail at her mailbox.  She has long black hair down beyond her waist, and nobody can ever make out her face.

It is said that she was hit while checking her mail one semi-foggy night.


Ooooooh!  *shivers*  That one still gives me the shivers.

[LADY-K-TUSHLUB]

It always seems there are stories regarding highway rest areas.  I'm sure most of you have heard the ones where guys are picking up one or more girls alongside the highway or at a rest area and then trying to ditch her later.  Well, this one is about a rest area also, but not about actually picking up anybody.

One of my nephew's aunts was driving home late one night from an out of town visit.  There were other people in the car too, but everybody was already asleep.  It was quite late, so the aunt was becoming tired.  They were coming up on a rest area, so she decided to stop by for a restroom break and wash her face.  Maybe that'll wake her up.

She pulled into the rest area and since the others were asleep, she went in by herself.  The place was empty.  She went and did her business in one of the stalls and came out to wash her hands and her face.  She bent down towards the sink to wash her face.  As she started to stand straight, she looked in the mirror, and she saw a person behind her.  The person she saw was all white (dead-looking), just looking straight at her via the mirror.

She gasped in striking fear, but the person disappeared as soon as she blinked.  She quickly ran out, jumped in the car, and took off.

[SHER]

I started reading these scary stories again and was watching horror movies at the same time these past couple weeks.

Well, one night I went to bed and had to get up in the middle of the night to make my son a bottle.  I came back to sleep and the way I sleep my back was towards the closet and a little south to the closet is the bedroom door.  Well, anyways I hate sleeping knowing the door is propped wide open so I close it some so I can't see anything cause my daughter sleeps next door so I want to be able to hear her call me incase she has a bad dream or something.

Anyways...whil e I got my son's bottle and I fell asleep I heard a whisper of my daughter's voice calling me and I was like wtf I didn't hear the door open at all...I turned around and the door was still shut and it sounded as if she whispered "mommy" right behind me. When I woke up in the morning my daughter was still in bed and I asked her if she called for me in the middle of the night and she said no.  It scared the crap out of me, but I usually try not to be too scared around my kids...gotta try to be brave and not let them know im a chicken. 

So I'm thinking maybe it's because I've been watching and reading the scary stuff lately...what do you think??

[I_so_high]

alright i heard this one from my pops.. he told me this a while back.
In laos, in the village that my dad lived in, there was this cave about 6-9 miles from their village.  a bunch of villagers went hunting and happen to come acrosse the cave, they saw some porcupines coming out of the cave, one of the villager decided to shoot them. He shot one of them porcupines, and every body in his hunting party heard a loud scream coming from the cave. later they came home, and the guy that shoot the poor porcupine died.. later it was said that the porcupines belong to some other spirit. 
for example just like us humans owning cattles and chickens...
but my dad told me who ever went hunting around that caves always ended up with bad luck... then during the vietnam conflict some hmong people decided to go blow up the cave's entrance. They took some nuke and nuke the entrance, and when they did that they heard screams coming from inside the cave agan..

[I_so_high]

talking about capturing poj ntxoog, i got a story..
back in the old country, my great grandfather was a very skillful shaman. one day he went to the garden, as he was going there some thing or things kept throwing rocks at him, he got angry and waited and capture the ghost. he tied it to a tree with some kind of magic strings next to the water hole.. and went to do his bussinese, the next morning he went down to the water hole to kill it, but it was gone... he thought to himself i tied it pretty good how come it got away.. later that day a lady in the village told other villagers that she untied a little girl in the water hole. word got to my great gramps and he told the lady it was a poj ntxoog. but when she untied it, it transform into a little young girl.. thats why she didn't know. or is it?

[I_so_high]

i think this story happen in the early 1900's.. in laos there was this retarded hmong lady. maybe in her mid to late teens. she was slow in the head and you know how hmong OG'S are they are evil when it cames to retarded people or people with leprosy. well anyways her parents force her to go out to their field.  She went alone. that night she stayed at the fields and didnt come home. later on when she was about to go to sleep a tiger came and attacked her, it bite her by the neck and took of a chunk of meat but didn't eat her all. early the next moring her parents went to the garden hoping she got alot of work done, but instead they found their retarded daughter lying dead with her head barely hanging on to her body..they did her funeral.. and took her to bury.. a few days later a young guy in their village went to the  neighbor village to court some girls, he happen to go by himself, he talked to his lover late into the night and thought it was getting late i got to head home. as he was walking the trail back him he saw in the distance a lady in hmong cloths walking towards him. he could barely see her in the moonlight. "remember this is in the early 1900's so he don't gots a flash light" as he got closer he could see that the head of that person was wobbling side to side. this freak him out then he remember about the retarded girl that die just recently. he ran the other way back to his girl's village, but the retarded lady kept chasing him. he turn back to look and she got closer. he could see blood coming out of her neck and her head was wobbling as she was chasing him too. he got to his girl house and pounded on the door. her dad came and anwser and he went in all scare less... he told her dad what happen and he let him stayed the night.. they next day he gots home he told his parents what happen they did a spirit calling for him.. but  thats not the end of it.. after that incident almost every night the retarded girl would come into the village to terrorize the villagers. her head wobbling back and fourth, side to side.... all the villagers got really scare and they all left that village.. i think remains of that village can still be found. its was told to me that it was between the border of laos and vietnam..

[babiie_gurlo]

i think this story happen in the early 1900's.. in laos there was this retarded hmong lady. maybe in her mid to late teens. she was slow in the head and you know how hmong OG'S are they are evil when it cames to retarded people or people with leprosy. well anyways her parents force her to go out to their field.  She went alone. that night she stayed at the fields and didnt come home. later on when she was about to go to sleep a tiger came and attacked her, it bite her by the neck and took of a chunk of meat but didn't eat her all. early the next moring her parents went to the garden hoping she got alot of work done, but instead they found their retarded daughter lying dead with her head barely hanging on to her body..they did her funeral.. and took her to bury.. a few days later a young guy in their village went to the  neighbor village to court some girls, he happen to go by himself, he talked to his lover late into the night and thought it was getting late i got to head home. as he was walking the trail back him he saw in the distance a lady in hmong cloths walking towards him. he could barely see her in the moonlight. "remember this is in the early 1900's so he don't gots a flash light" as he got closer he could see that the head of that person was wobbling side to side. this freak him out then he remember about the retarded girl that die just recently. he ran the other way back to his girl's village, but the retarded lady kept chasing him. he turn back to look and she got closer. he could see blood coming out of her neck and her head was wobbling as she was chasing him too. he got to his girl house and pounded on the door. her dad came and anwser and he went in all scare less... he told her dad what happen and he let him stayed the night.. they next day he gots home he told his parents what happen they did a spirit calling for him.. but  thats not the end of it.. after that incident almost every night the retarded girl would come into the village to terrorize the villagers. her head wobbling back and fourth, side to side.... all the villagers got really scare and they all left that village.. i think remains of that village can still be found. its was told to me that it was between the border of laos and vietnam..

that one freak me out!